Source: Suzuki Kanamono tool-history series (道具の歴史), misyuku-suzuki-kanamonoten.com — slugs aiduhamonokajinomeikou1–4.html
Author: Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭), Representative Director, Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店)
Dated: an auspicious day, September, Heisei 22 (2010)
Translator's note. A 4-page essay series (Introduction / Section 1 / Section 2 / Conclusion) on the history of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing (会津刃物道具鍛冶) and the plane smith Nagamine Shigenobu (長嶺重延), a pupil of the Shigefusa (重房) line. Ambiguities: the given name 喜好 of the first Shigenobu is translated here as "Kiyoshi" but the reading is not certain (it could also be read Yoshimi or Kikō); likewise 久二男 (second Shigenobu) is rendered "Kunio" but could be "Hisao." The author gives Bunroku 1 as 1591; Bunroku 1 conventionally corresponds to 1592 — the date is kept as written. The nicknames 里重 and 通し重 are rendered "Sato-shige" and "Tōshi-shige."
Our shop owns a sun-hachi (寸八, 70 mm blade-width) plane believed to be by the second-generation Shigenobu (重延). Several decades ago, we asked the president of a Niigata wholesale house that did business with Shigenobu to obtain for us a Shigenobu plane from Aizu, and this is the one we received. One month after we obtained it, that same wholesaler's president, coming to take orders at our shop, told us: "Shigenobu-san has passed away, so Shigenobu planes can no longer be had. You acquired yours at just the right time." Such is our Shigenobu plane.
On this occasion, having investigated the history of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing and learned in detail about Shigenobu, who was praised as a master craftsman of Aizu, I would like to present photographs of the Shigenobu plane in our shop's collection and, while narrating that history, discuss the blade-and-tool smith called Shigenobu. However, concerning the Aizu saw smiths, I intend to write in detail on a separate later occasion, and will say almost nothing of them here.
This manuscript drew on the "Tool Room" (道具の部屋) pages of the website of the wood-carving studio "Atelier Kubota" (木彫工房 アトリエ久保田), and on Tsuchida Ichirō (土田一郎), Nihon no dentō kōgu (日本の伝統工具, "Traditional Tools of Japan," 1989), among other sources.
The wellspring of the history of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing goes back to the Azuchi–Momoyama period, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) unified the realm. Gamō Ujisato (蒲生氏郷), one of Hideyoshi's close retainers, was transferred in Bunroku 1 (given as 1591) from Matsusaka (松坂) to Aizu as the defensive stronghold of the Tōhoku region; at that time, for castle-building and town-building, he brought with him many blade-and-tool smith craftsmen from Kyoto, Ōmi (近江), and elsewhere. That is where it all begins.
From then on the domain lords changed — the Uesugi (上杉), Katō (加藤), Hoshina (保科), and Matsudaira (松平) houses — but in snow-deep Aizu the culture of blade-and-tool smithing blossomed magnificently. Aizu became a great center of carpentry-tool smithing in eastern Japan, and in time that culture propagated to Echigo (越後) and to Edo (江戸).
The restorer-patriarch (中興の祖) of these Aizu blade tools was the first-generation Shigefusa (重房), Wakabayashi Yasuemon (若林安右衛門). He also styled himself Wakabayashi Rinnosuke (若林林之助), and was a man who turned from sword smithing to blade-and-tool smithing. It was this Shigefusa lineage that, from the late Edo period into the early Meiji era, forged carpentry tools such as planes and chisels and raised the name to fame.
The first Shigefusa had two sons: the elder, Yasuzaemon (安左衛門, 1821–1888), and the younger, Inokichi (猪之吉, 1824–1875); both likewise went from sword smithing into blade-and-tool smithing.
The elder son Yasuzaemon cut the character 重 in the "Shigefusa" signature so that its central vertical stroke did not break through the top — making it look like 里 — and so he was called "Sato-shige" (里重). The younger son Inokichi let the stroke break through the top, so he was called "Tōshi-shige" (通し重, "through-shige"), and thus the two men's works were distinguished.
The "Shigefusa of Aizu" who in the late Edo period was acclaimed the finest blade-and-tool smith in Japan was the younger son, Inokichi. His superb forging technique was transmitted to Yoita (与板) and Sanjō (三条) in Echigo, and also to Edo. Inokichi not only raised excellent pupils such as Yoshifusa (吉房) and Shigemichi (重道); he was a master of whom it is also related that he forged the Japanese sword the Aizu domain presented to the Imperial house.
The "Sato / Shigefusa" (里／重房) Wakabayashi house continued through Yasuzaemon and his adopted son Sadanoshin (定之進). The "Tōshi / Shigefusa" (通し／重房) Wakabayashi house continued from Inokichi through Daisuke (大助, 1850–1891, Inokichi's eldest son), Morizō (守蔵, 1868–1942, Daisuke's son-in-law), Daihachi (大八, 1879–1920, Daisuke's eldest son), Ichiji (壱次, 1879–1960, Morizō's eldest son), and others; but around Shōwa 40 (c. 1965) the business closed and the signature "Shigefusa" (重房) came to an end.
