Japan trip 3 Shigefusa, Sanjo

First day when we arrived to Sanjo we had a meeting with Iizuka san.
The nicest person i have meet in Japan :)
Very polite and very international person !!
I looked forward to meeting him and to see how he made his knifes. I have been a fan for a long time :)
He is most mysterious knifemaker in the world every knife community respects his knifes for being in perfect FF, mysterious steel and beautiful natural stone finish on his knifes !
For the meeting, his 2 sons and his wife joined us, I can clearly see that it was family business.

I could see that all his knifes was made with extreme care, they really took time to slowly hammer the knifes, every step in they knife making was very careful and very precise, there was no rush or fast hammering.

I asked him about stones too :)
He told me that he had many natural stones before but now he use only 2 which he likes a lot.
He say it is very difficult with natural stones.
I had a chance to try 2 of the stones that he liked most !
They was Ohiras approx. lv 3 in my rating super nice feeling and very fast stones, i liked them a lot :)

Me testing Shigefusas stones 

Youngest son forging 270 mm Yanagi 

His youngest son showed us how he laminate steel for Yanagi, again i could clearly see how all steel was cut very precise before lamineting. Everything was very clean and polished even before welding, he used much more reguler hammer then power hammer.
I also asked about bending problems of Kasumi knifes and that some Sakai makers store they knifes for 3 months before final finish to avoid banding problems.
He told me that he makes knifes the way they dont bend and it was all about how much care you use to make knifes, if everything is done to fast they will bend no madder how much time they rest.
So his knifes do not have rest time they are just made right from beginning !
Later this day we went to dinner with Iizuka san 

Me, my girlfriend and Iizuka san

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After visit his work shop we went to my stone dealer to check out new stones he got for me :D

Super rare and expensive hammers that he sells too

Shoubudanis 

San Ozukus 

Wakasas 

Pure Kiita Maruka Kan super pricy stone

I got some very nice gifts from my partner, Ozuku Karasu and super rare steel "Togo-Reigou Steel"

You can find more info about that steel here:

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php?3772-Special-Steel

We took to our hotel and changed close to prepare for dinner with Iizuka san 

We went to very nice traditional Japanese restaurant food there was super nice i loved it really !! 

And of course we drink a lot of sake :D 

All pretty drunk at that point hahaha....

Will continue ....