Saw | Sobokuya Inc.

We fell our own trees and saw our own timber

SpecialitySaw

Most carpenters would order pre-cut lumber from a lumber company, but not Sobokuya. We bring in the logs ourselves and saw them. This saves money on materials and reduces the overall expenditure, allowing us to offer better prices and value to our clients. As we select the trees specifically for our projects, our buildings have an elegant and unique charm that one would not get when ordering pre-cut lumber from a lumber company.

Talk with the trees

A tree that takes 100 years to grow will not decay for another 100 years when it becomes a house. Hisashi Imai, representative director of Sobokuya, has always been a forester. He is heartbroken every time he cuts down a tree. To honour the trees whose life has been taken, he wants to use every bit of the tree to its fullest. Hence he decided to became a carpenter. Now he is mainly an architect, but he puts his heart into bringing the life of the tree into the house. He assesses the character of the wood and brings it to life in the most appropriate places in the house. To build a house that not only the client wants to live in, but one he himself would want to live in.

A Construction firm
with many orders

Ordinary construction companies do not take logs to sawmills. They just tell the sawmill the species and size of the tree. At Sobokuya we bring in the wood ourselves. The sawmills we work with are stocked with various species of trees brought in by Sobokuya. Detailed instructions are given to the sawyers on the necessary dimensions and specifications of the lumber that will be used for construction. Due to the intricate particulars of our projects, we place many detailed orders with the sawmill.

The trees move

Immediately after being sawn, the trees come in perfect shape as ordered. But the tree is not dead yet. As the days go by, it bends, warps, and twists. Sobokuya predicts the movement of the tree. Only a skilled carpenter can do this, but the members of Sobokuya, who are also lumberjacks, can read the movements of the trees and predict their eventual shape. We work closely together with the sawmill to ensure the perfect cuts.

Flexibility and
high cost-performance

Most carpenters want to use nothing but timber with a beautiful surface, with no knots. But if you use only such materials, the client's wallet will take a hit as project costs skyrocket. Sobokuya’s projects are light on our client's pockets. As more than half of the materials used are wood which we gather by ourselves, we can offer better rates by cutting out the middleman, and we do not shy from embracing the natural imperfections found in the timber. If the client wants beautiful vertical grain for fittings, we can use vertical grain; if they want to preserve the natural texture of the floor, we can grind it into planks. Sobokuya's projects offer high flexibility and cost-performance.