Wednesday, April 27, 2011

At Long Last: Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori

It's finished.

After several months of work not only translating, but trying to figure out what the heck the writer was talking about, I've finally completed my to-date magnum opus. With permission from Shigeyoshi Iwasaki, I'm extremely proud to finally make public "Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori" by Kousuke Iwasaki, Shigeyoshi's late father and founder of the Sanjou Seisakushou (Workshop), the Iwasaki forge.

This document is intended as not only a historical examination, but also a bit of a guide for people interested in traditional methods of using and caring for Japanese razors, both folding and non-folding. This book was written as a textbook for a barbering school, meaning it is aimed at people in professional training. There is a lot of information here, but some things are clearly missing--for example, the constant question of "how do I hone a Kamisori" is not specifically addressed. I think the reason is, that particular technique was probably demonstrated by the teacher, so it did not need to be addressed in the text. Or, perhaps (as the text itself hints at) the actual specific technique is less important than the basic fundamentals of honing.

Whatever the reason, you won't find references to honing ratios or the like here. You will find lots of other fascinating, and useful, information.

So please, download, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Download Link (ZIP file with PDF and Protected .DOC versions of the English translation).

16 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you know what the "yellow nagura" mentioned in the document is?

Hide's Export said...

Jim nice translation.
I got then copy of it when I visited Sanjyou Seisakujo from Iwasaki san too and got permission to make a translation or resume. But I think you made it better.
Very nice read. Now I have read it twice. 1 in Japanese an 1 in English.

Bayamontate said...

This is awesome, thank you.

JimR said...

DJ,

Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, that's still a mystery, but not one I've forgotten. I hope to ask some more people this month.

Masaru-san, thanks very much! I don' tknow if it's better than yours would be, but I hope it's good enough. If you have any advice or suggestions, please to email me!

Nelson, no, thank you!

Nikolay said...

Great! Amazing!

Thank you very much for translation.

I wont to know is there freely available original japanese text of "Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori" by Kousuke Iwasaki?

I think it is very useful to have such a parallel text for learning 日本語 and it's terminology for toisi and other sharpening related things.

JimR said...

Nikolay,

Thanks for your comment and kind words, as always.

Unfortunately, I don't know about a freely available copy of the Japanese yet. Iwasaki-san himself sent me a photocopy, but as I understand it the school that originally published the text still has some copyright. And English translation was ok, but I'm not sure about the Japanese. I will ask Iwasaki-san about making the Japanese available, as well.

rasurkultur said...

nice one jimr, i just didnt understand that with edge finishing exactly. should i stand it on its edge like i watch if its koncav? could u make a picture of it?

Nikolay said...

Thank you again!

The one another reason why I want to have original japanese text is name of stones and other special terms.

For example what is japanese for Ozaki?

I think it is good idea to give original japanese kanji for such a names.

The same is for all other proper names.

JimR said...

Nikolay,

That's a good idea.

The kanji for Ozaki is 尾崎.

Did you have any other questions?

Jim said...

I hope you don't mind that I posted a link to this entry over on Bladesmith's Forum. There are quite a few of my fellow knife makers that would be keen on knowing about this.

Best always,
Jim

Nikolay said...

Thank you Jim for kanji!

I have made a table with kanji for most popular mines:

http://talks.guns.ru/forummessage/224/670092-2.html

there is no Nakayama with Shoubudani there just because
I think it is commonly known.

Nikolay said...

As for bladesmiths and knifemakers... most of them do not care about razor like sharpness

Most of our knifemakers sharpen their blades with belt grinder and never hone with fine whetstones.

Håkan said...

Thank you very much for this marvelous document and translation.

JimR said...

Jim,

Of course I don't mind! Thanks for spreading the word. I did it so people could read it.

Nikolay,

Good work on that list. I'll see if I can't get back on top of the hone vocabulary.

Håkan,

Thank you for your kind comment!

Nick/ Disburden said...

jim,

That link no longer works. Are you aware?

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for this. Very well done.