Today I found this three part video series of a Japanese craftsman making a bamboo rod. All by hand skill. Only one power tool is used briefly - a tool that drills out the center of the bamboo. However, most of the work inside the bamboo is by a hand held drill bit and round files.

The title is not very descriptive 下町に息づく伝統の技 江戸和竿 , which I think translates to Traditional Skill Alive in Downtown Tokyo Japanese Pole.

The narration is all in Japanese. But hey, a moving picture is worth a million words.

Part 1/3 is an introduction. Not to exciting. Some discussion in an office, some old art work of the traditional rod craftsmen. Six different poles are shown with the sections laid out parallel, not assembled . Some with line guides. Some without line guide and a lillian on the tip. The first scene in the craftsman's shop is shown near the end of the video. 7:19 in length:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKH8lP97 ... ature=plcp

Parts 2/3 and 3/3 show the work. Don't know if the rod being made is a tenkara rod or not. I see him making 5 sections. Yet when it is complete there are six sections to the rod and the rod tip has a lillian attached. A short section shows the lillian being attached. I never saw the word Tenkara in the video when text appeared on the screen. A time or two I thought I heard the craftsman say Tenkara. But after after listening again maybe not.

Most of the work shown is for a single rod. There are a couple of places where they do show a different rod briefly for a comparison of how different rod sections connections are made. However, the rod being made has no line guides and it does have a lillian attached at the rod tip. If it is not a tenkara rod it is clearly very similar to a tenkara rod. Not being completely familiar with all the different types of fishing done in Japan I suppose there are other type rods that have no line guides and have a lillian or line loop at the end, one tip of that type is show briefly. Tenkara or Ayu pole or a different type unknown to me. However, I think the length of the rod being made would be compatible with it being a tenkara rod.

Part 2/3 , 9:12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SGV8E96 ... er&list=UL

Part 3/3 , 8:40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqXvPIom ... re=related

Maybe you will find the process interesting too.

If you enjoy watching master craftsman at work there are many other craftsmen at work shown on the youtube channel where these 3 videos are hosted.

http://www.youtube.com/user/handicraftsjp

Enjoy,

D

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テンカラ釣りは楽しいのです。

Thanks for posting. I've been curious about the construction techniques for the traditional Tenkara bamboo rods. I've built a few hex bamboo rods and was woundering how the two methods compared.

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Mark

"I have laid aside business and gone a fishing"

Izaak Walton

Excellent videos! What a great find.
The rods being made are not tenkara rods I believe. Mostly noted by the absence of a handle. But, the method of making them is exactly the same. The video is an excellent resource. The application and finishing with the paint they mention "urushi" is supposed to be very difficult and takes a lot of skill - a lot of it I believe is not in the video and may have to do with preparing it and drying it, but I enjoyed seeing it and how he uses the special "spatula" to apply it.

There are a lot of different types of fishing that use similar looking rods, both modern telescopic rods as well as bamboo. There are bamboo rods for ayu with flies and ayu with "decoy fish", for large carp, for small carp, for bait fishing for trout in ponds, for bait fishing in streams, potentially a few more, and of course for tenkara

Thanks for posting it!

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__________________________________________
Tenkara USA, founder
打仁得流, テンカラ大使
About me and Tenkara USA

I made a cane pole with an old broken and repaired Yamame rod three section tip and a large section of river cane. Just made a slot with a slightly tapered hole for the carbon tip section to slide into. Wrapped the slot with some 8 lbs test mono. The river cane is one piece, and the rod length with the tip extended is exactly 12.5 feet. Accidentally reached that length. I can only use it with my kayak utilizing the hull as a rod case. Transporting it is crazy. The weight is three or four times the weight of a carbon rod. The casting ability requires more speed and a more abrupt stop to cast. The addition of the carbon tip sections definitely helped the homemade rods performance. Trying a cheap $5 cane pole in the past was just plain tourture. Because of the considerable weight and lack of accuracy. Makes me grin thinking about people saying Tenkara is just canepole fishing. Overall I'd say my homemade cane/carbon hybrid Tenkara rod is fishable, and fun to use. Made for a nice experiment, and a good nephew rod for Tenkara fishing. But knowing what the Tenkara USA rod feels and casts like I think it would take alot of work and knowledge to make bamboo work as well as the Carbon rods.




I can only imagine what a master crafted bamboo rod of any kind would be like to fish with. I would be scared to break something like those bamboo rods. I'm sure the idividual rods all have their own life like different unique abilities. But I'm glad that we have the Carbon rods to use without worry. Not many of us will ever know what these bamboo rods are like to fish with. But I find the natural rods very beautiful. Interesting to see Tenkara fishing roots in Japan. Maybe one day I'll try to make one of these rods.

