Found in the rafters Vintage square

[Oka]

I found this in the rafters at my house.

The background: My house was built for this guy and his wife (wife is Japanese) 48 years ago, The house was built by the wife's father (also Japanese) who was in his 50's when he built it. The house was hand built... meaning the cabinets, trim, and some of the doors were built onsite by this guy, pretty much everything was built with hand tools, a table saw, drill and skill-saw according to the daughter (now 79 or 80). Anyway, I found this old piece of what I thought was rusty metal, when I held it felt wrong so I scratched it and saw it was bronze, red bronze?!. So I cleaned it up and discovered it was a Japanese Square. The increments of measure appear to be in metric 3 mm each line (roughly 1/8 inch). One interesting thing, the outside corner appears to have some kind of coating on it, I originally thought it was tarnish, but now, I think it was used to set the set the square's accuracy, not sure, but it was applied to the square. Anyway interesting find I did check and it is still square. Just a pretty piece of vintage history. I am guessing this thing was made in the 50's or 60's

Bit of Hawaii History- Most the Japanese came here in the late 1800's..... anyway thought I would share, definitely will use it since it is thin it will be a handy add to the collection.

 

[Sourwould]

That's a pretty amazing find. I think that system of measurement is called sun?

Is your house timber framed?

 

[Graywolf]

A really great find, and an interesting history on the house.

 

[Raymond]

What a nice score, Oka. That looks very intersting.

 

[Bill Clemmons]

A beautiful old tool. Thanks for sharing it w/ us.

 

[Jeff]

An interesting find Oka. I found some information about the outside corner too.

HIDA TOOL

hidatool.com

 

[danmart77]

I would not use it for fear of it getting broken. Just sayin'

 

[drw]

Interesting tool and video. In this country we are accustomed to thinking of marking and framing tools as having to be rigid to stay "square"...Japanese craftsmen build beautiful works, proving once again that there is more than one way to skin the cat.

 

[mdbuntyn]

That's pretty cool

 

[Oka]

Wow Thanks Jeff I learned something cool. Looked it up The name is Shashigane( Sa-She-Ga-Ne), the video confirms the coating on the corner is to keep it square,...cool.

The measurement system is traditional shakkanho system Each line is called a Mo... cool


The house is conventional framed, kinda, the home was built with all left over trim quality lumber. Meaning, the home has 70+% lumber that is Clear Redwood, Cedar and Clear straight grain Fir. When I saw the house wasn't so wowed by the layout, but Wow ! I could disassemble the home and sell it on Ebay and get rich .

The Living room has this display area , called a Tokonoma, kinda an open half inset wall where you would display pictures or events, awards,,etc. The builder used bamboo to make this tree like design as the back. The rest of that wall is Mahogany and Teak. The hall walls and a couple of the closet walls are single wall redwood T&G, true 1" thick. Like I said it is interesting but has oddities. My guess the builder (dad) built the home to what material he had on hand.