Written on May 19, 1990 [Permalink]

May 16

Finished the 60. Most of them are OK. but as there were 'rather a few' unacceptable copies in the first batch, I'll have to make about 14 more later in the week, to bring me up to 100 saleable copies.

Remembered that my knife blade stock is now getting very low, so asked Michiyo to call Usui-san, the blade maker in Niigata Prefecture. He suggested that we call Gosho-san (why won't he deal with us directly?). Gosho-san said that as he was visiting Usui-san this coming weekend, why didn't I come along. I need no second urging, and arranged to go up on the train Saturday morning. I'll have to come back the same day, as it's Himi-chan's Sports Day at school on Sunday, and she would be very disappointed if I missed it. I'll take the camera, and try and get enough material to do a little thing for the next newsletter, if he turns out to be an interesting guy ...

May 17

A phone call in the morning during the ladies' class, from a (Dutch?) gentleman who had read Jean's column (still coming in!), and seen the prints at the Press Club. He says he is a print collector, and wants to collect 'two sets'. Apparently he has two kids, and doesn't want any trouble in the future! He wants to come out and see us, probably sometime next week, and will call and make arrangements then. In the evening, after the last class, 20 sheets of paper wet.

May 18

Lots of free time today, so did both sumi and colours. I had kept the paper on the dry side, so it was no problem doing them both on the same day, and these turned out better than either of the previous two batches.

Michiyo called up Hagiwara-san, the wood dealer introduced to us by Yamashita-san, to see what was happening to the cherry wood. He didn't really know, but said that he would check again, and let us know what was going on ...

May 19

Up at 5:50 today, and caught a 6:30 train to Tokyo, and then on to Niigata to visit Usui-san, the knife blade maker. I got there by about 11:00, and was able to spend six hours there before it was time to turn around and come home.

He was really a nice guy, and unlike the Yamaguchis last year, obviously didn't feel any discomfort at my being there. When I arrived he was working at the forge, hammering on some largish knife blades, although I couldn't tell what they were at the time. He packed it in at about noon, and spent the rest of the afternoon talking and showing me the place. It's not quite what I had expected, being full of large, very expensive computer-controlled machine tools. There's five people working there (mostly family), and they are very short of labour. This is very bad news for me, as my type of blades are very labour-intensive, but don't bring in much revenue, being so small. He gave me a dozen or so that he pulled from a drawer, and I got the impression that there wasn't going to be any more where they came from. He just can't afford the time to make them.

He was very willing to talk about how the blades are made, giving me all sorts of information about carbon content and annealing temperatures, etc. If I ever have to try and get some made in the future by somebody else, at least I'll have an idea what to ask for. I'd kind of like to have a go at making some myself, and maybe we could spend a vacation here sometime in the future learning something about how to forge them. I didn't bring up the idea, but I think that he might go for it.

His wife was friendly too, and they bought me a sushi lunch, and loaded me down with o-miyage, etc. He wouldn't take any payment for the blades, and then on top of that, gave me a couple of chisels from his own tool kit (he's an amateur hanga maker, and I had given him a couple of prints from my folder when we had first sat down to talk). An interesting, if somewhat long, day. Arrived home just before midnight.