Dashi - Karakuri Idea Contest 2018

Dashi, like many of the best Karakuri Idea Contest winners, reflects an item from Japanese culture.  In this case Dashi is designed to look like a traditional hand plane style bonito shaver.  It has three parts: the main cutter box, a lid that covers it, and a piece of bonito fish.  The box has a drawer that doesn’t seem to come out, which is where the bonito flakes would accumulate for an actual bonito shaver.  As with the best Idea Contest winners, the theme and puzzle are connected, here integrating the bonito shaver motif as part of the puzzle.  The workmanship is beautiful, especially in how the blade portion is purely wooden yet astonishingly realistic looking.

Karakuri product description:

This work is in the image of a Japanese traditional device called, "Katsuobushi kezuriki". It is a dried bonito-fish shaver. Even the blade of the Japanese carpenter's plane is made from wood, yet it looks so realistic. How do you shave the Katsuobushi? The solution is slightly difficult. Katsuobushi (dried bonito) is a part of mechanism. This work was produced by Karakuri Creation Group’s craftsmen, from a selected idea of “10th Karakuri Puzzle Idea Contest”.

Dried bonito shaver (Katsuobushi kezuriki) This implement, which was originally converted from a carpenter's plane, had a small box in which the blade was positioned upward, and the small box had a drawer from where the shaved katsuobushi pieces were removed.

Original idea by Kinya Matsunaga

Hand-crafted by Osamu Kasho (Karakuri Creation Group)

Size: 177×72×76mm

Material: Cherry, Oak, Maple, Ancient ash, Walnut

Condition: The dashi fish must have sat on the lid while on display in the store in Hakone where it was bought for some time, since the the wood is slightly lighter in an area under which the dashi was sitting.  This is as it was purchased, and doesn’t impact the puzzle.

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