Hawatari - japanese knife specialist

🔥 New Toginon 万 Ichiman honesuki line🔥

Authentic Japanese kitchen knives and sharpening equipment directly imported from Japan available from our webshop! Link to the webshop is found in bio!
____________________________________
Our new Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom line
includes honesuki knives of 2 different lengths - with 15cm and 14cm long blades. Both are made with handles that are handcrafted from Mahogany & European beech. Our handles are also featuring black spacers and a mosaic pin.

Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom honesuki knives are designed to be very light and easy to use. The weight of our honesuki knives is kept at an incredible 102+ grams only! You will barely feel holding this knife when working with it! (NOTE: every knife is handmade, so the actual weight of each knife can be slightly different).
__________________________________
Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives are a result of Japanese/Finnish collaboration. Blades are forged in Seki, Japan. Handcrafting handles and all the finishing tasks are done in our workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives are forged from Japanese SUS-440C high carbon stainless steel and are hardened to 58-59 HRC. These knives are forged very thin and are finished with mirror polish technique.

One interesting feature of Toginon 万 Ichiman knives is their asymmetric grind. The backside of the blade is flat, but the frontside is carefully broken into 2 bevels, around the middle of the blade. This structure resembles "kataba" - Japanese single bevel knives. The idea is to promote easier food release when working with a mirror polished blade.

The meaning for the name 万 Ichiman is rooted in the Japanese counting system. In Japan 10.000 is a separate counting unit (ichi man - 1 man). 20.000 is counted as 2 man, 100.000 is 10 man and so on. Historically 一万円 (1 man yen) was big money and carried a meaning of "high value". That is the way we choose to translate our branding mark 万 Ichiman - "valuable".
_______________________________
Honesuki knives from our new Toginon 万 Ichiman line are available in both "Butcher knives" and "Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom" sections of our webshop!

Another recent scissors job: a set with 3 cutting scissors and 1 thinning.

Not many pictures in this post - I will mostly focus here on suggestions/tips about maintaining barber scissors (by barbers themselves that is).

In this set 2 scissors were made by Kai Corporation (Kai Corporation of Seki is the biggest cutlery manufacturer in Japan). The remaining scissors (1 cutting and thinning) were German made, manufactured in Solingen.

These scissors weren't perfectly cared for, unfortunately. Lots of dirt collected at the screw parts (between the blades) and was preventing smooth cutting action. We've cleaned up everything, sharpened and oiled the scissors. Extra attention was given to the screw parts, as they get a lot of friction and should work effortlessly.
__________________________________
Now moving on to tips about maintenance.

A sharpener's job often includes tasks that aren't directly connected to making sharp edges. These tasks focus on maintenance and repair of customer's cutlery tools. It is mostly noticeable with barber scissors, as they see a lot of continuous use. When returning scissors back to the
customer, they must be in prime condition, both edge-wise and mechanically as well.

Years ago, when I just started to sharpen cutlery for other people, I was surprised to notice how little professionals knew about the tools that they were using (both pro chefs who work with knives and barbers who use scissors).

High quality barber scissors are usually seriously expensive tools, with prices easily reaching up to 1+ thousand euros. By providing your tools with a bit of regular care you can extend the life of your scissors and always have them in prime condition.

While some scissors require special tools to put them apart, many modern barber scissors can be opened up without any tools at all. It is highly recommended to regularly put apart your scissors, clean them and add a little bit of fresh oil to the moving parts.

A typical motto among Japanese craftmen says that your tools are a part of your soul. If you take good care of your tools, they will in turn take good care of you by making your work efficient and smooth.

A number of scissors sharpening jobs have been done lately, here is the most pleasing one of them.

