David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • DJBudSonic

    Sharp blades and courage are the key to planing. You gotta commit to the cutting pass. I use block planes all the time, they are awesome.  Especially for door setting.  I can’t tell you how many sloppily-painted-so-they-don’t-close doors I have saved with my trusty block planes.

  • dioptase

    I was expecting cutting commentary.  All it was was another sport involved in points shaving.   I was board.

    • duncancreamer

      Well planed, my friend, well planed.

    • awjt

      Dado you smoke a jointer then jackplane off to the rabbets in the front row, like I did?

  • Harold Johnson

    Given a 2×4 and their planer, I suppose these guys are pretty much set as far as toilet paper goes.

  • splashu

    What I want to know is what type of wood they’re planing that can be shaved into such thin ribbons without breaking instantly. I’m guessing its something very close grained, like a type of maple or something?

    • oasisob1

      And what is the theoretical limit of thinness for that type of wood?

    • awjt

      kiln-dried formica

    • Paul Renault

      I also was wondering what kind of wood.  But did you see that those planes are hand-set and -adjusted?  No screws, no levers. Just gentle tapping with a mallet.

  • grimc

    How does that measuring tool work? Magnets? Seriously, I’m not making an ICP joke.

    • Engineer_

      It’s a spring loaded micrometer. 

      • Paul Renault

         More precisely it’s a thickness gauge micrometer.  Now your GIS will work.

  • Engineer_

    These guys must be seriously good at potato peeling. 

  • pox

    Champions of plane iron sharpening and set up. Also, quarter-sawn green wood would explain why the shavings don’t snap, and why the guy has to clean the micrometer after measuring.

  • somegeye

    But…why?

    • oasisob1

      Because they are better than us. We have pumpkin chucking, they plane wood so thin it floats in air. Also they are hella better at lining up for events than we are.

      • awjt

        Do you think they taped the sidewalk the night before… with ultrathin tape?

        • oasisob1

          The thinnest tape available wasn’t nearly thin enough, but they fixed it.

    • L_Mariachi

      Obviously the piece of wood they’re shaving from is already as flat as it’s going to get, and aerospace machining tolerances are silly for a material that expands and contracts with temperature and humidity, but I could see using the ribbons in some sort of layered inlay or insanely delicate papercraft.

  • welcomeabored

    The Japanese pull their planes, while we Westerners push along the grain.  The angle for the blade is exacting, the blade very sharp and the wood soft (I’ll guess fir or clear cedar).  But props must be given to the human operator; it isn’t all up to the effectiveness of the tool.  It takes a light, consistent touch and concentration to create long shaved ribbons like those. 
    Here is a video of man teaching a class in building your own Japanese planes.

    http://blip.tv/jazzy-snazzy/japanese-plane-contest-663542

  • http://twitter.com/beejaminHull Ben Hull

    Interestingly, they’re still using the same planks that were used in the very first planing championship, held in 1784.

  • AFURRYTHING

    That Manny Pacquio sure is a man of many talents!

  • destroy_all_humans

    golf has a new challenger

  • Preston Sturges

    ….and that’s how they make whale sushi.

  • Diogenes

    The next morning, his boss, the chief carpenter at the job site: “For cryin’ out loud, Toshiro, you’ve been working on that one door all morning and it’s still won’t close!  Chuck the damn plane and use the Makita like I told ya; we ain’t buildin’ a Steinway!”