From Japan

Most of the deepest information about Japanese stones and knives is published only in Japanese — by the makers, by Sakai knife shops, and by the people who still mine natural stones in Kyoto. These guides summarize that material in English. Every claim links to its original Japanese source; nothing here is machine-translated wholesale.

• Choosing grits the way Japanese knife shops teach it

  How Sakai knife shops and the maker of King stones actually classify coarse, medium, and finishing stones — and what they tell beginners to buy first.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 4 sources

• Nagura and flattening: stone maintenance the Japanese way

  What nagura actually does (it's not soap), why dished stones ruin edges, and the flattening methods Shapton officially endorses — and warns against.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 4 sources

• How Japanese synthetic stones are actually made

  Suehiro publishes its real production process. Bond chemistry — like the magnesia bond in Naniwa's Pro line — explains a lot of sharpening behavior you've felt but couldn't name.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 3 sources

• Kyoto natural whetstones, explained by the people who mine them

  The strata are ~250 million years old; the stamps on the stones are layer names, not marketing. Sourced from an active Kameoka mining family and the Natural Whetstone Museum.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 3 sources

• The three blade towns behind the knives you own

  Tsubame-Sanjo, Seki, and Sakai each specialize differently. Knowing which town made your knife explains its design choices.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 6 sources

• Sharpening a single-bevel knife, straight from a maker's print guidebook

  Two different angles are at play, the ura gets almost nothing, and 別打 turns out to be a precisely defined steel grade — not a vague upsell. From a print-only Jikko guidebook, not their website.

  Updated 2026-07-03 · 4 sources

• How a Sakai knife is actually made — and why the back is hollow

  Forging and sharpening are two separate trades in Sakai. Their own association explains the clad edge, the hollow-ground back, and the misty kasumi finish — straight from the source.

  Updated 2026-07-07 · 5 sources

• Blue steel vs white steel, and what “kasumi” really means

  The Sakai cutlery association's own FAQ answers the two most-argued Japanese-knife questions with real numbers — including that at the same grade number, blue and white reach the same hardness.

  Updated 2026-07-07 · 3 sources