Four Mizutani scissors in for sharpening: 2 thinning scissors from Acro series, and a couple of cutting scissors from 2 different powder metal series by Mizutani. Most of these scissors belong to one of our loyal customers. If you need a high quality hair cut in Helsinki, make sure to visit Takuya san at

Scissors were very well cared for. Even though there were some issues with both cutting scissors, it was a pleasure to run these fellows on our set of sharpening stones. Shorter cutting scissors needed more material removal on the front side of the blades and, after sharpening, we've put these through our usual polishing routine to remove all the sharpening marks.
___________________________________
A personal remark: it is highly recommended to keep a separate set of whetstones to be used for different sharpening tasks. At our sharpening workshop we use separate whetstone sets for scissors, double bevel knives and single bevel knives. One more set is reserved for woodworking tools, even though this set shares some stones (mostly naturals) with the double bevel stone setup.

Different types of blades put different demands on whetstones and, by keeping separate stone sets, one can better maintain his/hers stones and can more easier keep them always in prime condition.

When it comes to barber scissors, since many years ago we have used stones from Heinkel Zwilling brand. These stones are very wide - 8+ cm in width - and they easily cover the entire blade (which is especially important when working on the backside of the scissors). Stones from Heinkel Zwilling are very durable and are available in several grits raging from 240 up to 8000. We can personally highly recommend these stones for sharpening scissors.
_____________________________________
#包丁 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #ハサミ #鋏

🔥 New Toginon 万 Ichiman sujihiki line 🔥

Authentic Japanese kitchen knives and sharpening equipment directly imported from Japan available from our webshop! Link to the webshop is found in bio!
_____________________________________
Our new Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom line
also includes sujihiki knives. Sujihiki knives are traditionally used for slicing meat into thin pieces - perfect ingredients for dishes like 焼肉 (yakiniku) or しゃぶしゃぶ (shabu-shabu). Handles for our new sujihiki knives are handcrafted from African padauk & European oak, with black spacers and mosaic pins added as well.

Knives from our Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom line are designed to be very light and easy to use. The weight of a sujihiki knife is kept at an 95+ grams only! You will barely feel holding this knife when working with it! (NOTE: every knife is handmade, so the actual weight of each knife can be slightly different).
__________________________________
Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives are a result of Japanese/Finnish collaboration. Blades are forged in Seki, Japan. Handcrafting the handles and all the finishing tasks are done in our workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Blades are forged from Japanese SUS-440C high carbon stainless steel and are hardened to 58-59 HRC. The blades are ground very thin with a slight asymmetric geometry and are finished with mirror polish technique.

We wanted to give a little insight into the meaning behind our branding kanji 万 (Ichiman) that is used for marking our handles (and that gave the name to our Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom line). The roots to the name are found in the Japanese counting system. In the West 10.000 is just another number, but in Japan it as a counting unit of it's own (ichi man - 1 man). 20.000 is counted as 2 man, 100.000 is 10 man and so on. Historically 一万円 (1 man yen) was big money and the number carried a meaning of "high value". That is the way we choose to translate our branding mark 万 Ichiman - "valuable".
_______________________________
Sujihiki knives from our new Toginon 万 Ichiman line are available in both "Slicers" and "Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom" sections of our webshop!

A couple of Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom santoku knives brought in for their first re-sharpening. One of the knives ended up taking several dishwasher baths and lost its handle as the result of that.

We do actually keep in our storage some backup handles for our 万 Ichiman Custom knives. So in this case it was an easy swap for a new handle that was glued on the original blade. The blade also got a few micro rust spots because of the dishwasher treatment...

The second knife got a facelift for the handle. Both knives were sharpened on a Japanese synthetic stone progression.

Because the handle replacement was already pre-manufactured, it took only a few days inside our workshop before knives could be returned to the customer. In case we would need to manufacture a new handle it would take considerably longer before the knife would be ready to be returned to the customer.
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #三徳包丁 #研ぎ #砥石

Fixed a couple of my own kurikogatana knives.

These kurikogatana knives belong to my toolset that is used in handcrafting wa handles. During last huge handle making project they become dull. The bigger kogatana also lost it's tip (this happened right in the middle of a cutting task).

