The tenacity of white Hayate

For the final touch, I was working on both the small blades of the Hayate and White Hayate. Even if they’re crafted by the same blacksmith, the character of the knives can be entirely different depending on the material used.

There’s a subtle and supple quality to Hayate, revealing itself amidst its sharpness. On the other hand, White Hayate takes sharpness to the extreme. While I had a good understanding of the resilience in Hayate, White Hayate had many unknown aspects, so I decided to check the convex edge.

I managed to create a thread-like convex edge, just like in the picture! It’s been my understanding that white steel types have a crispy texture, but to see this kind of curvature… it suggests quite a bit of resilience.

While I can imagine such a feature with Hoyaki in the white steel series, this was quite surprising (＾＾).

Due to this resilience, I believe white steel provides excellent edge retention. Perhaps it’s because they’re crafted with such precision and care, resulting in this remarkable resilience and weightiness.

Come to think of it, that “never-before-seen creation” we unveiled had the feeling of blue steel even though it’s made of white steel… Quite intriguing, isn’t it? We’ve been receiving various inquiries about it, but please bear with us a little longer.

Hibishugyo

• 2008-01-30