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Echigo Blacksmith, Tsukasa Hinoura is the third generation of Blacksmith family. He is creating his original knives under his name "Tsukasa" brand. He is aggressively searching his own way to express his skill and passion to the blades.
Our first impression of his knives is the "Honed Beauty", and we can recognize his skills, times and passions behind it. It is the perfect knife with beautiful seamless line and form, no sharp corners, no distortion, no gaps etc. He devotes tremendous times from start to finish one knife for every detail. Unlike some other forge-smiths, he never uses modern machineries and finished clad steels developed by the latest technologies, because he believes the old fashioned traditional hand works of from forge cladding, Hizukuri forming to a water tempering can only use his experienced skills and express his soul and passion into the blades.
For the final finishing, he does a hand honing using the several different grids natural whetstones and spends at least two hours to polish and sharpen one blade. He says the whetstone hand honing is the best to get the sharpest edge of carbon steel blade. This is also very important work, not only to enhance total beauty of the blade appearance and function of the blade performance, but also to check the condition of the steel. He can judge to see if the steel has been treated properly by this stone polishing. It is the essence that these time-consuming and never-compromising processes make his knives super-outstanding among many forged knives in Japan. When you hold his knife, you will see what we mean, a perfect fusion of the forged carbon steel with clad soft iron on the polished edge line with mysterious sparkling that shows a functional beauty.
His basic blade pattern is called “Kitae-Ji” (鍛地), using Shirogami No.2 Carbon Hagane steel core wrapped and layer-forged with wrought irons. These new distinct Damascus patterns are from his forging technique to give you a visual joy as well as the highest level of craftsmanship.
Unryu-Mon (雲流紋) clouds flow patterns
Based on the “Kitae-Ji” pattern (His basic blade pattern is called “Kitae-Ji” (鍛地), using Shirogami No.2 Carbon Hagane steel core wrapped and layer-forged with wrought irons), the layers have been twist forged repeatedly, creating unique clouds flow Damascus patterns on entire blade surface including the spine.
The tall blade and rounded nose / tip of the Santoku make it a versatile knife that is well suited to cutting meat, fish, or vegetables; Hence its name, which literally means “Three-purpose”. The Santoku is often recommended as a multi-purpose kitchen knife.
