One of the rare Tokyo blacksmith who is still in production. Tanaka Ichirou is the blacksmith for Osaahiro brand. He is over 80 years old, and he has once retired but there were so many carpenters requesting him to make chisels and plane blades, with his wife's persuasion he has come back, and producing tiny amount of chisels and plane blades.

Very hard White Steel #1. Very Tokyo looking similar to that of Ichihiro's. Notice the Tokyo blacksmiths' stamp above the Nagahiro stamp. Again same as Ichihiro.

Fully Sharpened.

Before sharpening. The edge is about 1mm thick, and this steel is seriously hard.... Long grueling coarse stone work. Yikes!

Before Sharpening.

After Sharpening. Kasumi finish. The jigane has a pattern, which is similar to Sinsui-ji.

This is called kuro-ba (black blade) which is not sharpened by suikenya (professional sharpener) at all.

After uraoshi.