With Mr. Itsuo Doi
Today, I visited Doi-san’s workshop around midday. The purpose?
To snap loads of photos, of course!
Forging work gets pretty intense, so they typically wrap up by the morning. But I managed to persuade them to let me capture the fire-making process in action in the afternoon.
When I arrived at the workshop, they were in the midst of hammering and shaping the knives, changing directions with every strike.
By the way, at this stage, since the blades haven’t been tempered yet, there’s no risk of them breaking!
For blue and white steel, if left alone, they naturally harden, so they warm them up before hammering.
I got to witness two rounds of fire-making and snapped about 300 shots in the meantime.
Good lenses may cost a pretty penny, but boy, do they deliver the goods!
The photo above captures the moment when the steel is attached to the knives. Despite the cloudy weather today, the shots came out surprisingly bright! That’s the magic of a high-quality camera.
After wrapping up the shoot, I had a chat with Doi-san about various things. It seems like Doi-san has been pondering over different aspects of knife making, discussing ideas for knives like fugu-hiki and others.
Looking ahead to the future, we talked about how at SUISIN, we’ve been promoting INOX knives known for their rust resistance, but there’s also a desire to showcase the traditional carbon steel knives and their unique qualities.
As one former chef put it, ‘With proper care, knives won’t rust!’ So, I’m thinking of sharing some proper maintenance tips for carbon steel knives.
Hibishugyo
- 2009-01-24
