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Permalink Reply by tim payne on June 2, 2015 at 19:31

congratulations on this beauty made by Hattori.  love the Cowry-X power steel Damascus.  thanks for educating us and letting us join you on your factory visits ken.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hanner on June 2, 2015 at 19:48

my goodness Ken, first off congratulations on the knife , but secondly what a great, great story. What incredible access from a famous knifemaker.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hashimoto on June 2, 2015 at 19:55

Jan, 

He said that many people make the mistake of sharpening a convex grind the way they would other grinds. That is, working the blade at a fairly sharp opposing angle to the stone in a forward/back motion, He said that the correct way is to hold the blade much more vertically and work the blade forward in an arc matching the blade curve. This is basically how I sharpen my Fallknvens so I wasn't far off to start with,

Mr Hattori took me into his collection room which was a museum unto itself. The oldest knife I saw was a made in USA Gerber Hunter that Pete Kershaw had sent to him as a model to produce the Kershaw 10x0 line of fixed blades and folders. There were samples of these as well, The other fairly old knives were the Buck G96 sries fixed blades which he had made on order, Until then I had no idea thatBuck had ever had any knives made in Seki, since the Bucks I bought in the 1980s were all made in USA. There were aot of arge Cold Steel ssanmai's, lots of Fallknivens, Valor, Beretta, tekna, I was really surprised to learn that he had made the ATS-34 Bob Terzoula designed fighter for the Cutlery Shop under the Gryphon brand, Some Hattori knives that were displayed at the Hamomo Kaikan:

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Permalink Reply by tim payne on June 2, 2015 at 20:04

awesome displays ken!  saw that you mentioned valor and beretta brands, which I have a few of each.  enjoy your trip my friend, and thanks again for sharing your trip with us.

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Permalink Reply by John Bamford on June 3, 2015 at 12:08

I am not too keen on damascus but that Cowry X is just wonderful looking stuff . Great story Ken you sure have had a privileged tour there !!

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hashimoto on June 7, 2015 at 6:57

Stil in Japan, but Ichiro Hattori is the only knifemaker in the world that I am aware of who works with

Cowry-X powder steel. This page from Fallkniven is interesting:

http://www.fallkniven.com/sv/component/acymailing/archive/view/list...

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on June 8, 2015 at 13:37

Ken,

I wonder then if he is the maker for the AG Russell Cowry X knives also?

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hashimoto on June 8, 2015 at 16:46

Jan,

AGR has a long relationship with TakBlade (Tak Fukuta), who made and very likely still makes all AGR Seki

knives. About 10 years ago Tak Fukuta was making a couple of models using Cowry-X so I tend to think they

would have been the source, either complete one-handed knives or shipped the blades and completed in AGRs

shop. My statement sounded absolute, but Hattori is the only maker I know making cowry-x knives for the global

market. Kitano makes one or a few cowry-x hunting knives, and Katsuhisa makes cowry-X cooking knives but

I don't run into many people who know about them because they seem to be aimed at the Japanese domestic market.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on June 8, 2015 at 17:08

Ken,

Your willingness to share knowledge is greatly appreciated.  So much goes on in the knife world and not all of it here in the USA.  Sometimes knowledge like this gets lost to us unless one of us has access to archives or someone like yourself shares it.  Thank you!!

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hashimoto on June 9, 2015 at 7:39

The third museum is the Seki Kaji Denshou Kan (Seki Forge Tradition Museum). The first floor and half of the second is dedicated to traditiomal Japanese swords, including examples going back 800 years. The second floor has a large room dedicated to Knives made in Seki, both factory and custom. You might notice onre photo has a Kershaw 1050 Fied Pup and to it's left is a Blackjack.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on June 9, 2015 at 20:57

Ken,

I am truly enjoying your adventure.  I wish I was good at languages, there were many japan based makers at Blade Show I would have loved to have had a conversation with

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Permalink Reply by Ken Hashimoto on June 10, 2015 at 4:46

Jan,

I see that there are all custom Japanese knifemakers besides Rockstead listed.

Being an older person I only know Matsuda Kikuo and Hara Koji on the list.

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