Handmade Knives

Our knives have their own authentic sharpness and human touch. 

Our knives are made by craftsmen in Sanjo, Niigata, Japan. 

The values of our knives are different from industrial products. Our knives are not cheap and need adequate additional care to maintain their original conditions. If you are looking for convenient and cost effective things, we are not of your choices.

Our crafts are old fashioned

Our knife making materials and processes are deployed mostly same as 50 years ago. Our products are mostly same as 50 years ago.

The main manufacturing tools used to create knifes are always power hammers and grinding machines. The main material used is always Hagane (e.g. Aogami, Shirogami), a type of carbon steel.

Aogami, Shirogami were developed more than 50 years ago. After that, there have been many new materials with technology improvements. We, however retain old fashioned materials. 

Whenever I manually sharpened my mom's knife (Below photo), the knife of over 45 years old, I always developed the feeling that its quality stayed constant and even much better than the industrial-manufacturing ones. It was made by the craftsmen in our very own city of Sanjo.

Our crafts are made by small workshops. They are independent proprietors or micro family businesses. Most of them maintain making metal works for generations. The knife making techniques are passed down from generation to generation. 

Our crafts are not industrial products

There are many inventions for new materials and automated machines nowadays. New technologies improve productivities and functions of the products. All over the world, supermarkets, department stores, online shops are full of industrial products because of their convenient and cost effective prospects.

We appreciate new technologies as they fulfill the growing demands of consumers.

We, however offer different value propositions. Convenience and cost effectiveness are not our priorities. Ours, first and foremost, are sharpness and human touch.

Function of knives

Our knives are fragile. Our knives are more expensive than industrial ones. People normally think that expensiveness means sturdiness. In reality, our knives are more delicate than most of others. They need more careful treatments and attentions about their usages. 

They become oxidized and deteriorated without being given sufficient cares (Below photo).
They get chipped and broken from inappropriate usages (Below photo).

Oxidized and chipped edge can be repaired.

From general perspectives, the functions of our knives are not convenient as industrial ones. Function of our knives are not convenient than industrial knives for most of people.

Though from the emotional and historical perspectives, our knives are a vital part of Japanese heritage. 

Beyond the function

Handy cutting is a subject of  perception, individuals have their own ways and feelings. Even for the same person, cutting ways and feelings are bound by situations.

In Japan, we call it “Taste of cut”. Taste is definitely subjective and cannot be measured by data.

I have been sharpening over 100 knives a month in Saigon. Most of my customers who are foreigners from Europe, America, Australia and others all over the world brought their knives over for sharpening. I had sharpened thousands knives. The more different kinds of knives I sharpened , the more I realized the values of our own knives.

Our knives can cut smoothly and keep their sharpness longer. I also feel human touch from our knives. I rarely feel such deep affections towards the industrial knives.

I cannot prove the sense of human touch by data. It was just my own feelings and endorsed by many of my customers. I realized that there are demands of our crafts, tiny but constant and niche nevertheless. 

I would like to introduce our crafts to people who understand our values and heritage.

Hiroshi Takeuchi