Hello all,
I suppose I should make mention of who I am and what I do. Just having a name like 'Tools from Japan' doesn't sound too interesting to a forum full of knife folks, so...
My name is Stuart Tierney, and I run a small internet store called Tools from Japan. The name pretty much explains it all, and in my case it's predominantly woodworking tools. As many of you know, Japanese edged devices tend to be quite decent (!) and while you're all aware that Japanese knives are usually quite good, it also means that Japanese tools are equally good and sought after.
I started up the store because, living in Japan (Kagawa in my case) I had fairly easy access to tools and related items and wasn't convinced that the usual purveyors of tools were doing the best possible job at it. I saw an opportunity and just jumped on in. In the past couple of months, my wife, Akiko, has joined me on a more prominent basis. In the past, she was on the sidelines, helping out where she could. Now, she's in the thick of it.
The little store has been operating in it's present form for 3 years now, and in that time we've managed to become known to several tool makers and source many of the tools we sell directly from them. Anyone who's dealt with makers of products in Japan can tell you that this is not always a simple thing, as you'll usually be directed to a dealer/distributor who then works with the maker on your behalf.
We've also managed to send orders to every continent in the world. Even the big white one down south.
(You don't easily forget an address that says 'McMurdo station' on it...)
I was fortunate to make a very good connection early on with one of the tool makers in Miki city, Hyogo who then opened the door to other makers in the area.
(Miki is one of the main tool making areas of Japan. Sanjo city in Niigata is the other.)
But that's not why I'm here.
These tools need to be sharpened, and often. So naturally, I also sell sharpening stones...
As a matter of convenience, we sell Shapton, Naniwa and King stones. We source these from distributors and they're well known and popular, many customers ask for them and it makes sense to make them available. Related to stones, we also sell Atoma diamond plates and a scattering of other sharpening related items.
We also sell Sigma Power stones. We are not unique in selling these stones, as some of them are available from stores in Canada and Germany. The difference is that we sell pretty much their full line up of stones, which are the 'Select II' and 'ceramic' lines of stones, we get these stones directly from Sigma Power so have access to their full catalog (which is extensive) and we also work with Sigma Power to develop stones to fill a niche or to improve their existing line up.
And very soon we will be adding Suehiro to the stone line up. Again, we will be sourcing them directly from Suehiro and will have full access to their entire product line, which is amazingly diverse and covers almost any sharpening device you might imagine. I'm actually afraid of getting started on listing their stones, because where you have a maker like Shapton who has 10-20 stones in a 'family' and 2 or 3 families of stones, Suehiro has a similar number of stones in a family, but have over a dozen families of stones. In short, there's hundreds of the things!
But we don't do knives and we don't do natural stones. Yet.
So, that's who I am and what I do.
You can find my little corner of the interweb at http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store.
That's about all for right now, and if there's anything you'd like to ask of me or something you'd like to know about, please don't hesitate to ask.
Stu.
I suppose I should make mention of who I am and what I do. Just having a name like 'Tools from Japan' doesn't sound too interesting to a forum full of knife folks, so...
My name is Stuart Tierney, and I run a small internet store called Tools from Japan. The name pretty much explains it all, and in my case it's predominantly woodworking tools. As many of you know, Japanese edged devices tend to be quite decent (!) and while you're all aware that Japanese knives are usually quite good, it also means that Japanese tools are equally good and sought after.
I started up the store because, living in Japan (Kagawa in my case) I had fairly easy access to tools and related items and wasn't convinced that the usual purveyors of tools were doing the best possible job at it. I saw an opportunity and just jumped on in. In the past couple of months, my wife, Akiko, has joined me on a more prominent basis. In the past, she was on the sidelines, helping out where she could. Now, she's in the thick of it.
The little store has been operating in it's present form for 3 years now, and in that time we've managed to become known to several tool makers and source many of the tools we sell directly from them. Anyone who's dealt with makers of products in Japan can tell you that this is not always a simple thing, as you'll usually be directed to a dealer/distributor who then works with the maker on your behalf.
We've also managed to send orders to every continent in the world. Even the big white one down south.
(You don't easily forget an address that says 'McMurdo station' on it...)
I was fortunate to make a very good connection early on with one of the tool makers in Miki city, Hyogo who then opened the door to other makers in the area.
(Miki is one of the main tool making areas of Japan. Sanjo city in Niigata is the other.)
But that's not why I'm here.
These tools need to be sharpened, and often. So naturally, I also sell sharpening stones...
As a matter of convenience, we sell Shapton, Naniwa and King stones. We source these from distributors and they're well known and popular, many customers ask for them and it makes sense to make them available. Related to stones, we also sell Atoma diamond plates and a scattering of other sharpening related items.
We also sell Sigma Power stones. We are not unique in selling these stones, as some of them are available from stores in Canada and Germany. The difference is that we sell pretty much their full line up of stones, which are the 'Select II' and 'ceramic' lines of stones, we get these stones directly from Sigma Power so have access to their full catalog (which is extensive) and we also work with Sigma Power to develop stones to fill a niche or to improve their existing line up.
And very soon we will be adding Suehiro to the stone line up. Again, we will be sourcing them directly from Suehiro and will have full access to their entire product line, which is amazingly diverse and covers almost any sharpening device you might imagine. I'm actually afraid of getting started on listing their stones, because where you have a maker like Shapton who has 10-20 stones in a 'family' and 2 or 3 families of stones, Suehiro has a similar number of stones in a family, but have over a dozen families of stones. In short, there's hundreds of the things!
But we don't do knives and we don't do natural stones. Yet.
So, that's who I am and what I do.
You can find my little corner of the interweb at http://www.toolsfromjapan.com/store.
That's about all for right now, and if there's anything you'd like to ask of me or something you'd like to know about, please don't hesitate to ask.
Stu.
