More Knife Pictures (1)

Here are some pictures of knives I shipped.

These are knives you can see at Kitchen Knives in Progress　.

                  

Shigefusa box

Shigefusa 240mm Kitaeji Gyuto with wa handle:

Edge Lengths 245mm Blade Height 52mm Weight 201g.


Shigefusa 240mm Kasumi Gyuto wa handle with Saya:

Saya has Shigefusa logo

Edge Lengths 245mm Blade Height 52mm Weight 214g.

Now some Yoshihide SKD migaki knives made by Yosikane with saya and special request for longer wa handles:

From top to bottom:
SKD Migaki (Kasumi) Gyuto Edge Lengths 217mm Blade Height 46mm Weight 156g.
Handle length is 139mm (normal handle is 132mm)
SKD Migaki (Kasumi) Gyuto Edge Lengths 251mm Blade Height 48mm Weight 188g.
Handle length is 149mm (normal handle is 139mm)

SKD Migaki (Kasumi) Suji Edge Lengths 254mm Blade Height 36mm Weight 136g.
Handle length is 145mm (normal handle is 139mm)

These knives are sharp out of the box.
I hope my customers are happy with these knives.

Iizuka san Sketch of Boning Knife

Some of my customers wanted a Kitaeji boning knife with wa handle (honesuki, garasuki or sabaki).
First I got a sketch from Iizuka san of a honesuki kaku.

Iizuka san made it before but it is a rare knife he makes. It is single bevel with the kitaeji clad at the front side and the back side is flat (not concave like the traditional single bevel knives). This method is called Urako (裏鋼) and Iizuka san  said it takes quite a lot of time to make it.
The spine thickness is 4.5mm at heel and  still 3mm at tip for the tough boning work.

My  customers prefered a honesuki maru (or honesuki nishigata) and not a honesuki kaku. I have never seen a  honesuki maru with wa handle but I asked Iizuka san if it can be made.

His answer was this sketch:

My customers agreed to this knife. I have now 2 of this knife on order.
So far as I know it will be the first 2 honesuki maru kitaeji knives with wa handles by Shigefusa.

It will take some time till it is ready but I will post it if it is ready.

Knives Ready to Ship

I got 4 knives ready to ship to my customers:

It is a Shigefusa 270mm Kasumi Sujibiki extra thin. Weight is 161g.
The customer ordered a 270mm and said if it get longer no problem for me and got a 280mm one and is lucky. The waiting time was less than 3 months.

 

It is a 210mm Sanjo Yoshihide (Yoshikane) KU Sekisou Gyuto. The contrast of the Damascus is very sharp. Weight 167g.
Order was April 27th. so waiting time was less than 1 month. 

It is a 270mm Sanjo Yoshihide (Yoshikane) KU Sekisou Sujibiki. Weight is only 133g. Compared to Shigefusa the handle is smaller.
Order was April 27th. so waiting time was less than 1 month.

It is a 280mm Sanjo Yoshihide (Yoshikane) KU Sekisou Sujibiki.

The handle is special order and bigger than stock handle. The wood is Bubinga.
Weight is 266g because of bigger full bolster handle.
Order was April 26th. so waiting time was less than 1.5 months.

The kanji of these KU Sekisou knives are hard to read by this angle. If you change the angle you can see them.

I hope my customers will love these knives.
I hope the readers of my blog enjoy how knives are made in batch when you follow the pictures of Kitchen Knives in Progress　（１） and Kitchen Knives in Progress　（2）.

Kitchen Knives in Progress （2）

Continued from Kitchen Knives in Progress　（１）.

Dear Customers.

3 days has past and you can see the progress.

Shigefusa:

From top:
240mm Kitaeji Gyuto
270mm Kasumi Suji
240mm Kasumi Gyuto
240mm Kasumi Gyuto

Sanjo Yoshihide (Yoshikane):

From top:
210mm SLD KU Sekisou Gyuto
270mm SLD KU Sekisou Suji

From Top:
250mm SKD Migaki Gyuto
240mm SKD Migaki  Suji
210mm SKD Migaki Gyuto

These kitchen knives are almost ready.
Some of them go to the saya maker for hand fitted saya which will take another week.

Now some new one:

Preparing jigane bars for 2 choppers.

To be continued...

Kitchen Knives in Progress （１）

Dear customers.

