Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

Today I had an very unique and amazing opportunity. We were offered a tour of the shop of a locally based sword maker, Hirokuni Hiroki. Hiroki-san is in the very top class of sword makers in Japan (of which there are only a few) and has been making swords for over 42 years. He is a humble and gracious man and his swords are incredibly beautiful works of art. Each sword takes about 2 weeks to forge, another couple of weeks to shape and several more weeks to sharpen and polish. Sword makers are limited to forging 2 swords a month. The Japanese government uses this limit to help preserve quality and discourage mass production. Master sword makers in Japan are given templates of all the different types of swords that have been produced throughout Japanese history. One of the traits of a master is the ability to faithfully reproduce each type and Hiroki-san had three completed swords of different types on hand to show us (shown below).

This is a short sword.

This sword is of medium length. What makes it unique is that it has a cutting edge on both sides of the blade. This was the type of sword carried by very high ranking warriors.

This is what most of us would classify as a typical "samurai sword" aka, katana. That's a $10,000 piece of Japanese art right there folks.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

This video shows Hiroki-san doing his thing with a hot chunk of sword metal (called "sotetsu" or "sand metal" because it has sand mixed in with it).

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

In this video you can see Hiroki-san making a deep notch in the metal so that he can then fold it over later. He'll fold the metal several times before he begins to hammer it into the basic shape of the sword template he's using.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

In this video you can see Hiroki-san actually bend the metal over. Once the piece is folded he covers it in charred rice grass and muddy water before putting it back into the fire. The coating helps insulate the metal.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

After the metal is folded it looks like this before it starts getting shaped. Unfortunately these pictures don't really show the fact that you can see the layers in the metal.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

These are some of the sword templates.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

This is the area where the swords are shaped.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

This is the area where Hiroki-san sharpens & polishes the swords, however he usually sends them to a renowned master polisher.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

Hiroki-san shows off an example of a 400-year old sword.

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

This sword is about 70% completed. It still needs to be sharpened and polished. It's already somewhat sharp but these swords are honed razor sharp. Decisions, decisions: This sword or a brand new Honda Civic?

Japanese Sword Maker - Hirokuni Hiroki

New swords just waiting to be forged. The big chunk is a pretty old piece of sword metal that has some sort of significance which I couldn't really follow through the translator.