Matsukaze

Another detail squared away. Gustavo has picked a nice (yet reasonably priced) Sageo for the first Matsukaze. The one you have seen in the pictures… Read More »Sageo

Chris jumped on his bike and rode to Seki to meet his friend Shin for an interview about himself, his work and his path to… Read More »Meet the smith of Matsukaze: Ono Kanemasa

We chose to go with brass on the first prototype to establish a base line. Of course Copper and Sterling-Silver will be standard options for… Read More »Habaki and Menuki for the Prototype are here

Manuel has been working on the Tsuba for the first Matsukaze prototype. It is an iron Mokko-shaped Tsuba with a fine Mimi and bears “千里之行… Read More »Matsukaze prototype Tsuba

Well,  obviously we do over here at Tokensho and lots of it. But what I meant to say is that our polisher Christophe discovered some… Read More »We have activity …

After some of the no all pleasant discoveries we had to make when the blade first got here (but remember, this is what protoypes are… Read More »Komi-Nagura polishing

The Polish is now in the Chu-Nagura stage and Komi-Nagura is next. While polishing, he discovered a small area in which the Shinogi-Ji got accidentally… Read More »Chu-Nagura polishing

Not the country or the river but rather the Japanese polishing stone. The initial grind, an associated craftsman in Japan had put the blade through,… Read More »Back to Kongo

Yakiire, the hardening of Matsukaze. The blade is coated by the mixture of clay and charcoal (Yakiba-tsuchi), and it is suddenly cooled in the water… Read More »Forging the first Matsukaze 4

火造,(Hidukuri) and 焼きなまし (Nakinamashi), followed by a cold hammering are the steps in which the blade is given its (more or less) final shape.