Re-ground a new tip, and sharpened both knives on a mixed synthetic/natural stone progression. First natural stone step that I usually use (after synthetic stones) is a Finnish natural stone from Wästikivi brand. It's a fantastic starter for a natural stone progression, as it is aggressive enough to cut down scratches from synthetic stones, yet mild enough for laying a good foundation for the following steps on more fine-grained Japanese naturals.
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #小刀 #天然砥石

🔥 New Toginon 万 Ichiman gyuto line 🔥

Authentic Japanese kitchen knives and sharpening equipment directly imported from Japan available from our webshop! Link in bio / "View shop" button!
____________________________________
Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives are a result of Japanese/Finnish collaboration. Blades are forged in Seki city, Japan, by a small company and made from Japanese SUS-440C high carbon stainless steel. The blades are hardened to a respectable 58-59 HRC, are ground very thin and are finished with mirror polish technique.

One interesting feature of Toginon 万 Ichiman knives is their asymmetric grind. The backside of the blade is flat, but the frontside is carefully broken into 2 bevels, around the middle of the blade. This structure resembles "kataba" - Japanese single bevel knives. The idea is to promote easier food release when working with a mirror polished blade. Shinogi line on these blades is nicely rounded, no parts of it prevent effortless cutting. These are very well designed knives that are efficient, elegant and durable.

The blades are made into knives in our workshop in Helsinki, Finland. Our "万 Ichiman" wa handles are handcrafted from African padauk hardwood & European oak. The branding kanji 万 can be translated as "valuable" or "rich".

We offer Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom gyuto knives in 2 different sizes - with 27cm and 21cm long blades. Our knives are designed to be incredibly light and easy to use. The weight of a 27cm gyuto stands at 185+ grams only and 21cm gyuto weights just little bit over 100 gram! (NOTE: every knife is handmade, so the actual weight of each knife can be slightly different).
_______________________________
Gyuto knives from our new Toginon 万 Ichiman line are available in both "Chef knives" and "Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom" sections of our webshop!
__________________________________
#包丁 #工芸 #手作り #食 #万 #肉

A fairly rare sight up here - a couple of Aritsugu knives were brought to our workshop for sharpening. Both of these santoku knives are forged by Aritsugu of Kyoto.

The history of Aritsugu brand stretches back hundreds of years, all the way to 1560, when their shop in Kyoto was founded by a local swordsmith. Today Aritsugu, along with Kiya (of Tokyo), are probably 2 of the most famous and popular cutlery brands in Japan.
___________________________________
These santoku knives were send to us by mail from another city, actually, as the owner wanted us to sharpen her knives. Both knives were forged as 3 layer laminates, with stainless "jacket" and carbon steel core. The smaller santoku was forged as a sanmai laminate, and the bigger one was forged as a warikomi laminate. What's the difference between them? Well, look at the picture with oxidated spines - on the smaller knife the oxidation line goes all the way along the spine, yet on the bigger knife the line finishes fairly close to the tip. On this knife carbon steel does not extend all the way inside the blade, because of of the forgiving method used (warikomi).

The owner wanted us to keep the patina, only sharpen the knives. Both were sharpened on a synthetic 4 stone progression, the microbevel was added on a Japanese natural stone from Kyoto area. The knives are now in the hands of the owner and are again working hard in her kitchen. 👍
_____________________________________
#包丁 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #有次 #三徳包丁

🔥 New line of Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives is added to our webshop 🔥

Authentic Japanese kitchen knives and sharpening equipment directly imported from Japan available from our webshop! Link to the webshop is found in bio!
__________________________
We have added an entirely new line of our Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives to the webshop. This line is made with handles that are following the style of our "Oak" & "Burned" nakiri lines that we released last year. The handles are made with a ferulle/bottom piece combination, mosaic pins are added to the handles as well.

Our new line of Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives includes gyuto knives of 2 different sizes, santoku knives in 2 different styles, sujihiki knives and honesuki butcher knives in 2 different sizes.

