David West You are easily impressed. This guy is a freaking amateur.

+William Jefferson Troll?

+Mike Hill That radius block...im sure he must have, through many year of working with his steels, developed an affinity to gauge how much it stretches. Wish I had a power hammer. While I like hand hammering, the speed and efficiency is something to admire.

Guess we found the armchair black smith

@@williamjefferson8280 i know right? Any real blacksmith can point out so many things in this video. The only skill that is mastered is that of repetition. I guess you can be great at that too. There are many factories like this fabricating knives by the thousands. Any real master is worth his steel many times over. Risking a forge weld for mass produced knives means this factory worker is worth less then the risk of loosing a blade. If this was really a master he would use way more high carbon steel instead of just the bare minimum. And yes, these are mass produced knives. They are priced mainly in the 100-200 dollar price range, meaning the bare minimum is done because there is no room for additional work.

Next time you see him, please tell him, his work impresses people in germany. My grandfather was a blacksmith. That´s why I came across this video.

united states here, also highly impressed. his accuracy, speed, the sheer knowledge one would have to have of how steel behaves to make something that quickly, it is utterly awe inspiring.

takashi kajihara Me too impressed from India....and inspired with his master skills.

takashi kajihara Brasil (no Brazil!) here too!! his work impresses many people here!

Mine too

anyone can learn given enough time and practice, but it is hard to learn the writting there are 4 types of characters, higara, kanji, kanna, and romanji as for the power hammer its just like the one Murry Carter uses, well the style, anyway, and if you dont know of Carter He is a guy from canada that went to japan and fell in love with watching the making of cutlery and apprenticed to a japanese master, and was named the master of the yoshimotto bladesmiths then moved to the usa oregan or washington state and makes knives and japanese cutlery up there, the only known westerner to be a japanese master and an american bladesmith society master. as for the japanese hand made knifes well they take the dedication to a whole new level, and the way they sharpen is what sets it apart, as for the knives they have one for each task in cooking, such as types of fish, and veggies, or for breaking the fish down, the deba

More like 300.000. Wonderful video!

its actually not work benches, he stands in a hole in the floor - its rather common practice in japanese blacksmithing

Because that way they can stand up and still have the anvil / fire, etc at comfortable working height. These days with power hammers etc it's not so big an issue anymore, but in the olden days they'd have apprentices with sledgehammers for power hammering. They obviously needed to stand up, hammering down. being in a pit meant the master would not have to kneel down in order to do his part of the job: to keep an eye on the project, hold the tongs and do manual corrections with a hand held hammer. If he had been at ground level, he'd have to be kneeling all day (which would be excruciating at that age) or raise all heavy equipment a couple of feet as well as create stable platforms for the apprentices with the big hammers.

yes there is still a need for heat treating! unless you just want a knife that is very brittle or very soft, depending.

he uses an elevator ;-). they always say a blacksmith needs to be so close as possible to his tools and his fire, so this is pretty much how close as it get. he savesa lot of steps, so the 1 time he need to crawl out is nothing. great workout for the old days hehe

+giancarlo tatarella I don't know if it's the same company, but Kanetsune knives look just like the finished one they showed. Very beautiful.

folding is only required when using impure poor quality steel

aopfin not true at all. Folding is used to create patterns within the metal and the metal used in a katana is extremely pure which is folded several times in the making of the sword.

***** What is amazing about Japanese blade making is that they were able to engineer high quality blades despite using inferior steel. Had they been able to get crucible steel from Persia, they would have used different processes to make the blade (no folding or layering of hard and soft steels, etc.) Look up the PBS program on making a Viking sword for a good intro to crucible steel.

synapse131 they werent high quality blades. you had to be trained to use a katana just so you wouldnt break it and have it shatter.

warren buitandag Simply to adjust the working height.

oh ok, thought it might be culture/tradition related as ive only really seen it with Japanese smiths. thanx!

+Mohammed Aslam They haven't developed table technology

***** I hope Mr. Mike, it will environment friendly...what a nice thing with these people the whole family indulge in the same line of business. What ever they are producing the family is connected.

+Ash Scott And have you?

my guess would be some type of powder metal/ steel on steel flux combo

Borax, helping fusing the 2 metals, high carbon and mild steel

Papi Chulo Its flux, which keeps the steel from oxidizing, and ruining the weld between the two steels. Japanese blacksmith's traditionally use sand for this, and it looks like it may be a fine sand. However, it could also be another type.

+Shawn P It's flux. It's a powdered mixture that helps weld the two different steels. It's more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea.

Shawn P flux... most smiths in the US use borax

BTeamHooligan thanks

Ironically, no Look at fällkniven

What specifically about Fallkniven? They seem to specialize in stainless steel knives. They use vg10 which is really high end stainless. Not your standard 420, but still not really in the same niche of knife making as anything on this video as far as I can see

Laminated steels are good when you are trying to solve specific problem with the environment the knife will be used in. For example with Helle of Norway. Norway's population is concentrated around the coastal waters, thus they ran into the problem of the knives rusting. So they laminate corrosive resistant tougher steel around a much harder cutting steel. In that instance it makes sense to laminate the steel. However aside from very rare environmental and use specific problems it doesn't make sense to laminate the steel. It is much more economical and all around better to use a single steel for a blade. This is doubly true for exotic steels like damascus/pattern welded steels, they don't make as good of a knife and they are more expensive.

TheLameBucket Well, yes and no. In Japan (as opposed to medieval Europe) high-grade steel capable of being hardened as an edge steel was relatively scarce, so it made economic sense to forge a small amount into a lower grade yet tougher cladding. And as you suggest, this made for a more durable tool/weapon.

it makes the blade tougher.simple as that. knife that are too hard have the tendency to break easily under heavy condition. by putting in a metal that is softer easier to bend the overall of the blade becomes more tough and less able to snap. (that how i hear it from all those samurai and katana videos i've seen the last years. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

William Jefferson Like in many krafts, the simpler it looks the harder it is.