Advice on Japanese chisels

[Brian Holcombe]

Great discussion!

Allan, Tamahagane is steel made in by ancient method utilizing a clay tub. The raw material is iron sand, and the result is that it creates meteorite looking chunks of steel. Tamahagane would be used for the cutting edge.

Tamahagane is often the steel used in Japanese sword making, and the time/expertise/material involved in making it explains why it is so expensive.

[Allan Speers]

Thanks. I remember now. There are also some super high-end nokogiri nade with Tamahagane. I had the pleasure of using a Miyano Tetsunosuke once. (not mine, of course!) Just amazing.

So what is the name of that rare wrought iron? I know there is one, but it escapes me.

[Jim Koepke]

Sorry if this has become long and rambling, but I don't have time to edit much or condense.

When in imparts this much information the "long and rambling" is fine with me.

I do not have nor do I intend to buy any Japanese chisels at this time, but I do read the threads often for the information on the steel making process that tends to come out of these threads.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks. I remember now. There are also some super high-end nokogiri nade with Tamahagane. I had the pleasure of using a Miyano Tetsunosuke once. (not mine, of course!) Just amazing.

So what is the name of that rare wrought iron? I know there is one, but it escapes me.

The swords are really incredible as well, infact they are polished with natural stones and a primary goal of the polishing effort is so that the structure of the steel is made visible.

All of this has had a nice trickle down effect, making its way into chisels, plane blades, Ect.

Not sure what the famous wrought is, I've seen a few different varieties of vintage wrought.

[Stanley Covington]

The wrought iron in general is called "jigane" written 地金, and directly translated as "ground steel," as in "solid ground. " The best stuff I am told was salvaged from old ship and train boilers, where the repeated heating and cooling had removed nearly all vestiges of carbon, and the iron is badly fatigued. This is called kamatetsu (窯鉄　meaning "boiler iron"), or kamaji (窯地 meaning "boiler jigane"). Not much of this left anymore. Ship anchor chains are also highly valued. The stuff being used nowadays is often imported scrap iron from the old iron bridges demolished in Europe and America, I am told. You may have seen plane irons with holes in the face which are a remnant of bolt holes. Keisuke Uchihashi uses this material, and it works fine in the three plane blades I have made by him. Nakano san also uses it, and his planes are entirely satisfactory.

Please note that the worn-out kamaji and other forms of jigane is useful for plane blades, or kiridashi, but not so much for chisels. Its just too weak to handle the bending stresses.

The iron sand is called "satetsu" 砂鉄、and Brian is of course correct that the smelted, meteoric-looking chunks the tatara process produces are called Tamahagane, 玉鋼meaning "jewel steel."

tamahagane.jpg

The two top clumps are (slightly rusted) tamahagane from Mr. Iwasaki's collection. The bottom pile is the raw material, satetsu.

The trade or export of tamahagane is not in anyway controlled beyond simple market forces. It is hard to find, but I could get my hands on some within a few hours from a saw smith I know that was trained to use it, and still has some in stock. Export is not restricted.
Tatara.jpg

Tamahagane as sold is nasty stuff chock full of impurities, difficult and time consuming to work into a plate, and very difficult to forge and heat treat. I am told it behaves very differently from regular commercial steel.

A historical researcher named Ms. Katsuki wrote a book on the saw smiths of the Tosa area, and in her book, she quotes one oldtimer (long since dead) who told her in an interview that the availability of western steel from England (Andrews) improved saw production efficiency dramatically. He said that ten saws could be made from imported steel in the time it took to make one saw from tamahagane. Quality (lack of defects) also improved dramatically, he said. No one mourned the shift from tamahagane to imported plate steel except the tamahagane producers, I am sure.
Katsuki.jpg

Tamahagane production has an interesting history, and the process of collecting the raw materials once destroyed rivers and estuaries creating serious pollution and ecological destruction as sand was dredged and sifted and collected to find satetsu. The process was outlawed in many areas of Japan, in fact. Shimane Prefecture, where tamahagane is produced in limited quantities now, was one of the last places it was produced before the process was lost entirely. Hitachi Metals established its Yasuki plant there in the hope of associating their product with the famous tamahagane.
Satetsu1.jpgsatetu4.jpg

The only ones who use tamahagane nowadays in any volume are swordsmiths.

I have a few old saws made from real tamahagane, but I have not used them much.

I have a western-style straight razor by Iwasaki made from tamahagane, and it was worth every penny.

There was a period of time when the term tamahagane was used very loosely here in Japan, and you could buy a saw made from "tamahagane" at any hardware store. It said so right on the tang, so it must be true right? What they were actually made from was Hitachi's Shirogami (White Paper steel), which Hitachi claimed to have developed in their Yasuki plant in close imitation of real tamahagane. So they marketed the steel for a time as "tamahagane." This was before the tatara kilns were resurrected. I have several of these saws in my collection too. They are not real tamahagane made from satetsu. Nice marketing, but BS.

I could be wrong, but I doubt the last two or three generations of Miyano Tetsunosuke used tamahagane at all. The Miyano Tetsunosuke saws are very nice, but not at all worth the ridiculously high price to anyone but collectors interested in the name.

If you want an excellent saw, try one made by Oba. He passed away some time ago, but the quality of his saws is absolutely superb, and accomplished sawmiths still drool over his work. In fact, the last time I sent mine out to be sharpened, I had a hard time getting it back. I think the sawsmith/sharpener was hoping I would forget I had sent it to him. In fact, when I went to pick up the saw, he grilled me about where I had bought it (a local, but old, hardware store that had placed the custom order on behalf of a customer that never came to pick it up several decades ago), and how much I paid ($50). He was shocked, and green with envy. I will never find another one of those, I fear.
noko-ooba.jpg

[Jim Koepke]

Fascinating account.

jtk

[Kees Heiden]

Yes, very interersting history.

[Trevor Goodwin]

While we are on the topic of Japanese chisels, I have a couple of questions. Here is a chisel that was part of a 6-piece set from Tools For Working Wood:
Jap Chisel Fail.jpg

Is it normal for that ferrule to be a separate component or is it normally part of the blade?

This chisel was particularly frustrating, the lamination was so poor that the soft steel came right up to the cutting edge. I grinded back a couple of mm or so and it showed no signs of receding. Then I lost it and threw across the garage. Then I decided to chisel some concrete with it. I had no plans of sending it back because I live in the arse end of the world and the other chisels in the set looked fine. The concrete mortising test was actually encouraging, because the edge that was hard steel held up relatively well, suggesting the other chisels are the real deal in terms of hardness. This is a cheap set of Japanese chisels but you can get cheaper, I'm sure plenty of others have had no trouble with them.

The other problem is the website says they come with hoops set, I found I could still wiggle them and the mushrooming was incredibly slight so I'm planning to re-set them all.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thank you Stanley! Very interesting stuff.

[David Wong]

Jap Chisel Fail.jpg

Is it normal for that ferrule to be a separate component or is it normally part of the blade?

Trevor,
Sorry you are having difficulties with your new chisels. It is normal that the ferrule is a separate component from the blade. The blade and ferrule should seat on the handle quite tightly, and should not come apart easily. You can re-fit the ferrule by lightly trimming the handle to extend the socket a bit (also cut away an equivalent amount from the top of the socket). That way the ferrule should seat more tightly and hold the blade in place.