The "Wood Jointed Football"

LIAOCHENG, China, Dec. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a report from Shandong Office of Hong Kong Business Daily. Have you ever seen footballs made of wood? 

The Chinese master carpenter, Wang Dewen, known as "Grandpa Amu" on social media who has more than 1.4 million followers, has been dubbed as the modern day Lu Ban, a famous Chinese structural engineer during the Zhou Dynasty, thanks to his vast carpentry knowledge. 

This time, he used beech wood and black walnut material and cut it into 32 pieces of wood, and then polished it into radians and chiseled different structures. When they fit together perfectly, it became a football. 

The process seemed easy, but the size and proportion of every single part was strictly calculated and polished. A small miscalculation of a joint would impact the whole work.

Its structure can be freely disassembled and assembled for play. It can't be kicked around like a real football, but it is suitable for display as a craft or a toy or a gift. 

The 65-year-old Grandpa Amu, Wang Dewen, is from Liaocheng City, Shandong Province. He has learned carpentry from the age of ten, and had been a carpenter for over 50 years. Before the "wood jointed football", several pieces of his work has become social media sensation.

For the title "modern day Lu Ban", Grandpa Amu insists that he is not an internet celebrity but just an ordinary farmer. And he also replied modestly, "There are many elder masters in tenon-and-mortise work, and I should learn a lot from them. Nowadays, I just showed the skills through video to all."

According to Grandpa Amu, carpentry requires both skills and morality, which calls for making products to benefit other people. He felt ashamed when he delayed updating, and he wished to improve his skills to pass on the traditional masterpieces.

A tenon and a mortise shows the talents of Chinese craftsmen. Thumbs up for Grandpa Amu!