My town has a store that only sells imported Japanese hand tools. I only recently heard about it this year, but I wouldn’t doubt it if it has been there for decades.

Decided to go visit today and was not disappointed. I found several things that I had been looking for but — being unable to communicate in Japanese — were unable to find. Thankfully, walking into this place, nearly every employee spoke my language — the language of woodworking.

They had every kind of Japanese hand saw, diamond encrusted files for maintaining them, books on how to sharpen them, many many kinds of hand planes, Japanese blacksmith tools, and so much more. Next time I go, I absolutely intend to pick up some slip stones for sharpening curved blades.

Things seemed very affordable.

I picked up a dovetail saw, and showed them video of my kerfing plane. They immediately recognized the Ryoba saw attached to the plane.

One of the things I am excited about is I found a great source for saw blade covers. Picked up a few. Each one is only $1.90 and longer than I need (can trim to length). Covers the business end of the blade when not in use.

As an aside, here is that dovetail saw I picked up …

That’s a lot cheaper than a Blue Spruce, Veritas, Lie Nielsen, or Rob Cosman

I don’t have high expectations, but I’ve been wrong in the past.

The dovetail saw is not related to the kerfing plane. I don’t (yet?) use the kerfing plane to cut dovetails (that’d be silly, right?). I just wanted to give the dovetail saw a try.