Abstract
From the 34 traces of chisel cuttings left in Japanese ancient wooden building components, the following features were drawn in relation to forms and methods of chisels at the time.
1 Ancient chiseling was applied to processed wood or lumber and not on logs.
2 Ancient chiseling was used in order to process parts of building that would remain unseen. Major methods applied were processes using straight joints and angle joints.
3 The three forms of ancient chisels were: straight flute, round flute, which is slightly curved at the tip, and round chisel (its cross section is round flute).
4 Chisels with straight flute varied in its width from 15mm to about 35mm. They were used to cut wooden parts and also for lumber splitting.
5 Chisels with round flute or slightly curved tip varied in its width from 40mm to 45mm. They were used for cutting wooden parts, chiseling concaved surfaces and for finishing straight joints and angle joints.
6 Round chisels (its cross-section is round flute) were used to chisel out round holes.
