Sakai Knife Festival 2016
On Saturday, February 13th, I went to the Sakai Knife Festival with a customer who came all the way from Nagoya.
The festival mainly featured kitchen knives for home use, but there were also professional-grade knives on display. Some customers were purchasing knives directly after speaking with the blacksmiths and sharpeners who made them.
The knife sharpening repair corner was incredibly popular, with a huge number of kitchen knives brought in—it looked like they had their hands full (Lol).
I was watching from the sidelines, thinking, “The knife they’re sharpening now… it must be tough to get a proper edge on it.” At the same time, I was observing and learning from how the craftsman approached the sharpening process.
It was a good reminder that fiddling around too much while sharpening doesn’t lead to great results (Lol).
At the outdoor corner, the Togashi family demonstrated traditional forging techniques. Seeing them forge with hand hammers was impressive—it’s hard work! Can you believe this method was used to make knives up until the early Showa era? Truly fascinating!
The lively mic performance was handled by none other than Master Togashi Kenji himself, while the actual demonstration was performed by his son!
After chatting with a few craftsmen, I eventually left the venue.
It was a bit disappointing, though, that there weren’t any natural whetstone vendors this time…
- 2016-02-15
