Are AO and Shiro being cancelled?

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Uncle Danny

Its $4/month for these sticky feet
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Was talking to a fellow knife nerd and we was just kicking some dirt around, and he mentioned that Hitachi steel maybe had plans to shut down the production of blue and white steel?

Anyone got info? and now the fun part.

What would your speculations be, as regarding to substitute iron? What would the Japanese knife makers use?
 
It's been discussed for quite a while now but there's been no move in that direction that I've heard. Just internet speculation. I would however, be at all surprised for it to start costing makers more.
 
Vintage Swedish steel for everyone!!
Composition was much less controlled in those days, even with Swedish ore. From time to time you see with Sheffields, Solinger or Thiers stuff from the twenties, all from Swedish steel, migrating monster carbides. If it appears at the edge, no fun: you have to remove 1-2mm of steel. If it's deeper, say at 1cm, 3/8", it's likely to cause a hairline breakage and the knife is lost.
 
Didn't Hitachi get acquired by private equity? That's usually the harbinger of higher prices, lower quality, and general enshittification.

Bain Capital bought them a year or two back.

Sal Glesser said Spyderco was concerned enough about their ZDP-189 supply that they dropped it altogether and converted over to K390.
 
Hitachi Metals became Proterial.

Yasugi Specialty Steels still features prominently on their site.

https://www.proterial.com/e/products/#nav-products
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