Name: How Japanese Knives are Made
Uploaded: 2020-03-20T02:10:41.000Z
Duration: 15 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

which is a designated Japanese traditional craft.

and uchihamono literally means "hitting blade".

was searching for the perfect place to make katanas,

found Echizen had the best water and ingredients,

that to this day local blade makers worship him at his shrine.

How do you make one of these works of art?

If my grandpa wasn't a knife maker, my father wouldn't have been one either,

Counting from my grandpa, I'm the third generation.

So naturally, from when I was small, I thought I would grow up to make knives.

One of my main goals of the visit to the factory,

was to learn how these hand crafted knives were different to mass produced ones.

but now steel makers do the three layers or the damascus cladding.

So we're going to hit and expand those thick materials.

In the heat of the summer, it's extremely hot.

In the depths of winter, it's so cold that their hands are frozen,

and they can't easily use their hands to eat.

So with these tough conditions, young people didn't stay.

I think making knives is the most interesting.

I really wanted to do the work, so I was hoping to get this job.

And when I actually started, I found it very difficult,

but as I got better, I was happy and delighted to level up my skills.

I'm really grateful to have this great job.

I feel that making knives with automated machines is impersonal.

A knife makers loeses that connection when using automated machines.

There are several small factory buildings to accommodate the many, many steps

In the past, knife makers used to only use a hammer,

but we replaced it and now forge with this.

The surface of this plain rough metal becomes smooth when it's hit.

We also fix and straighten it if it's bent.

But once it's been hit, it gets harder and tougher.

We just don't buy metal and stamp knives out.

It is totally diffrent from those ones at a glance.

Our knives are thick on the back and thin on the blade.

This might be confusing, but they do stamp out the knives at this point.

The difference from mass produced knives,

is that they hand forge and shape the knife beforehand.

The temperature for hardening is about 1060°C.

Figuratively speaking, here we are going to put life into the knives.

In this step, we are making the metal hard and strong,

I thought that Greg-san may want to try this step.

Returning back to the start, they let me try out the first step.

When watching from a distance, it looked so effortless.

But if my face isn't showing it well enough,

You had to simultaneously use both precision and strength.

Apprentices learn each station one at a time,

and it takes years and years to be able to do it all from start to finish.

and even though I tried so many times, I couln't do it well.

Although I still have so much stuff to learn,

I want that great feeling of achieivement,

When I entered this field about 40 years ago,

Although they had immense skill to pass on,

they had to close their businesses because of no apprentices to work with.

So I was wondering and asking why they weren't training apprentices.

Those owners said the main reaason is the work couldn't earn them a living.

If you see sparks, you are damaging the product,

so you need to use water when sharpening the knives.

We grind the blade untill this line disappears.

This middle one has only been grinded once so far,

but compared to the ones on the side, you can cleary see the difference.

If you haven't noticed, each process often has multiple stations.

So while this may look like the same footage,

On this one you can see a horizontal line from the grinding.

You may not be able to see it but actually it's not smooth.

This has to be smooth otherwise it won't cut.

To make it more attractive, we take off the handle and weld on a new design.

or materials that other makers wouldn't use now.