Does he really use this technique on his high end blades?
Is Mazaki true son han mai?
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bahamaroot
Idiot Savant
Sounds like a question for him, not us.
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Would that change anything for you? It's such a mythical status thing but doesn't change how the knife will be to use. Hand laminated vs a steel factory should not make a difference besides bragging rights really. And as mentioned above, why wouldn't he? It's not exactly special...I don't see why anyone would lie about it. You can get knives in the 150-300 range that are hand laminated quite easily.
I assume you read the knives and stones post with a nice description about it. Again it's more of a rarity thing and you can say "my knives were laminated by hand"...but it's not going to do anything for you if a factory did it, or a maker forge welded it together. Most of Y. Tanakas knives are hand laminated and there are a billion out there, not that pricey either.
I assume you read the knives and stones post with a nice description about it. Again it's more of a rarity thing and you can say "my knives were laminated by hand"...but it's not going to do anything for you if a factory did it, or a maker forge welded it together. Most of Y. Tanakas knives are hand laminated and there are a billion out there, not that pricey either.
The cheaper stuff is pre-laminated, the expensive stuff is all by hand including the damascus
You mean hon-sanmai?
All his white steel is prelam.
Blue and dammy in house hand laminated, reflected in their price as well.
Blue and dammy in house hand laminated, reflected in their price as well.
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You put a lot of wrong info on threads you need to double check your research. I'd assume James knows what he's selling.
Mazaki Hon-Sanmai White 2 Gyuto 210/ 225/ 240 mm, with K&S Heart-shaped Ebony Handle and Wenge Wood Saya
Mazaki Sanjo by Naoki Mazaki - top quality Japanese chefs knfie - Knives and Stones
www.knivesandstones.com.au
No when i hand forge weld my knives. It increases the cutting performance by a minimum of 200%.
Coincidentally that shall be reflected in the asking price from now on.
I have owned many (too many probably) examples of his work. The knives I have owned that are honsanmai do have a more varied cladding line which would seem to be evidence of the human element at play. I also have no reason to believe they are not hon sanmai
My post was not intended as an insult to Mazaki-san (my damascus knife is arriving today!). It's just this is a very unusual and more complex method of forging, I have not seen anyone else doing this in the kitchen knife arena, and I was interested in learning more. Like anything else, this is about the level of craftsmanship as opposed to any advantage (or not) in cutting.
It’s easy to tell which knives Mazaki forge welds- he engraves 本三枚 (honsanmai) on the left side, and he’s done this with all his core steels including white2.
I don’t know if you’re using a different definition of honsanmai, and although most Japanese knives are made from prelam stock, Mazaki-san is far from the only smith welding core to clad in sanmai construction in house.
From my reading, hon san mai is different from regular san mai, which is just the cladding on either side of the core blade. Hon san mai involves a third layer of softer steel forged above the hard cutting steel core (so, I guess, it would become the spine). So the top of the knife is: cladding steel - soft iron - cladding steel.
The cutting part of the knife is cladding steel - hard cutting blade - cladding steel.
The cutting part of the knife is cladding steel - hard cutting blade - cladding steel.
Ah yeah was wondering if you meant the sword construction. This is not what Mazaki does. His knives are sanmai like everyone else’s with the honsanmai being in-house laminated. You are right that it’d be pretty rare for a knife maker to do this. The Honjouji kobuse knives from Munemasa are probably closest.
Probably makes straightening easier. And saves some core steel (not like the cost saving would be that big, especially compared to the extra time spent forge welding an extra steel into the core)
Edit: what the guy said above me makes more sense. Because i couldnt imagine someone making knives wanting to spend the time to do that. (Especially since you could just do warikomi (spelling is hard)
Edit: what the guy said above me makes more sense. Because i couldnt imagine someone making knives wanting to spend the time to do that. (Especially since you could just do warikomi (spelling is hard)
The $30 Dengjia cleaver is constructed the exact same way, it’s not magical, many rural Japanese makers will do it by themselves. 割り込み/warikomi is the word you want to look for, most knives on KnifeJapan is constructed like that, Sugimoto cleavers are also constructed the same way as can be seen here.
Thanks. Warikomi seems a little different because the same cladding steel is folded around the core. I a looking at a couple of knives from KnifeJapan made this way and you are right they are moderately priced. Hon san mai seems to be three layers (two cladding, one center the might be a different steel).
Learning about all of this has been very interesting.
Learning about all of this has been very interesting.
Not sure where you got the Hon Sanmai definition from, those are only for sword making, for Mazaki he just use it to distinguish it from his prelaminted steel, here’s a video of Kiyoshi Kato, whom Mazaki studied under for a short bit, you can see his sanmai is just regular 3 piece construction
I got the term from the actual description of his blades on the various selling sites. It was unusual to see the three words separated and that's what got me researching it.
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I can't believe you already bought a dama one...that was quick lol. Hope you like it
Yeah it’s his marketing term for hand laminated knife, not the sword making technique
Thanks everyone for the very informative responses.
Hopefully my dammy will arrive today!
Hopefully my dammy will arrive today!
You know. I think we can all agree.
true hon san mai is the friends we made along the way.
true hon san mai is the friends we made along the way.
Best translation ever!
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