In the coming weeks we will present our new Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives in more detail, including video presentations of our knives in action. Stay tuned, it will be exiting 😀
______________________________
Toginon 万 Ichiman Custom knives are found in a separate section of our webshop. Follow the link in bio to get to our webshop!
__________________________________
#包丁 #工芸 #手作り #食 #万

We're back in Finland and our services - both the webshop and sharpening services - will operate as normal!

Another huge knife making project.

During spring we have received a new batch of knife blades from Japan and each one of them needed a handle. After outfitting the blades with handles and making them into complete knives, more tasks were performed before these knives could become ready to sell product. Fine tuning, sharpening, making knife boxes, putting together tsuru origami, photoshoot, fine tuning pictures for the webshop, filming Instagram photo/video material...

Several dozens of knives were handcrafted in total and we started working on this huge project already at the beginning of March, when the blades were still on their way to Finland. Last final touches for the presentations were done within hours before our departure for Japan in early June. Now everything is finally complete 😅

In the pictures you can see some manufacturing steps. Majority of the work was done manually, with handheld Japanese woodworking tools (some AC/DC equipment was also used).

Pic 1 - We made 2 different handle versions - oak/padauk and mahogany/beech combo.

Pic 2 - Pre-cut blanks for ferulle & end piece parts on the right, main body parts on the left. 2 big bags full of them.

Pic 3 - Making new mosaic pins (starting point).

Pic 4 - Ready mosaic pin bars. We try to use our own in-house solutions over commercial alternatives as much as possible. This way we can keep our costs down, which translates into more attractive prices for our customers. The total cost for 1,5 meters of these DIY mosaic pins stands at 20+ euro. The same amount of commercial mosaic pins will easily cost hundreds of euro.

Pic 5 - "Activating" the grain in oil bath: before and after.

Pic 6 - Finished knives are hand-sharpened on Japanese whetstones for a razor sharp edge.

Starting from next Tuesday we will present our recent batch of 万 Ichiman knives in more detail!
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #万

Japanese sushi dining.

Traditional Japanese cuisine consists of many delicious dishes and - contrary to a common foreign belief - Japanese don't eat sushi everyday. In fact, for the Japanese, sushi and sashimi are meant for a special occasion.

Sashimi consists of thin raw fish slices and is generally served with rice. Sushi is made by combining rice (that is seasoned with sweet vinegar) with thin sliced raw fish or other ingredients: cooked fish, vegetables, egg, seaweed and more.

Two main variants of sushi in Japan are nigiri sushi (originated from Tokyo) and oshizushi - pressed box sushi. Oshizushi originates from Osaka.

Today nigiri sushi is a common dish, available virtually everywhere in the world. I am not an expert on the matter of sushi, but I can sure share my opinion based on my experience with enjoying sushi in Japan.

Sushi is meant to be eaten fresh. When you buy takeaway sushi in Japan, the exact making time (to the hour) is marked on the sushi box.

There is a common misconception abroad that the main ingredient of sushi is fish. In reality "gohan" (rice) is the main ingredient of sushi. The key to a tasty sushi is always based on the quality of the rice - it must be soft and humid enough. The nigiri fish toppings or maki fillings are only adding a different accent, but they are side dishes so to say.

The world of sushi craftsmanship in Japan is very conservative. A typical sushi chef apprenticeship in Japan can take up to 10 years. Knowing how to cook rice perfectly, preserve it's humidity and make sushi pieces with correct amount of pressure takes years to master.

I want to finish this post with an advertisement of sorts - there actually is an authentic Japanese sushiya in Helsinki. The restaurant is called Sushi Wagocoro and is based in Töölö area, near National Opera. Koichi san, who runs the place, is a real Japanese sushi craftsman who has settled in Helsinki, years ago. Our family, and the entire Japanese society of Helsinki prefers to enjoy our sushi at

If you want to have a real feast for the senses and enjoy real Japanese sushi in Helsinki, Sushi Wagocoro is THE place to go to!

