Originally Posted by
Vincent Tai
When I heard Usui plane my mind jumped to Usui Kengo. But then I don't think that the Usui Kengo would get mixed up. Also kinda past Hollywood pricing with him gone and his already Hollywood equivalent fame before his passing. Interesting about Stan disliking Funahiro. So at J tool recently did his test on the Sukemaru chisels. He had sent me an email about something else and included that he was going to carry these too a little ways back - coincidentally right after Sukemaru had just gotten mentioned here. I am not in a position to buy any tools but like keeping up to date for possible future luck and the test itself was interesting enough but near the end So added something about Funatsu and the world revolving around him. But then tempered it with "he's never arrogant" and you need to get to know him etc sort of thing.
back to non gossip: From So's review on his site
"Sukemaru's Usui-san (the brand owner cum head smith, Yoshio Usui-san) insists that this is made with WS2, I've double checked this, that they can only offer WS2 option, but..., I don't know why, it just very very very much feels like harder and well made WS1 (not the poorly made decarburised ones), but I just can't think of any reason for anyone to want to claim something is WS2 when it's actually WS1..., so I guess it IS WS2, but it's just so darn hard!!!!!!! If you were told that it's WS1, you'd NEVER doubt it, I know I will NEVER!"
This grabbed my attention. So also put these at Ichiros and Kamon Kiyohisas hardness. This speaks highly of this smith's skill. As long as they're hard and decently tough I don't care if its #1 or #2. #2 would achieve Rc 65-66 just fine. Hell even western steels like 1095 can (as quenched before temper). Having the skill to HT in a charcoal forge while avoiding grain growth and having the confidence to leave the chisels at such high hardness going in contrast with the mainstream hobbyist hardnesses... I am jealous.
On the topic of the smith: "But just so you know, the smith who is working on this WS Oiire, he seems to be very old, over 80 according to the rumors, so it won't be too long at all until I won't be able to supply, it could be like next month that he'll announce his retirement, really, so if you are interested, try to get all the sizes you need, and even a back up set or two to last your craftsman lifetime. It should be totally worth it. I mean just look at the price........ If I had enough fund and space to stock, I would order 10~20 sets (of course as a seller I mean, not user, two or three sets will suffice as a user.)"
Sound's like a real old school smith like Stans... I really would be sad if he retired within the half year; another big motivation for me to make money. And start swinging my smithing hammers more...
I also ran across another thread on a place I can't link; "Anyway, about the oire-nomis I'm looking for. I know that Yoshio Usui (Sukemaru) doesn't make them himself (he used to in the past), he subcontracts them out to another blacksmith. These chisels almost as good as the later stuff from Kiyotada but at a third of the price. Very well forged white steel 1 at 65-66HRC and very tough. The same blacksmith also makes chisels for a company called Jindaiko-honpo, a wholesaler Sanjo-shi. The problem is that they don't sell directly to customers overseas. They have an exclusive agreement with a guy called Stanley Covington to handle all their overseas customers. I tried to buy them with Tenso but when they saw my non-Japanese name (or maybe they know what Tenso is) they cancelled the sale. Of course not all stores are like this so I just need to find one that sells Sukemaru white steel oire-nomis."
Could it be that Stan's guy is Yoshio's guy too? Just a thought. Would be pretty cool. The quote above is 4 months old so perhaps knowledge changed. Maybe the person above is a member of our forum. I kinda hesitated because perhaps it would be uncomfortable for the person have their anonymous ID on another forum exposed. Feel free to contact me if you want me to remove this bit.
This post is pretty unorganized and scatter brained. Add the phrase severely sleep deprived and thats me right now. I hope it's linear enough that y'all can read it. I've really liked following this thread. Does make me a little sad that Stan won't be making any more of these threads.
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