SOTW #3 - Sounds of the Workshop: Chopping Charcoal (sumi-kiri)

breaking in the new camera: this is a brief demo of the process of preparing the finished charcoal for the forge...the larger chunks are split or chopped up and screened to remove the dust...for swordsmithing there are more specific divisions into four sizes from dust to larger pieces for different phases of forging and preparation...most of my work is with 1-2 inch pieces and we generally process the amount of charcoal in that bucket or more in a single batch...the charcoal is softwood, pine is the standard but for general forge work cedar and fir are also acceptable...shot in japan where you can buy pine charcoal, in canada we have to make our own.