What is Paklan?
Paklan is a publication about East Asian woodworking and craft, by Brian Lam, and friends. We want to help craftspeople do better work, and to help create more craftspeople.
Links
*The Line: Advice on advanced cutting and sharpening
*A Year in the Life of an Japanese Carpentry Apprentice
*Hugo Nakashima-Brown on Discovering Chinese Furniture
*Not a Tool Store: A secret stash of professional grade tools (for sale to members)
Who are we?
Brian apprenticed in Japan for Somakosha, a traditional carpentry firm that specializes in temple, shrine, farmhouse and tea house architecture. He is also a veteran journalist who has written for the NYTimes, New Yorker, Wired. He founded and sold Wirecutter to the Times. Brian has studied photography with Greg Girard. We are looking for journalists, craftspeople, illustrators, designers, translators to join our publication. Email me.
Join Us
Why Join As a Paid Member?
Paklan has spent a decade and hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing craft education and reporting. Working and reporting in Japan has revealed just how much the practices, perspectives, techniques and tools used in real craft work are hidden from the rest of us. Members will learn how people work in Japan and Asia, and improve their own cutting, sharpening, designing and building through advice columns.
Members also have access to a secret stash of tools that drop several times a month.
More features are being added to membership all the time.