Brent Ring
03-25-2012, 11:33 PM
My wife and I recently went to Japan to pick up my son who was finishing his 2 year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We spent a week touring the areas in the greater Tokyo area where he served, and enjoyed visting and meeting many of the people he knew closely. We stayed overnight with one family and were treated to traditional Japanese futon beds, and breakfast. A little different than ours for sure, be very fun tasty, and enjoyable. While in Tokyo, I went to Tokyu Hands, a big DIY store. I picked up a larger dozuki saw, and a small, angled should plane, which I will add photos of later.
Our second week took us to Kyoto, where we saw some of the more historical areas of Japan. For me, one of the big highlights of the Kyoto area was stopping at Shigeharu ( on recommendation from fellow Creeker Mark Wyatt). Shigeharu-san makes all of his own knives, and other cutting tools, including planes, chisels, etc, or hamono. Hamono refers to all kinds of cutting tools such as chef knives, carpenter planes, saws and chisels, sculptor chisels and files, kimono fabric and paper cutting blades, ikebana and gardener clippers and even modern scissors and fingernail clippers.
Anyway, I purchased a smoothing plane and a goose-neck chisel for around $300. He made the irons for both tools. Here are some photos, one with me standing next to Shigeharu-san, and one with my son and I in the front of the shop. If you end up in Kyoto, his shop is located on Horikawa Street between Sanjo and Oike Streets, on the east side. It is about a 5 minute walk south from the Nijo Castle gate.
See the following link for more information http://openkyoto.com/stores/real-kyoto-knives-aritsugu-knives.html
228049228050
Our second week took us to Kyoto, where we saw some of the more historical areas of Japan. For me, one of the big highlights of the Kyoto area was stopping at Shigeharu ( on recommendation from fellow Creeker Mark Wyatt). Shigeharu-san makes all of his own knives, and other cutting tools, including planes, chisels, etc, or hamono. Hamono refers to all kinds of cutting tools such as chef knives, carpenter planes, saws and chisels, sculptor chisels and files, kimono fabric and paper cutting blades, ikebana and gardener clippers and even modern scissors and fingernail clippers.
Anyway, I purchased a smoothing plane and a goose-neck chisel for around $300. He made the irons for both tools. Here are some photos, one with me standing next to Shigeharu-san, and one with my son and I in the front of the shop. If you end up in Kyoto, his shop is located on Horikawa Street between Sanjo and Oike Streets, on the east side. It is about a 5 minute walk south from the Nijo Castle gate.
See the following link for more information http://openkyoto.com/stores/real-kyoto-knives-aritsugu-knives.html
228049228050