It's almost time to go back to Finland but the
knives were just keep on coming in. 😀

A couple of knives were brought in. One of them was a santoku by Kai Corporation, and the other one was - surprise, surprise - a funayuki by Murray Carter from

This is actually the first knife by Murray Carter that I've got to sharpen, and to have this encounter in Tokyo, out of all places, it's just unbelievable!

What can I say - it is a very well made blade. It has a super thin grind with almost no primary bevel at all - just a flat grind almost from the spine towards the edge, with a tiny microbevel added. This knife must be super efficient!

During several years of having this knife, the owners tried to keep the original angles as much as possible. From me they wanted a few corrections performed and a sharp edge too. I feel very honoured every time Japanese locals consider me being worthy of making their blades sharp. いつもありがとうございます皆さん。🙏.

The only miss I found with this Carter blade was a bit uneven grind at the tip, on the backside of the blade. Shirogami 1 core was almost completely eaten up at the tip, and the edge was going into the soft steel of the cladding on the backside (pic. 3). Did a bit of thinning at that spot to expose the core (pic. 4).

I keep a fairly modest whetstone set at our place in Tokyo, with a quite aggressive low grit arato stone, so the 400 grit Chosera, that I purchased recently (to add it to my setup back home in Finland) was of great help in this thinning job.

After getting things ready, did a 1000 -> 3000 step for both knives. From there Carter funayuki was polished/sharpened on a suita natural that was shown in an earlier post. (Got this stone as a present, actually, at the conclusion of my sharpening course with Fujiwara sensei, a few weeks ago). Despite inclusions this suita is a very good stone. As for inclusions - I will deal with them later in my workshop, after getting home... 😉
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #日本 #東京 #砥石 #研師 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #三徳包丁

Omamori (this post is not knife related).

If looking from a Christian perspective, Japan shapes up as a unique phenomenon. When Christianity has expanded to other regions, it has destroyed and replaced all the local religions that existed there before it's arrival. In Japan, on the other hand, 2 different religions - Shinto and Zen Buddhism - co-exist peacefully, in harmony and mutual symbiosis.

Zen Buddhism arrived to Japan from China, more than 1000+ years ago. At that time Japanese traditional Shinto religion already existed in Japan for centuries.

I will not delve into the history or spiritual aspects of both religions, otherwise this post will greatly overexceed the allowed character limit. What I want to bring up in this post is the subject of omamori.

御守 (omamori) is translated from Japanese as "protector". Omamori are amulets that, through a specific ritual, are "charged" with the power of the Gods.

Omamori are sold at shrines & temples. Most shrines/temples have their own design for omamori. Omamori themselves contain different "powers": some are good for staying healthy, others are good for business activities, for passing coming exams and so on.

Even though I am not a religious person at all, I do find Japanese religious traditions very cute and appealing. Omamori are beautifully handcrafted objects and during my 1,5+ decade of exposure to Japanese culture I have owned many omamori.

Omamori generally have a "best before" date, after which they should be returned to a shrine/temple, where they will be ceremonially burned. This way the power of the Gods, that is kept within omamori, will be given back to the Gods.

Because of COVID, our last visit to Japan was - unbelievably!!! - whole 5 years ago. This time we have returned our old omamori that we had from before and got several new omamori from a couple of famous shrines. Next time we will be returning to Japan, we will continue the cycle of omamori in the manner it is supposed to be followed...
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #日本 #東京 #浅草橋 #神道 #神社 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #寺 #御守 #お守り

Went for some personal shopping...
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #日本 #東京 #有次 #築地 #研師 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #買物

Another practical tip about whetstone maintenance.

This post is tightly connected with our previous post. After a thinning job done recently, the rough stone used during that job has become uneven and needed a correction performed on its surface.

Remember: during sharpening, you aren't only grinding away metal from a blade. Your whetstone is also wearing out. Sharpening on uneven stone is challenging, especially for a beginner. To make a whetstone flat again you can use an array of different tools: diamond plates, special "truing" stones, glass surface with carborundum powder and more.