I got 2 pictures today from Sanjo.
Iizuka san and Yoshida san are making kitchen knives for my customers now.
They both succeeded the heat treatment of double bevel wa handled knives.

Suji and 3 Gyuto from Shigefusa

These knives are just out from heat treatment so kasumi and kitaeji look same.

 Gyuto and 2 Suji from Yoshikane Hamono

I hope these knives are ready end this week or begin of next week.

To be continued

Iwasaki and Tamahagane

I asked Iwasaki san about "Tamahagane".

He came back with 2 chunks of raw "Tamahagane".

Ancient and New Tamahagane

He said:"The bigger one is Tamahagane made now by The Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords ." "It is made every year by Hitachi Metals by old methods."

"The small one is an ancient Tamahagane made by a Tatara master. Not all ancient Tamahagane are top class. Before modern steel came to Japan in Meiji period (1868-1912) there have been many ancient Tatara places. These Tatara places has been named by the masters who made the Tamahagane. I have a stock of excellent and famous masters and I use these for my razors."

I had a chance to make photos of his very special ancient Tamahagane:

Ancient Tamahagene Stock

 Near to this stock I saw some other steel:

Hocho Tetsu

I asked what it is.

The answer was it is Hocho Tetsu and it is the mild or soft steel made by the Tatara method. It has been used to make latticework in a window of an old storehouse. The name of these storehouse is "Kura" and you can see it at google picture.　Storehouses which have been build before the Meiji period have these Hocho Tetsu.

These can be used as Jigane (clad) or you can enrich it with carbon to make carbon steel and it will be the same as Tamahagane.

I found also a box with the letters The Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords Tatara Tamahagane:

The Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords Tatara Tamahagane Box

The Tamahagane made now comes in this box to the blacksmith.

When I made the tour of his workshop I found a bigger charcoal furnace; far to big for razors.
It was a furnace to make a Tamahagane bar from the chunk of raw Tamahagane by hammering and folding to get rid of the non melting impurities.

Charcoal Furnace to Purify Tamahagane

I asked Iwasaki san and Mizouchi san if they are making Tamahagane razors now.
The answer was yes!
They make few Tamahagane kamisori (Japanese razors) but not western razors.
I asked if they are for sale?
The answer was no!
I did not ask further.
I do not know where the new made Tamahagane razors go.
Maybe to museum or to inner circle.

I got a look at old Tamahagane western razors too:

Old Tmahagane Western Razors with Defects

These are all Tamahagane razors with defects which did not leave the workshop but too good to go to trash. The steel of these razors can be recycled said Iwasaki san.

I hope my readers have enjoyed to see Tamahagane.

Iwasaki and Jnats (part 3)

Continued from Iwasaki and Jnats (part 2).

When I asked Iwasaki san and Mizuochi san how they sharpen their razors Iwasaki san asked me what I think of edge profiles.
He made forms with his hands like this:

Iwasaki san made a form like this (This is not Iwasaki san's hand)

"You can form a edge like this. It is a straight edge."

Iwasaki san made form like this too (hamaguriba).

"The edge can be like this (hamaguriba) too."
 "I observed beard hair cut with both edges and found that the straight edge makes a straight cut and the hamaguriba edge makes a diagonal cut."
I said "So the straight edge is better."

"The answer is not so easy." replied Iwasaki san "It depends on skin and hardness of the beard hair."
"If the skin is hard and beard hair soft a straight edge is good. If the skin is soft and hair is hard a hamaguriba edge is better." "Japanese in general have a harder skin so our razors have straight edge, But we advice barbers who have many western customers to sharpen their razors hamaguriba or if straight edge more wider angle."
"The angle of the edge is very important so if you have a razor for yourself you must find out which angle is best for you."

To be continued ....

Shigefusa's Workshop

Continued from Shigefusa and his Whetstones.

After Iizuka san let me look at his Whetstones his two sons Masayuki Iizuka san and Yoshihide Iizuka san guided me to the workshop. The workshop is in a separate building from where we had tea and the whetstone workbench was. 
The reason why the whetstone workbench is in a separate building you can read here:
Iwasaki and Jnats (part one).

Now let me guide how a kitchen knife is made at Shigefusa.

