Kisuke Manaka Shirogami 2 Honwarikomi Kurouchi Tsuchime Kiritsuke Gyuto 240mm

 About Manaka Hamono - Kisuke Manaka is a relatively young, 5th generation, blacksmith from Kasukabe, Saitama prefecture, in 2025 he moved to Sanjo Tsubame, a hotspot for blacksmithing in Japan. He began making knives from scratch about 10 years ago, with nothing but a workshop full of equipment and no mentor. He is completely self-taught, yet he mastered techniques to forge-weld steels in house, even forge welding stainless steel which is no easy task.

Now he forge-welds everything in house, from hard carbon steel clad with soft steel, stainless steel clad with stainless, and carbon steel clad with stainless steel. The Shirogami #2 steel used in these knives is forge-welded in house by Manaka-san. This is a very traditional steel that can achieve incredible sharpness and has great edge retention, a favourite of more traditional blacksmiths.