Komisen

Komisen, known in English as wedge-secured sliding dovetail joints, is an ingenious wooden connection technique developed in Japanesejoinery. With komisen, interlocking joinery resembling sliding dovetails is first cut into the ends of beams and grooves matching the tails cut into upright posts. Wedge-shaped pins made of a contrasting wood are then inserted into the joints. Their grain runs perpendicularly to secure the beam ends tight against the posts. Called "komisen" due to these wooden "wedge forces", the joints distributed weight through layered cross-grained reinforcement. Komisen allowed structural frameworks to be both instantly rigid yet subtly flexible as needed. The weather resistant connections proved ideally suited to buildings like storehouses and granaries construction, where frameworks endured heavy seasonal weight changes for centuries thanks to komisen's marriage of strength and ductility.