Beams and Structural Components
古材梁など
Our beams and structural components age 50 to 300 years old.
With the advent of machine milling, felled trees began to be processed into identical, interchangeable building components. In contrast, beams in Old Japan came from trees picked by a village’s own forestry experts.
These local experts would carefully hand-select trees and harvest them on a full moon in early winter—when the tree had sucked up the maximum nutrients to survive through the harshest conditions. Trees were carefully felled by the village, and floated or dragged by hand or mule to where they would be used in construction.
Through hand-carving, the original character of the tree—its knots, curves, and eccentricities—were not imperfections to be machined-out. They were features to showcase every step of the craftsmanship in the final product.
Many of the large, ancient trees used in old-Japan building projects sadly can no longer be found, except in national parks, and temple or castle grounds. Antique beams made of rare large-diameter tree species like Sakura, Hinoki, Kuri and Sugi are just a few types that Kyoto Trove can source for your next project.
Beams were attached to each other with the secretive techniques of Japanese joinery—a hand-chiseling method that predates the availability of cheap metal fasteners. Joinery techniques provide exceptional strength and durability
The “Shachisen-tsugi-shikuchi-no-shihousashi" method
The "Yonmai-kama-tsugi" method
The "Kawai-Tsugite" method
What is Joinery?
Japanese Joinery uses precision and hand-chiselled puzzle-piece connections to tie the bones of a structure together. Builders continued to use joinery techniques up until the late 1800s because of their exceptional strength, resilience to earthquakes, and longevity. The techniques fell from common use in the modern era with the development of cheap and easy metal fasteners.
All of the beams stored by Kyoto Trove have been delicately disassembled in a way that does not damage their puzzle-piece design, maintaining the original strength, configuration and character of the materials.
Kyoto Trove is your local connection to Old Japan’s artisan craft build works
Kyoto Trove has a supply of authentic beams and build-works reclaimed from buildings ranging in age from 50 to 350 years old in our warehouse, ready to be sent directly to your project. If we don’t have an artifact to your specifications on hand, our consultants will access our national network to find the perfect piece for your build.