While reading the thread Tool Trivia, I was reminded of several things I saw at the recent Tokyo DIY show, so I’m going to take the liberty of cross-posting a review I wrote for another forum:

just got back from the biennial Tokyo DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Show at Makuhari Messe, and thought I’d give a quick rundown. First of all, this show really demonstrates the difference in the U.S. and Japan cultures and markets for home woodworkers. The show covered everything from electrical to garden supplies, with break-down furniture, plumbing, finishing and car care stuff thrown in. Most of the tool vendors were selling smaller hand and corded tools only, and very few fixed tools were on display. In fact, I saw only two tablesaws in the entire convention center, and both were benchtop Chinese imports of the Delta-clone variety. Makita had a rather large booth area, but their 10″ benchtop TS was nowhere to be seen. Ryobi was there as well, also with no tablesaw. I asked the Ryobi reps whether Ryobi had a tablesaw anymore, and they said no; they’ve apparently pulled the BT3000 and BT2500 from the J market altogether. But one of the reps also said that they had been hearing strong customer wishes for a new tablesaw, and that they believed Ryobi was “planning” to sell one in the future. Whether that would be the BT3100 or something entirely new, or whether it’s just rumor, they didn’t know.

Black and Decker had one of the biggest displays among the tool vendors; they are really pushing their stuff in the homeowner-hobbiest market here. I didn’t spend any time looking at their current offerings, but I was attracted to a display showing some of their earliest forays into power tool country. One was a “portable power drill” dating from 1916–just two years after they’d invented the very first one. They had another 1/4″ portable drill dating from 1920. Another was a tool called an “Auto Vitrifier” on its nameplate (the display tag described it in more modern terms as a “portable polisher/grinder”) dating from 1930.

All the B&D tools were from England, most made in Harmondworth, Middlesex. How things have changed. These antiques were under glass so I couldn’t lift them to compare with current weights, but based on their size, they looked heavy. It was interesting to see the size of those early efforts with the diminutive tools we have today. You would have had to be sporting some serious musculature just to drill a 1/4″ hole back then! Another interesting stop was at the Mujinfang tool display. This company hails from Hong Kong and mainland China and they were displaying a range of planes, both Chinese, Singapore, Taiwan, and European style (they had some metal planes that were straight ripoffs of Stanley-Record designs). Also various chisels and carving tools.

I bought this ebony rabbetting plane for the equivalent of $17.00.

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Body is 152mm long (about 6″) with 25 mm (1″) wide blade. It even has a bronze sole reinforcement in front of the blade. I haven’t honed it so don’t know how it will cut, but it looks like it might come in handy. The piè de résistance (piece de resistance, in case the diacritics don’t get through), however, was their display of several ornate hand-carved Chinese wooden planes. Notice the carving on the, er, “body” of this one.

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The display legend called it “Masterly in Rhetoric Ebony Wooden Plane” (Hmm. As usual, something gets lost in translation). This photo I scanned from one of their brochures since I didn’t take my camera with me. though they had several on display. Overall, it wasn’t nearly as interesting a show as I had hoped. Aside from the ebony rabbetting plane I bought a nice ryôba (ryohba) saw, since my old one is missing several teeth, and I got some free samples of a natural finishing compound made from Perilla oil and Paulownia oil. Anybody heard of Perilla oil? It looks like it might make a nice kind of natural finish akin to Watco oil, but without any petroleum distillates, so it would be safe for cutting boards and the like.