Kumiko refers to a technique of assembling wood without using nails.
And joinery made with the advanced technique are called kumiko joinery.

The origin of kumiko dates back to the Asuka era (7th century), and over 1,000 years its technique has been refined by predecessors.
We make holes and grooves in finely splitted wood, and assemble them one by one using a shaver, saw, and chisel while adjusting them in units of 0.1 mm.
Various tools and knives are used in the production, and even a shaver has dozens of types, which means our work requires extremely precise technique and process.
In current general houses, you can often see kumiko mainly in shoji sliding doors and ramma (transoms).

As the name "kumiko" means "assembling wood", the process requires extremely delicate and elaborate technique and even merely 0.1 mm dimension difference could make it impossible to assemble the wood.
In addition, the work of adjusting the angle and length requires not only technique but also skillful experience.
Because of the high level of technique, it takes time to learn the technique completely, and less Japanese people live in a Japanese-style room nowadays, which lead to the problem that the number of craftsmen who take over the technique is decreasing.

While the number of craftsmen who can handle kumiko is decreasing year by year, Ichino Tategu is confident about the production of kumiko.
And we have begun to break out of the traditional field of joinery production and positively try to incorporate kumiko into modern architecture.
We incorporate some modern technology such as CAD system into our traditional technique, to produce kumiko that only we Ichino Tategu can make, and its high quality and high precision kumiko have been evaluated and won numerous awards. Thanks to this we receive many production requests from fellow-traders as well.

Feel free to contact Ichino Tategu for production and repair of kumiko joinery, skilled craftsmen over three generations since 1951.