This report records a craftsman’s technology of Mr. Kikuo Kanda which became plane blacksmith of the Tokyo last. The work of Kanda known as a plane cutting well is technique mainly composed of the handwork not to change before a war. This report tried to make a record with the eyes of the explorer in detail comply with a normal work process. 1 The use range of the electric tool was only wild total of by the metal forming and fire polishing using the spring hammer, barbarity using the grinders. That is the minimum introduction as an adjunct of the handwork. 2 Heating in the firebed, the fire polishing using the mallet, the surgery with sen-cutter and the file and a uenching temper using the charcoal are traditional manual labor. 3 The use of the steel materials mainly on carbon steel including the import steel from the Europe, the Swedish steel, and Hitachi Metals, Yasugi Speciality Steel, blank paper no.1 or no.2. 4 The figure of the plane has its own character, thick body with tapered by wide and shallow back cut and wild chipping back. 5 The finished product was ten pieces of planes and extra blade four pieces for approximately 40 hours at total work time in 2 weeks.

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The report reveals the following findings from the traces of an axe and adze on existing wooden buildings in Kinki region which were built between the Asuka period and Kamakura period. 1 2 axe traces and 91 adze traces were identified. 2 Traces of an axe and adze tend to be found on hidden surfaces. 3 Axes were used for lumbering. It is presumed that they were used to cut off raw wood and to make coarse wooden blocks out of a log. Though axes are considered to have been used for felling trees, traces of such use were not discovered in this research. 4 Adzes were the main tools for shaping building components after they are vertically split to form lumbers and for chipping the surfaces. They come in a variety of blade widths and shapes (straight/curved), and were used in accordance to the shape of the chipping surface (flat/rounded surfaces, joints) and its size.

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As the collaboration of museums and schools has attracted great attention in recent years, a lot of museums encourage schools to use museum and its resources by developing educational programmes for schools which is related to the Course of Study. This article reports the development and practice of an outreach school programme done by the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum in the year 2013 and 2014. 1 The outreach school programme ‘Challenge to the Thousand-Year-Old Nail’ for the fifth grade of elementary school was developed in collaboration with the Kobe Municipal Hyogo-Daikai Elementary School. The video programme ‘Making a Nail’ was also produced as a teaching material. 2 By using objects and the video material in the programme, pupils were able to understand the craftsmanship and the value of labour in their own way.

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