What to do if you have none of these tools? Well, people have been flattening whetstones for centuries without any of the tools that are commercially available today. Here is an old, time proven and very efficient method (in picture 2 we just started, in picture 3 the stone is flat just a few minutes later).

For this method you can f.ex. use a concrete block, like a sidewalk. If it's structure is full of cavities it's even better, as they will speed things up. Back in Finland I use a big granite block with grooves cut into it's surface with a diamond cutting disc. The grooves are shaving whetstone material more quickly.

The other thing you need is a bucket of water, to regularly wet your stone. Now start scrubbing the concrete with your stone. It takes longer for harder ceramic stones, but, regardless of their manufacturing method, any whetstone can be made flat with this method. Remember to clean up after yourself once you are done! (pic. 4)

I have already presented this method a couple of times before, around 4 years ago. Those who are interested in a more detailed video presentation can scroll back to our posts from around May 2020. We also have a fairly detailed video with this flattening method available on our YouTube channel.
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #日本 #東京 #千葉 #砥石 #研師 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食

Another couple of practical tips for freehand enthusiast.
_____________________________________
Visited relatives in Chiba and helped to fix a santoku knife that became crooked and way too thick behind the edge.

Oba-chan is very good at taking care of her knives and is actually a skilled sharpener herself, at the tender age of 80+! But this job was probably a bit too difficult for her to fix on her own, so I was more than happy to lend her a helping hand.

Used her ホム砥石 rough/medium combo whetstone for this task. ホム砥石 or home toishi is generally shorter, narrower and softer whetstone, intended for home use. It actually became a challenging task in the end, as it took me nearly 2 hours of continuous grinding to get everything done. Was very happy to see oba-chan pleased, after she got to try out the knife. ♥️
_____________________________________
Ok, here are the promised tips for you guys:

1) It is good to keep your stone elevated, as it frees up enough space between the table top and the top of the whetstone, that you are sharpening on. More free space -> more freedom of movement -> more easier will it be to sharpen.

If you have more than 1 stone at hand, put one stone on top of the other. To prevent the stones from moving around during sharpening, put a lightly wet towel under the bottom stone and then extend the towel in-between the stones as well. This should do the trick (pic.2 is for reference).

2) Use toguso wisely (toguso is the dark coloured dense liquid that appears on the stone during sharpening - see pic. 3). Remember - toguso is your friend, keep enough of it there, as it will speed things up for you!

Will share yet another tip will later this week 😉
_____________________________________________
#包丁 #日本 #東京 #千葉 #砥石 #研師 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #食 #三徳包丁

This topic is not knife related.

Ever since my first visit to Japan in 2008 (平成20年) I've completely fallen in love with Japan, it's people and their culture. Put it simple I've become "Japan otaku" of sorts. My knife related interest and activities grew along the way, but my interest in Japan is so much more wider than just the world of Japanese knives.

One of sources of interest that I've instantly developed strong following for is the world of Japanese cuisine, both in the restaurant world and, more importantly, Japanese every day dining.

On exiting moment of the Japanese dining traditions (for me) are traditions and rules that relate to chopsticks. Chopsticks - as exiting subject they are on their own in Japan - are more often than not accompanied by a small support item, called hashioki (箸置き).

During these many years a small tradition has developed in our family - from every trip to Japan we've brought back home with us one more interesting hashioki item (and sometimes more than one 😀). This collection is consisting of many items and is constantly growing.

This time our hashioki is coming with us from the city of Beppu - a famous onsen (hot spring) town from the island of Kyushu. Beppu is famous for it's bamboo craftsmen that create various items from bamboo. These include baskets, plates, cups, chopsticks and much much much more.

As because of another Instagram screw up I wasn't been able to add multiple photos in good resolution to this post, with pictures of different bamboo items from Beppu craftsmen, I will add a link to the website of Beppu bamboo crafts center instead. On their website you can see many interesting items and information about bamboo craftsmanship of Beppu in general.

https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/717/

#日本 #別府 #温泉 # 竹 #木工 #工芸 #手作り #箸置き