Saturday, April 13, 2013

Japan trip part 3

Sake - Hammer - Japanese Steel

At the morning we went to Sanjo Fukugao Sake brewery

Very welcoming owners with Danish flag and all :D

We tasted many verities of sake they had to offer and i can say that is the best i have tasted in Japan :D


Very small in the middle of Sanjo family operating brewery you can see they website here: www.fukugao.jp









Yeah i know morning hair and with Sake on top :P


They even had some of the best Whisky layered Sake i ever tasted !!


With our super bussy scedual we hadded to master Baba Masayuki
Best Genno blacksmith in Japan !!! :D 

In his very small workshop where he works along without any help at all. Do all work him self and making many different hammers. With verity Rare steels from Japan 

He is not only super blacksmith but also Japanese Steel expert and have many different old rare steels in his collection.

And it is here i got explained something that i have been wondering for long time about Japanese steel 

He showed me verity of Best japanese steels. And how much they vary depending on age and when they have been produced. 
It was a HUGE difference in steels that is made today and before.
Lets say Blue 2 from hitachi before it was much more pure and had a lot more Carbon then now. 
Same is with all other Japanese steel they varied so much so they have to adjust heat tread and treatment of steel with every batch. 

Even Yellow 2 steel before was better then White 1 now, that was a huge surprise for me, but on the other hand explained why so many High end Blacksmith in Japan went for Swedish Steel  (consistency) such as Shigefusa or Iwasaki 

They could not afford to buy huge batches of steels that was consistent to thread same. So they bought most consistent and purest steel available witch was Swedish. 

Even now the steels vary a lot and every batch of steel have different components. So just relying on steel name now impossible !! 











 This is 6 hammers standing together :O All forged and shaped by hand without measurement tools !
Shows how much control and skills this man have :)














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