thumb|Wagoya type traditional roof framing, a [[post-and-lintel type of framing]]

thumb|Yogoya type traditional roof framing, called western style

Japanese wooden carpentry has been influenced in part by ancient Chinese architectural styles, but its techniques have evolved independently due to differences in earthquakes and climate. It is characterized by the use of wooden joints and almost no nails.. It has been involved in the construction of a wide variety of structures, such as temples, dwellings, and tea houses, as well as furniture.

The style of Japanese carpentry and its prominent use of wood was developed in part from the constraints of the hot and humid Japanese climate. For example, traditional houses are raised to let air move beneath and around it.

Schools of carpentry

Though there is a core practice shared by all Japanese carpenters, defined by a vocabulary of tools and joints and a method of working, a carpenter will typically identify with one of four distinct carpentry professions. practice the construction of Japanese shrines and temples, and are renowned for their use of elaborate wooden joints and the fact that the buildings they construct are frequently found among the world's longest surviving wooden structures. Teahouse and residential carpenters, known as , are famed for their delicate aesthetic constructions using natural materials and carefully scribed joinery. Furniture makers are known as , and interior finishing carpenters, who build and , are termed .

Though it is rare to find a sashimono-shi or tateguya practising outside of their field, it is not uncommon for a carpentry workshop to work simultaneously as both miyadaiku and sukiyadaiku.

Tools

thumb|upright=2|Using saws, adzes, chisels, yarigannas and sumitsubos in a construction site

The tools commonly used by Japanese carpenters are divided into a few basic families, within which there are found a multitude of variations and specializations geared toward particular tasks:thumb|Ryoba

  • , which cuts on the pull stroke, rather than the otherwise globally prevalent push stroke. This allows the blades to be quite thin in comparison to the Western saw. There are two main kinds of cutting teeth on Japanese saws: and . The rip and crosscut are combined in one blade, known as a . The rip and crosscut patterns are also made in single-edged saws, , both with stiffening back pieces and without. The stiff-backed saws, known as are typically used in cutting fine joinery. There are many other types of Japanese saws as well: , used for flush-cutting pegs to a surface without marring the surface. The saw teeth have no set to one or both sides to accomplish this feat. There is the , which has cutting both rip and crosscut teeth, and is short and rounded in profile. It is used for sawing in confined areas and starting cuts in the middle of surfaces. There are many other types and sub-types of saw. Most saws sold in the West are mass-produced items with induction-hardened teeth and relatively cheap replaceable blades. The handmade forged saws are very laborious to make and involve more manufacturing steps in the forging to complete than planes or chisels.
  • Japanese axe () and adze ()are used for processing a timbered log into relative flat either for further processing or use.
  • . There are several types of carpentry hammers. Some hammers are used for chisel work, some for positioning hand plane blades, some for hammering and pulling nails, and others for tapping out laminated hardened steel from base of plane blades and chisels.

Blades

Though a carpenter will typically fashion handles and woodblocks and set and sharpen their blades themselves, the blades themselves are forged by steel smiths and provided unmounted to the carpenter. Japanese steel has long enjoyed a high level of refinement, without which the fine surfaces and detail for which Japanese woodwork is renowned would not be possible. The blades used in the Japanese chisel and the Japanese plane shares similar constructive principles to the Japanese sword. A thin piece of extremely hard blade metal called is forge-welded to a softer piece of metal called . The function of the softer base metal is to absorb shock, and to protect the more brittle ha-gane from breaking. This technology allows for the use of steels in the hagane which are harder than in use in Western chisels, typically Rockwell 62 and up, and also allows for the honing of a much finer edge than is typically known in carpentry outside Japan. When sharpening a blade, a Japanese carpenter will typically use three or more whetstones of varying coarseness, progressing from the roughest stone to the finest.