This is the charcoal furnace for free forging and forge welding. Only few blacksmiths use charcoal furnace now. You will see too that the work is done sitting on the ground and not standing like at Yoshikane Hamono.

Here the hammer and in front you see the cutter.

Now after the rough forming of shape by forging comes the next step which is unique to Shigefusa knives.

Younger brother Yoshihide san showed me how to grind the back side (Ura) of an Usuba with "Sen". The careful work with "Sen" makes the backside very flat and superior to other makers. Here again you see the work is done by sitting.

After heat treatment and before the final polish with natural whetstones the knife is sharpened with a big water wheel.

Here again you see that work is done by sitting. You can see how a Yanagiba is set and Yoshide san bows over the big wheel.

Before we went back to the whetstone workbench house I asked the sons how many kitchen knives they make per batch and how long it takes to make one batch.

The answer was they do in batch of about 30 knives depending how difficult the knives are to make. They need 2 weeks or a bit more to finish a batch.
It is now simple math how many knives they make per year. A year has 52 weeks so Shigefusa makes about 780 kitchen knives per year. And they do it in batch so you can say every knife is done by Tokifusa Iizuka san and every knife is done by his sons.

It is  also clear that you must wait at least 2 weeks till a custom knife is made. But Shigefusa has many back orders and the batch is not mixed with single bevel and double bevel knives.
So I indicate a waiting time of 3 months at What you can order and how .

to be continued....

Iwasaki and Jnats (part 2)

Continued from Iwasaki and Jnats (part one) .

When I asked Iwasaki san if there are any knowledge for honing razors to the customers he went from workshop to his house and came back with a copy.

レザーと日本剃刀の研ぎ方 "How to Hone Western and Japanese Razors" by Kousuke Iwasaki

Iwasasaki san explained me that it is a text book for a advanced class for barbers where his father gave a lecture about 50 years ago (This textbook was written Jan. 1963).  He added a advance class for barbers would be a graduate course like master course　at an university. 

I got permission to translate or make an extract from him.

But my friend  Jim at Eastern Smooth   made a translation recently so go there to have the translation of this book "How to Hone Western and Japanese Razors" At Long Last: Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori.
(I translated the title a bit different but it is the same.)

I read it and it looks to me not as a text book. It is more a record of Kosuke Iwasaki's lecture. It is written in speaking Japanese and not writing Japanese.

Jim's translation is wonderful and I do not think that something is lost at the translation. But this is not a scientific paper and I think something was lost from the lecture to the record of the lecture.

So if you read Jim's translation just read the essence or soul of it. And it was written about 50 years ago. Many things has changed since that time.

Here some examples (Translation by Jim in Italic) :

If you have bought the coarse Botan, and either the Tenjou or Mejiro for middle honing, there is no objection to seeking out a Koma Nagura to come between them.

I think there is missing the word tomo nagura so read it "the koma can be a bridge to tomo nagura but not always necessary."

But the soul or essence of it is that Koma is not necessary. He was very aware of cost performance and writes:

The Koma have particles finer than Botan, yet still eat steel quickly, and sword polishers and Cloisonee makers buy them in large quantities, so they are even more expensive than Botan.

Now about what has changed in 50 years.
What has changed from 1963 and now (2011) is that now very good maruka stones are rare and very expensive. And that there are many natural stones with maruka stamps which do not perform well.
It is also a result that the great Iwasaki-shi has recommended maruka:

A hone with a brown stamp reading “Maruka Shouhonyama”  on the small end is absolutely top class.

In 1963 Nakayama mine was not closed and maruka stones has not been so expensive. About 30 years ago Nakayama mine was closed and most of the very good stones have been sold already.

I wonder what Iwasaki-shi would write or lecture if he lives now.

There are many very important things what is right now too.

The yellow stones are considered the best, but after trying reddish ones, blue ones and white ones, the results showed that the particles were the same and the honing results were all equivalent. 

This is very important. Do not buy natural stones on appearance. Buy them on performance. 

Because these problems can’t be seen, all the honing done up to now has been less than perfect. If he could see these issues, then any professional barber would be able to hone out chips or repair a rounded bevel.---

now, tools to look at the blade’s edge like metallurgical microscopes, which were once limited to scientists, have become necessary as well. Without this, your chances of honing a good edge are lowered. How can you hone an edge that you can’t even see?

Very important thing. You must see the results of  honing.

To be continued....