Hey Guys,
I've been lurking for a good many years on Blade Forums, getting a lot of great information that has really helped me in my knife making hobby. I thought I might contribute some interesting pictures I took on a recent trip to Seki, Japan. We got a tour of several knife factories by a very nice knife exporter named Jemmi Iwahara. One of the places we visited was Kiku Matsuda's shop.
Kiku uses an interesting grinding technique which utilizes a disk sander on a mandrel. It looks like an aluminum disk with a hole in the center that is mounted like a bench stone, but uses abrasive sheets:
The bevels are ground in flat sections and then blended together:
Here you can see one of his employees beveling a knife, notice how the disk spins upwards:
[video=youtube;WkztVNtoWGs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkztVNtoWGs[/video]
I asked him and our guide why he uses such an unusual technique and they told us that it allows him to feel and hear the grind on the disk. I would normally chalk this up to necessity being the mother of invention, but he does have some """decent""" 2x72 grinders as well:
Yeah, I'm jealous. I thought I was hot stuff when I got my KMG. I know some of the people around here use the nine inch disk sanders with the variable speed motors, like the Beaumont or Tru-Grit. I wonder if this technique would work on those.
I also liked his high tech Kydex station:
I took a lot of pictures of knives at different stages of production:
Kiku told us about the All Nippon Knife show that was happening in Kobe a few days later, so we went to it. It was fairly small, but had a lot of interesting stuff.
They had bars of ZDP-189 and ZDP-189 clad in VG-10. I would have bought some, but it seemed kind of ridiculous to carry a bar of steel I couldn't heat treat across the ocean.
One knifemaker made knives made out of glass.
A table of natural waterstones. Pretty affordable too.
Bought some anyway. Where else would I get the chance?
I took a break from making knives for a couple of months and this trip really got me back in the groove. Overall, I thought the contrast and similarities between knife making in the US and Japan was very interesting.
I've been lurking for a good many years on Blade Forums, getting a lot of great information that has really helped me in my knife making hobby. I thought I might contribute some interesting pictures I took on a recent trip to Seki, Japan. We got a tour of several knife factories by a very nice knife exporter named Jemmi Iwahara. One of the places we visited was Kiku Matsuda's shop.
Kiku uses an interesting grinding technique which utilizes a disk sander on a mandrel. It looks like an aluminum disk with a hole in the center that is mounted like a bench stone, but uses abrasive sheets:
The bevels are ground in flat sections and then blended together:
Here you can see one of his employees beveling a knife, notice how the disk spins upwards:
[video=youtube;WkztVNtoWGs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkztVNtoWGs[/video]
I asked him and our guide why he uses such an unusual technique and they told us that it allows him to feel and hear the grind on the disk. I would normally chalk this up to necessity being the mother of invention, but he does have some """decent""" 2x72 grinders as well:
Yeah, I'm jealous. I thought I was hot stuff when I got my KMG. I know some of the people around here use the nine inch disk sanders with the variable speed motors, like the Beaumont or Tru-Grit. I wonder if this technique would work on those.
I also liked his high tech Kydex station:
I took a lot of pictures of knives at different stages of production:
Kiku told us about the All Nippon Knife show that was happening in Kobe a few days later, so we went to it. It was fairly small, but had a lot of interesting stuff.
They had bars of ZDP-189 and ZDP-189 clad in VG-10. I would have bought some, but it seemed kind of ridiculous to carry a bar of steel I couldn't heat treat across the ocean.
One knifemaker made knives made out of glass.
A table of natural waterstones. Pretty affordable too.
Bought some anyway. Where else would I get the chance?
I took a break from making knives for a couple of months and this trip really got me back in the groove. Overall, I thought the contrast and similarities between knife making in the US and Japan was very interesting.
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