Blade Show in Yasugi

On the Japan Sea coast in western Japan near Matsue in Shimane prefecture is the small but important steel town of Yasugi, the home of Hitachi Metal speciality steel works. Every spring a few square blocks of Yasugi are set aside to host a blades show, and sellers and buyers come from all over to mingle and renew old relationships and to buy and sell vast quantities of anything to do with knives.

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This space was manned by a host of blacksmiths and bladesmiths who would for a nominal fee totally finish off any knife in a professional manner.

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This is a post from http://thejapanblade.com/blog/

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That second picture is the coolest picture I've seen all week.

*edit* of the first post. Wait, in the second post...is that a western Yanagiba? That's pretty bad A too.

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Got to love the average age of the sharpeners. That's experience.

:wink:does Dave have safety cones around him when he sharpens .
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Very cool! I wish I could go to one.

Nice

Wouldn't that be a hoot to attend? I like what appears to be a disk grinder in the top pic of post #2.

Curious as to the knives(?) that are shaped like hockey sticks in the very first pic? Looks like something fun if you could figure out what to do with it.

They all doing it wrong ! Not perfectly flat stones and no Atomas :rofl2:

chinacats said:

Curious as to the knives(?) that are shaped like hockey sticks in the very first pic? Looks like something fun if you could figure out what to do with it.

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I believe that's a small brush hook.

chinacats said:

Curious as to the knives(?) that are shaped like hockey sticks in the very first pic? Looks like something fun if you could figure out what to do with it.

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Those and the rectangular hoe's to the right of them are gardening tools. The "hockey sticks" are a type of sickle and the larger hoes are very common all over the world where people farm/garden by hand. I have a narrow one called an asada, and a wider one called an Italian grape hoe.

Steeley has usual, your posts are filled with fun facts and great pictures, thanks for sharing.

Stone envey!

Dave

鎌 = kama or japanese sickle i have a few,,, they do nasty things to your fingers when you are not paying close attention

I too appreciate the age of the sharpeners, but it makes me wonder: are young people not into whetstones any more?

chinacats said:

Curious as to the knives(?) that are shaped like hockey sticks in the very first pic? Looks like something fun if you could figure out what to do with it.

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Probably similar to a small scythe, used to harvest root veggies or something like that?

So many natural stones, omg... I think Mr. Sugai (our knife sharpener) has the one in the red box somewhere in his toy box.

Very cool photos.