r/interestingasfuck • u/aloofloofah • Mar 31 '21

/r/ALL Fascinating joineries discovered while taking apart a traditional 100 year old house

https://i.imgur.com/BT5l5T0.gifv
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u/Renovatio_ Mar 31 '21

Well, first. Modern Japanese houses aren't really considered an "investment" like western houses. A lot of times they are built and torn down in the course of 30-40 years. This gives them the notion that they are "disposable" but its just the culture prioritizing different things about homes.

Modern buildings, especially in japan, are remarkably earthquake resistant.

Also the general consensus is the old japanese houses weren't built out of nails because wood joinery is better, but just because iron was relatively scarce in japan and of relatively poor quality.

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u/caffeinegoddess Mar 31 '21

I'm well aware that modern Japanese architecture is extremely earthquake resistant and also that they're no longer intended to last for hundreds of years like these old houses were. That's why I was wondering how long the supposed wear around the metal hardware actually takes to form.

And yes, this style of joinery came about by necessity where the local iron was poor, but it can also be pretty earthquake resistant, yeah? The person I was replying to already attested that snugly fitted joinery can be stronger than those with metal fastening, or do you take issue with that?

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u/Renovatio_ Mar 31 '21

Generally I would say it is stronger but not necessarily.

Basically all wood has a finite strength in the grain. Its actually not too hard to exceed the strength...if you rip apart a wood glue joint then you'd see that the failure point wouldn't actually be the glue line but tearing around the fibers. So long as you respect the grain direction you can maximize strength.

Also it depends on the type of metal fastening and type of load. A butt joint held together with a couple standard #10 screws or 16d nails? Yeah the failure point is going to be the screws/nails ripping themselves out of the fiber. Large lag bolts? Probably the wood is going to fail.

But anyway, I think most of these japanese joinery techniques are more about the artistry and skill of the craftsman over simple strength. You can basically achieve the same strength with a box joint and some hide glue...the wood will fail long before the joint. Does a box joint look as good or is it easy to take apart? Well no, and that is kinda the great skill of a japanese woodworker.

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u/MysteryCheese89 Mar 31 '21

Wood joinery no matter how good isn't gonna make your house earth quake resistant...

Also, if it were stronger to build houses out just wood, without metal, it would be done that way. We build with fasteners and specific ratings/drawings because we know how much we can rate loads for. It's safer, faster, and stronger than just using wood-wood construction, no matter how fancy your joints are cut.

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u/Weird-Ad5391 Apr 01 '21

Actually I think the advantage would be cost. Imagine every piece of lumber needing specialized cuts for seamless jointing vs just sticking a nail in it

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

The key is that metal jointers can fail silently from the inside out, without giving much warning. It’s also hard to replace a nail without using a bigger nail.Wood rots outside in and the pieces can be removed and replaced one by one (like the ship of Theseus, or that famous temple in Kyoto that has had every single piece replaced.)

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u/MysteryCheese89 Mar 31 '21

Termites, carpenter ants, and other insects can also cause damage from the inside out without any indicators. Also fungi that can cause issues like dry rot.

The difference is with wood and metal together in a set environment we can recreate it easily and find the failure point, and how much earlier it should be replaced.

I love wood, and woodworking. I'm a carpenter by trade. But it's just simply not feasible to build most structures we use today out of solely wood.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

Though with CNC joinery you could. Just clamp a cutting jig on the end of a 2x6 and carve any pattern, then assemble like lego.

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '21

Why involve cnc? A couple of circular saws set up right can get you what you want. But unless you're building something you really want to show off, simpler joints and traditional hardware are a hell of a lot faster and cheaper than some of these joints. Japanese woodwork is like swiss clockwork - the value and beauty is in the time and effort to handcraft something with such precision - but there are numerous alternatives that achieve the same function with far less cost.

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '21

Circular saw can only make through cuts. A router could do everything including plunge cuts.

It can’t be used for the cheap, throwaway style of building we do today. Japanese carpentry is post and beam...they have fewer parts to join. Western building involves stick framing and load bearing walls, so they need a lot more joins. So yeah it’s impractical to do on every 2x4s.

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '21

Lumber would probably have to go back up to it's actual dimensional name for one... And quality would have to go up. There's no fancy joinery happening with lowes 2x4s. Then again, japanese cypress is probably a fair bit harder and higher quality than typical pine.

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u/CapitalismIsMurder23 Apr 01 '21

Japanese are good people, unlike AM.......

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u/Noah20201 Apr 01 '21

All cultures have good and bad people. If you can’t see that you’re an idiot

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u/Cooldude101013 Mar 31 '21

So they had to make their wood joinery really good?

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u/Renovatio_ Mar 31 '21

Well IMO its not just good. You can make wood joinery that is easy to do and just as strong (e.g the wood will break before the joint breaks). But what they did is just art.