Kato lives in a very small village in Yamanashi
Was quite hard to find hehe
We arrived to his small workshop where he works totally alone and do everything by him self
He made a small demo for us how he make his Nakiri
He uses only charcoal oven without gas or anything also for quenching and tempering
For the Japanese marked he usses Blue steel, but what was very special about it that he water quenched it. Almost all blacksmith that we meat always oil quenched Blue steel !!
For JNS he make his knives out of special steel witch will remain secret :P
Video !
I was very surprised to find out that he actually uses only Japanese Natural stones for his Sharpening :O
This one is for rough work Huge Amakusa grinding wheel
After Amakusa he finishes all his knives on Natural bench stone Binsui
For the Ura on his single beveled he ONLY use convex hammer and handheld stones to finish :) So a lot of work !
Most of the time he makes Swords, he have largest and oldest Tamahagene collection from his father.
The newest Tamahagene that he have is around 80 years old and oldes about 200, Then i of coarse asked him what is best new one or old :)
Answer was it was simple better selection back then and then they could pick the best stuff. Now they make it very rarely and you have to get what they have to offer and it is not good always :P
But next day we talked to best sword polisher in Japan witch BTW Kato send all his swords to for polishing, and he also could confirm that older stuff was better !
Like i said in my last blogger this hunting knives sell from 800 000 yen and up
One of super beautiful katanas that Kato san made for 8 Years ago. Price 10 000 000 yen :)
Kogatana with Blue steel and Watetsu clading, also super super old Watetsu. For those who dont know Watetsu is soft Tamahagene steel. Unlike Tamahagene, if watetsu hard it is very bad it have to be as soft as possible :) Many use now old british steel as Watetsu you see it very often on Kana blades and Chisels. But Watetsu now is very rare and super expensive so many try to fake it with old british steel
This i thought was super cool Kato Genno With Watetsu midle and Tamahagene ends :O
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