Tsuitate - Part II

Two shoji panels, back to back. Dim: 125cm x 100cm

  

This phase of the tsuitate project consists of building two fixed shoji panels that will drop into the mid-section of the tsuitate. Since the 2 panels will be back-to-back they are mirror images of each other and only one will have shoji paper attached. This mirror issue becomes critical if kumiko positions are anything but perfectly symmetrical. Mine were not symmetrical, but they will be next time. Alignment is good but it took extra care to ensure it - due to the asymmetry. Work from the centerline...

The two shoji frames back to back.

Allowance has to be made to permit removal of the panels to replace the paper. Together the panels will drop into a 2-bu deep groove on the bottom and a deeper groove on the top that will allow you to first lift the panels up into the deep groove and then set them down into the shallower bottom groove - so they are held in place by the top and bottom grooves. 

Same haunched mortise and wedged tenon as prior shoji project. 

The panel width dimension is 4 bu less than the upper grid width because the shoji panels will not be set into grooves in the vertical members of the main frame as the upper grid will. If they were, there would be no way to get them out to replace the shoji paper or repair them.

There are 11 vertical and 7 horizontal kumiko - times two. Low yield from my decking-grade Port Orford cedar (POC) forced me to accept some marginal pieces for the kumiko but do like I say - you always want to use clear, straight, and straight grained pieces for kumiko. I violated this rule and paid the price in wasted material and time. 

You also may want to create a cardboard mockup of the kumiko (or at least the same kumiko counts) so you can clearly see that the notch patterns work for your layout. This looks like an exercise in futility but I ended up referring to it often. Again, vertical kumiko have alternating notches. Horizontal kumiko have half facing front on one side, half facing back on the other. Like this:

Kumiko notch layout for vertical and horizontal pieces.

Cereal box mockup of kumiko notch plan.

From the tsuitate examples I have seen, there are usually more kumiko at the bottom of the tsuitate shoji panels than the top. Besides aesthetics, I suspect this is done to protect the paper and strengthen the area closer to the floor. 

Now on to the frame and feet...