N A G I N A T A ! ! ! ! !

Oh, friends. This was quite a day. Lisa and I went to visit the new naginata beater that Dave Reina built for us. A custom job, and the first stainless machine of its kind stateside (only the second one total).

He'll put a guard here so we aren't tempted to stick our hands in here when the blades are going.

It had its maiden voyage and did superbly! After all of that cooking and rinsing and beating and then dragging the kitty litter bucket all around the city full of kozo. The machine can take more than I brought but I really couldn't carry all that.

These blades were cut by water jets!

This was the first time we met in person for real and Dave is all that he is chalked up to be, and so super nice and easygoing. You can't see it here (and I was so hyper excited that I forgot to shoot it), but this is his first beater where he installed TWO drains, one on each end! Brilliant.

It was a hot day and he has no A/C in the shop, but we had plenty of water to stay cool and Lisa drained the beater and took home the pulp to make paper in Brooklyn! YAY. It's not in Cleveland yet but I'm over the moon that we've gotten this far. And it will definitely be installed by the time I teach my hanji class in August, making life So Much Easier. This beater makes life So Much Better.