I'm looking for woodblock prints or any other material (reading, illustrations, etc.) showing what it was like to work as a carpenter or timber framer in Japan, China, Korea, and other parts of Asia "back in the day" when everything was done by hand. I know that the tools used are slightly different than their Western counter-parts (e.g. the Japanese saw) but I'm wondering if there are any significant differences in, say, shop design and layout, resulting from differences in day-to-day operations and business practices. For example, I've read that woodworking, like many other crafts, was strongly family-centered and guild-like: so, did woodworking families run shops out of their homes, or build shops on the family farm? How did this work?

Specifically, I'm hoping to learn about important families, guilds, companies, where they were located and when they operated, what their shops looked like, what kind of woodworking they produced and for whom -- everything, really, about actual historical woodworking in Asia: not theory and tradition so much as the people and operations that actually made up the years.

Last edited by AJGibson; 12/12/15 06:17 PM.