Hello Jay and others,
Central to any point I was trying to get across is not the existence or origin of this particular kind of pegged joint but how widespread or commonplace its use was and the extent to which it could be considered typical or representative. I choose a risky way of going about it by taking the comparison route. Maybe a statistical survey of only Japanese carpentry would have been safer even if more boring. So for clarity's sake, I make no contention about the origins of draw boring, just how representative it might be considered.
As far as the quote of mine you have placed, if we get rid of the loaded language or coincidental speculation on introduction, and look at the wider context, it comes down to this: the drawn and pegged joint is used in Japanese carpentry only sporadically regardless of it's origins, where in European carpentry it is commonplace. On this point I am open to any discussion that may shed light on where I might have gone astray. The 150 years actually came from a statement by Chris from earlier as I recall, that I just went along with for the sake of argument. But even going back the 400 years the Dutch have been trading there leaves a lot of room for intercultural exchange. Still, you say Jay, draw boring has been done is Asia for thousands of years.
I have no interest in or intent of defending Zwerger or Grubner for any claims they make or any of their statements at all and I take no position on their conclusions. Still, I will point out they both find that Japanese carpentry is more refined and makes use of a higher skill level and more ingenuity that European carpentry. They do happen to be some of the only writers that have held European and Japanese carpentry up for a side by side look, for what that is worth. The point being that the comparative route I chose has been taken before. Although it was Zwerger for one that pointed out the relationship- maybe overly obvious - between the widespread use of draw boring and the development of boring implements in the Japanese context, which the article from the Takenaka
museum seems to support by implication.
I take your point about perspective Jay and am reminded again about the sticky business of making cross cultural comparison. What was it, said by someone? "Cross cultural comparisons can be odious." Anyway that's why I really tried to limit the scope of the comparison I was making about the representative nature of draw boring and its centrality within two traditions relative to each other.
greetings,
Don Wagstaff
