Must be living right.........

Stuart Ablett

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Tokyo Japan
Today, I had a delivery to the local Shinto Shrine, there is a festival of sort coming up on the weekend, and a customer had me deliver some sake to them. I decided to give them my latest creation, the toothpick holder, and they were thrilled, the wife especially, nice to be appreciated :D

While I was standing there, I could hear a chainsaw running....... :eek:

The priest asked me if I needed some more wood....??

I WANTED to say "is the Pope Catholic...?" but I figured he'd not get the joke, so I just say "Sure thing!"

The wood turns out to be Mukunoki the scientific name is "Aspera aphananthe", seems to be in the "Elm" family.
This was NOT a large tree, the biggest chunks I'll get might be 8" in diameter, but I got a LOT of stock, more if I want it tomorrow. The next good piece of news is that tomorrow, they are taking down a LARGE part of a Keyaki tree. The tree is like a large "Y", they are lopping off one side of the "Y" so I'll be getting some more wood! :D :thumb: :headbang:

It is all sitting in the little van right now, so the only pic I have is one of the bark, as I wanted to compare the bark to stuff online to figure out what the wood was. The guys cutting the tree down told me it was Mukunoki, but I've found they are often not the best source of info on various trees.

HI372562.JPG

Yep, must be living right, somehow! :D :wave:
 
Must be good Karma. You'll have to make the wife a box or bowl out of the wood, she sounds like she would treasure it. I like to see the faces of people who have given me wood when you give them something back from their own tree. Makes you feel real good.

Looking forward to seeing the projects from your score.
 
I forgot to add, they asked me if I could make some key chain kind of things with the name of the shrine stamped, or branded onto the pieces.

I'd have to figure out how much the brand would cost me, I think around $200 +- so taking that into account, how many do they want a year, and how much do they want to pay for them, again, I'd use the wood I get from them (mostly off cuts) to make the key chains.

Would be something I'd have to set up and do a production run type of thing, but could be somewhat lucrative, as they would want "X" number a year, every year.....:dunno: :D

Cheers! :wave:
 
Hi Stu,
Just curious as to how far you have to drive to the Shrine or to see a tree? When I think Yokyo, I think mass population, industrialized,therfore no trees.:dunno:Much like N.Y city without Central Park. Just curious. Congrats on your find and future keychains.
 
Stu, talk to Nancy Laird about engraving. Think you would be pleasantly surprised (of course I know nothing of your postal rates) but have talked with her about a couple of projects and she on top of things! Good job on the score.
 
Congrats Stu! Free wood, a place to get rid of shavings, and now a possible source of additional income? Wow, I need to fid a shrine here in IA!
 
Hi Stu,
Just curious as to how far you have to drive to the Shrine or to see a tree? When I think Yokyo, I think mass population, industrialized,therfore no trees.:dunno:Much like N.Y city without Central Park. Just curious. Congrats on your find and future keychains.

Yep, lots of concrete here, which I don't really enjoy, but there are pockets of tranquility :thumb:

Here is a "Google Earth" look at the area around my house.....

tenjinsama_ourhouse.jpg

You can see my house, approx location on the right, and the Shrine on the left there.

Takes maybe 5 minutes to walk........ :dunno:

You can see a tour of the shrine here.........

Shrine Tree Tour
<- Link

Cheers!
 
I live in a little unincorporated burg in the middle of Iowa cornfields with 29 houses in town. Looking at all those buildings gives me the willies. Guess I'll never be a big city type. I would spend a great deal of time at the shrine just for the tranquility, very pretty place.

Thanks for the tour and good luck with the wood.

P.S.
Stu,
I get a kick out of your ever changing avatar:)
 
I live in a little unincorporated burg in the middle of Iowa cornfields with 29 houses in town. Looking at all those buildings gives me the willies. Guess I'll never be a big city type. I would spend a great deal of time at the shrine just for the tranquility, very pretty place.

Thanks for the tour and good luck with the wood.

P.S.
Stu,
I get a kick out of your ever changing avatar:)

Doug, I know what you mean about too many of EVERYTHING here in Tokyo, I'm not that thrilled with it on most days, but I have learned to avoid the worst of it.

I grew up in a MUCH smaller town, and spent a LOT of my childhood hunting and fishing, riding dirt bikes and snowmobiles, so yeah, Tokyo is kind of big, but for a big city, it is fairly clean and safe.

Thanks about the Avatars, I too get a kick out of changing them around......... :D
 
I forgot to add, they asked me if I could make some key chain kind of things with the name of the shrine stamped, or branded onto the pieces.

I'd have to figure out how much the brand would cost me, I think around $200 +- so taking that into account, how many do they want a year, and how much do they want to pay for them, again, I'd use the wood I get from them (mostly off cuts) to make the key chains.

Would be something I'd have to set up and do a production run type of thing, but could be somewhat lucrative, as they would want "X" number a year, every year.....:dunno: :D

Cheers! :wave:

Congrats on the wood Stu.

If you are looking at a branding iron for the keyrings I would strongly recommend paying the extra few bucks/yen/quid for an electrically heated one. I use an iron to brand my products and started out cheap with a flame heated one. These are OK for one offs and small runs but it is very difficult to maintain decent temperature control which tends to result in overheating and a nasty overdone mess of a brand. I now use an electric heated one which is much more consistent. Cost me about £600 (C 127,000 yen) for the element and a fairly intricate (siganture) branding head. The element is also fairly heavy duty because I wanted a short cycle time between impressions.

I would say that lasering (?) will give you a more consistent impression overall and it may be worth investigating down the route of finding and engraving shop or somebody like that who has a laser and seeing what they would charge. Might be more economical if you can give the items to them and let them use what would otherwise be dead time on the machine?
 
600 pounds?!? I hope there's a decimal place missing somewhere.... :eek:

Sadly not Kerry - this is an industrial grade unit. I haven't got the wattage to hand but it is the size and scale that is used for branding trademarks on pallets etc. The brand itself is a good big chunk of solid brass which has been CNC engraved and hand finished. My problem is that I don't use the branding iron often but when I do I am branding 500-1000 pieces at a time and getting that to work well just doesn't happen with a hobbyist grade tool. (The £600 figure didn't include the tax either:rolleyes:)
 
Hey Stu...

Set up your video camera and take some film when you ask your wife for permission to spend ¥127,000 for a branding iron for some key chains....:eek:

That video will be come a "most watched" on YouTube for sure.... :doh:

Here's a new avatar for ya :thumb: View attachment 17380

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
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