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テンカラのイモリ
Tenkara Mushroom

Seems tenkara rods don't necessarily require a handle. There are two videos on youtube on the tytytji channel where he shows and fishes with an old bamboo tenkara rod he inherited from his grandfather. He states that is was made in 1948/49. In the videos he is fishing with the bamboo tenkara rod in the Sierras.

It is a ten foot rod which has 10 sections vs the five section rod made in the craftsman videos. Perhaps that is another feature of bamboo tenkara rods, that they have more sections or perhaps that is just the characteristic of the 'style' of the design tytytji has.

The tenkara bamboo pole is shown at least twice from tip to butt end and it does not appear to have any type of handle. No cork or other type of winding to make a contoured handle that I noticed. It is also interesting to see the rod sock and the ladder type line holders which I assume were also inherited with the rod.

Equally intriguing are the markings on the rod.

佐久てんから・渓流竿" "竿金 - Saku tenkara ・stream pole ・gold rod or is it fly rod ?
He also says the pole is marked with his name - SAOKIN. I am assuming SAOKIN is the craftsman who made the rod, but read a different way it may have meant that was his grandfather's name.

He states this means it is a Saku style rod. From what I can determine Saku is a city in the Nagano prefecture. Since he says it is a 'Saku style' pole I assume this means more that just the town where it was made. If there is a Saku style tenkara pole. How many other styles of tenkara pole existed in older times, say before the 1940 ?

In America from Colonial times into the 20th century different areas of the country in coastal areas developed distinctive types of work boats that were refined over time to best suit their local waters and the type of fish they caught. The type of boats that worked well in Maine were different from the boats on the Chesapeake Bay or Albemarle Sound which were different from the boats used in Florida or Louisiana. Each had their own unique waters requiring different boat designs. Folks in Maine hauled lobster traps, folks on the NC sounds caught Menhaden.

Perhaps there were many types or styles of tenkara rods adapted to the characteristics of local waters or perhaps just different due to the personal preferences of the local craftsman. What he thought worked the best. Today it is easy to forget just how the world has gotten smaller, not to many decades ago a trip to a town 40 miles away was a four day trip.

It would be interesting to learn of the different styles of tenkara rod that existed historically. We can find web pages describing the different types of kebari from different areas of Japan but not to much about how the rods may have been different that were attached to those different kebari. Perhaps not much different from today I suppose. The tenkara rods developed by Tenkara no oni are different from the rods developed by Dr Ishigaki or by TUSA or others. But I would find it interesting if there were 6 or 10 major styles of bamboo tenkara rods historically in Japan. TB has his killer bug and out west they have the Utah killer bug. Each region develops its local favorite.

Likewise, what is a 竿金, Saogane? Gold rod ? Or sometimes google gives me Fri rod, ? Fly rod ?. Google does some odd translations. Some times where I see a phrase containing the 金 character google will translate the phrase that contains it as " insect eating paint" or "Fri carbon rod" . Google 竿金 and you will find many different types of rods with the 竿金 stamp. I found one web page where the bamboo rod is described as both 竿金, and a 野鯉竿 , carp rod or Koi Pole. I leaning toward thinking 金 means 'fly', thus a fly rod for Koi fishing rather than a gold rod for koi fishing. However the 金 is not a character I have noticed before when referring to the kebari. otoh google translated this phrase （金属の輪のこと）as ' with a ring of metal'. Odd, but part of the fun of the puzzle that I ponder to keep from going mentally soft. Google 金 alone and I find - gold. Odd, intriguing.

If you haven't seen the tytytji videos here are the links, 3:40 and 4:00 in duration.

Probably a good stream to fish with the rod where he probably will not hook onto to something bigger than expected and risk damaging the rod which is not only old but likely has a greater sentimental value that its market value. ( I know about these things, I'm caught in the middle of an intrigue between my half siblings in Ohio about who will inherit their grandpa's Civil War rifle. Perhaps worth $200 according to friends in Richmond. How and why am I in the middle of a controversy over which sibling inherits a Yankee's rifle? )

Video 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqzZrGQ8Y4

Video 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXHvDS-Rmfw

And fwiw - if you watch the Tenkara 1 video at about the 3:00 mark they show the Tenkara display at the Omachi Museum, narrated by Dr Ishiagaki I think, and I did not notice any type of handle on the rods there. Just the butt end of the bamboo. However, the rod shown appeared to be a rather crude one. But then again, this is a statement from a guy who has missed seeing green lillians and only saw red ones.

Tenkara 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyXNE0bJxoA

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テンカラ釣りは楽しいのです。

dwalker, you are correct that not all tenkara bamboo rods have a handle. The rod in the museum in Japan also did not have a handle. But, it is very, very unusual for the rods being made today for the purpose of tenkara not to have a handle on them. This is necessary for comfortable casting all day long.

About the "gold" reference, that seems to do with how in video 3, at around 1:40, he decorates the end of the rod with gold leafing. He seems to say it is to make it pretty, so I don't think there is any particularly utility to that other than decoration.

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Tenkara USA, founder
打仁得流, テンカラ大使
About me and Tenkara USA

Some time ago I bought a book on how to make wooden fly rods and watching these videos sparked my interest in trying to make one again. I wonder how a wooden tenkara rod would perform? It's wonderful to watch a master work at his craft and I was impressed with all the hand tools he uses to create such masterpieces of art. Thanks for posting them for us to enjoy.

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Rick

テンカラ。小さなストリームのシンプルさ。
My Tenkara Rods:
13' Ayu, 12' Yamame, 11' with a conversion handle, and an Ito.

My Wife's Tenkara Rods:
12' Ebisu and 13.5' Amago, 12' Iwana with a conversion handle, and an Ito.

Thanks, I thought they were fun too.

I worked for years with a guy , Wayne, who was stationed in Japan while in the Air Force. He liked the people enough he married a Japanese girl, Mariko. He used to tell me that the western world called Nihon Japan because the term Japanning was a name for their black lacquer ware. However I seem to recall him also saying that the word Japan really comes from the Chinese term for the Japanese lacquer ware. The Wikipedia entry for Japanning supports his claim at least partly. In deed if you put the word japanning in google translate you get 漆塗りの from the first part you get 漆塗, Urushi-nuri. Literally , lacquer coating or painting.

For a bit of fun with chemicals, Ferrous Sulfate and Sodium Hydroxide and water you can make black lacquer from scratch. I found 2 videos that show ' how to make black laquer' , 黒漆 Kuro Urushi or Kuroshitsu. There are actually 4 videos. 2 in Japanese and 2 more of the same in English. At least the text in the videos are in English. And it is a rather involved process of several hours. He cautions on his web page that some people have an allergic reaction to the uncured lacquer.

Mixing Black Lacquer Part 1/2 , 3:36
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jivIOSH ... re=related

part 2/2 , 5:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Hi6V2d ... re=related




The same guy also has two videos showing how he makes the lacquer spatula, ヘラ hera or へら , from Japanese cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa ) using a nifty wood working chisel. The chisel is shaped rather like a tanto knife blade. An angled tip and also sharpened along one edge.

He calls it a 桧へら削り, Hinoki Hera kezuri, Cypress spatula cut. It is a bit different from the one seen in the bamboo rod videos. However on his web page he shows other brushes that look more like the ones used in the previous bamboo rod videos.

I'm not sure which takes more skill. Making the black lacquer or the lacquer spatula. Maybe they are equal though different types of skill. I can watch the video and know the how-to but having the skill-to is something different.

part 1/2 , 5:07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvM3WCZm ... er&list=UL

part 2/2, 7:27
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5HcGYQU ... re=related

His English friendly web page
http://www1.odn.ne.jp/j-lacquer/home_eng.html

I think the spatula or brush used in the bamboo rod video looked more like the brushes shown on this web page when you click on the " flat brushes for painting" link on the left side of the above web page.

AdventureR, now you know a bit more about how-to get the right materials for coating that future attempt at making an authentic bamboo rod.
Which will probably easier than trying to make a carbon fiber rod in the work shop.

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テンカラ釣りは楽しいのです。

I never thought watching someone make a spatula could be so entertaining.
I will eventually try to make a Bamboo rod too. The only issue is the bamboo here. It's not of the quality used in rod making. That's why I made the hybrid rod. I got three river canes about a year ago. The other two canes turned into tomato stakes after breaking. The tips of the variety of bamboo here isn't quite right for casting.
As for the lack of handle issue, if the rods are lighter and shorter then what is considered a Tenkara rod, you wouldn't need a handle. The sensitivity and diameter compared to hand size would out weigh any comfort issues. Not to mention two or three hundred years ago the callus one would have on their hands. I would love to visit one of the Tenkara museums. Good post.
I really liked your post though D, thanks for the vids.

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テンカラのイモリ
Tenkara Mushroom

For something in English, take a look at the "Compleat Tsuribito," a blog written by a British ex-pat living in Japan. Among other things, he builds bamboo rods. I don't think he's done a tenkara rod although he does fly fish and has made a beatiful laquered tamo frame. He just finished a tanago rod. http://nekokichi.wordpress.com/tag/rod-building/