Shigenobu (重延) was a man who, in the latter half of the Meiji era, was apprenticed to the above-named Wakabayashi Daihachi.
Shigenobu's real name was Nagamine Kiyoshi (長嶺喜好; reading of the given name uncertain), and he was born in Aizu in Meiji 28 (1895). In Meiji 42 (1909), at age 14, he was apprenticed to Wakabayashi Daihachi, who was then 30 years old. Daihachi was a blade-and-tool smith whose grandfather was Wakabayashi Inokichi of the "Tōshi / Shigefusa" signature — the man credited with laying the foundations of modern blade-and-tool smithing — and who was born the eldest son of Inokichi's eldest son Daisuke.
The Shigefusa school raised many excellent blade-and-tool smiths, and when they became independent it bestowed on them signatures headed by the character 重 (shige/jū). When one speaks of Aizu blade-and-tool smiths, their smith-signatures are commonly said to be "Shige-so-and-so" (重某), and it is pointed out that one reason for this derives from this practice.
The master Shigekatsu (重勝) — who, earlier than anyone, used in Tokyo at the beginning of the Meiji 20s (late 1880s) the Western steel that had begun to be imported in the Meiji 10s (late 1870s) to forge planes whose sharpness made carpenters groan with admiration — was also a product of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing.
Nagamine Kiyoshi, too, when he became independent in Taishō 7 (1918) at 25 (as written), was granted the signature "Shigenobu" (重延) by his master. Once independent, Shigenobu, like other Aizu blade-and-tool smiths, forged not only carpentry tools but all sorts of blades: cooper's tools, hatchets (nata 鉈), kiridashi utility knives (切り出し小刀), kitchen knives, and so on. This seems to mean that the Aizu blade-and-tool smiths could not make a living from the limited demand for carpentry tools such as planes and chisels alone, and were compelled to forge other cutlery as well.
The planes Shigenobu forged have a somewhat thick blade body; the soft backing iron (jigane 地金) is kettle iron (kamaji 釜地); the somewhat thick steel is hardened on the hard side; and they were reputed to cut very well. The greatest peculiarity of these Shigenobu planes is that the signature "重延" is cut in mirror-reversed form.
There are various theories as to the reason: that on kitchen knives and the like he cut "重延" normally, while on planes he reversed it into a left-handed "重延"; that he cut the reversed "重延" for particular kinds of steel or for high-grade works; or again that he reversed it only in his late years — it is not settled.
By around Shōwa 55 (c. 1980), the Aizu blade-and-tool smiths had dwindled to three men: this Shigenobu, the fourth-generation Shigemichi (重道), and Shigetaka (重高). In Shōwa 57 (1982) Shigenobu died, and his pupil and son-in-law Nagamine Kunio (長嶺久二男; reading uncertain) succeeded as second-generation Shigenobu. But within scarcely a month of the death of his father-in-law, the first Shigenobu, the second Shigenobu also unhappily died, and regrettably the signature "Shigenobu" (重延) came to an end.
From about the middle of the Meiji era onward, the Aizu blade-and-tool smiths lost their former prosperity and followed the road of decline. One major cause was this: whereas the blade-and-tool smiths of Echigo and Tokyo began from the Meiji 20s (late 1880s) to forge superbly sharp carpentry tools using Western steel, the Aizu smiths clung to tamahagane (玉鋼, traditional tatara steel) until about the end of the Meiji era, and missed the current of the times.
By the end of the Shōwa 50s (early–mid 1980s), the Aizu blade-and-tool smiths forging carpentry tools were reduced to a small number of saw smiths, and the other blade-and-tool smiths disappeared. At present, only one man remains as a saw smith in Aioi-machi (相生町), Aizu — the third-generation Nakaya Denzaemon (中屋伝左衛門, Mr. Igarashi Seiichi 五十嵐征一) — and the Aizu carpentry-tool smithing culture is truly on the verge of extinction.
Once, in the Edo period, "Banshū Miki" (播州三木) in the west and "Aizu" (会津) in the east stood as the two great centers of Japanese carpentry-tool smithing. In time, from the eastern center of Aizu, superior blade-and-tool smithing techniques for saws, planes, chisels, and the like propagated to Echigo and Edo. Within this history of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing there also appeared the master Shigefusa (重房), said in the late Edo period to be without equal.
I had long been interested in this Aizu carpentry-tool smithing technique that was transmitted to Edo, and had been meaning to investigate why a great center of carpentry-tool smithing arose in Aizu, in the Tōhoku region so far from the capital of Kyoto; what sort of blade-and-tool smith Shigefusa was; and why the character 重 so often heads the signatures of Aizu blade-and-tool smiths.
Happily, as I wrote in the Introduction, our shop possesses a sun-hachi plane believed to be by the second Shigenobu; by speaking of this Shigenobu within the history of Aizu blade-and-tool smithing, I have now been able to fulfill that wish, and I am content.
I will also post this finished manuscript in our shop's "History of Tools" (道具の歴史) column, wishing to leave it to posterity as a record of the history of carpentry-tool smithing.
An auspicious day, September, Heisei 22 (2010) Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) Representative Director, Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭)