Translator's note. This file contains complete translations of two article series from the "History of Tools" (道具の歴史) section of the Suzuki Kanamono hardware-store website, both written by the shop's president Suzuki Toshiaki (鈴木俊昭):
- "The Saw Smiths of Banshū Miki — Master Craftsman Miyano Tetsunosuke" (播州三木の鋸鍛冶 名工「宮野鉄之助」) — 4 pages (Introduction, sections 1–2, Conclusion), dated November Heisei 22 (2010).
- "The Master Chisel Smith of Miki, Kinryū" (三木鑿鍛冶の名工「錦龍」) — 3 pages (Introduction, section 1, Conclusion), dated May Heisei 22 (2010).
Ambiguities: the original pages referenced photographs (of a Miyano Harumitsu ryōba saw and the Kinryū chisel set) that are images on the site and are not reproduced here. In the Tetsunosuke series the author gives Taishō 12 as "1922," though Taishō 12 is properly 1923; both are noted below. "脳益血" in the Kinryū series is a typographical variant of 脳溢血 (cerebral hemorrhage). The chemical etching agent for the wood-grain finish is unnamed in the original ("a certain chemical"). The reading "Kanete" for the brand-mark 兼テ is the conventional reading and is assumed here.
Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. (有限会社スズキ金物店) — "Trowels & Tools" shop site, History of Tools series
The oldest record of saw smiths in Miki states that in Kanpō 2 (1742), in the last years of the eighth shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune (徳川吉宗), there were three saw-smith households in Miki. At that time the most flourishing saw-producing center was Fushimi in Kyoto (京都伏見), whose origins go back to the Muromachi period; during the Tenmei era (1781–1788), in the times of the tenth shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu (徳川家治) and the eleventh shōgun Tokugawa Ienari (徳川家斉), Fushimi had more than forty saw-smith households.
Thereafter, with the prosperity of Osaka as a commercial city and the rise of shipping routes between Edo and Osaka, Kyoto-Fushimi was gradually left behind by the times and declined, while Banshū Miki (播州三木) came to surpass Kyoto-Fushimi in saw production volume, becoming the great saw-producing center of the Kansai region.
Today hand saws have fallen almost entirely out of use, yet in Miki there still exist 22 smiths making carpenters' and forestry saws, 4 smiths making forestry saws, and 4 smiths making special-purpose saws. Among them, four persons have been selected as Traditional Craftsmen (伝統工芸士) — saw smiths esteemed as master craftsmen.
Within this long history of Miki saw smithing there was Miyano Tetsunosuke II (二代目宮野鉄之助), who inherited the traditional technique of forging saws from tamahagane (玉鋼, traditional smelted steel) and left records of its manufacturing method. This second-generation Miyano Tetsunosuke lived out his full span of years, dying at 95 in Heisei 8 (1996); in the postwar Shōwa era he was one of the celebrated master saw smiths spoken of as "Ōba Shōichirō (大場正一郎) in the East, Miyano Tetsunosuke (宮野鉄之助) in the West."
A "saw-manufacturing specimen set by Miyano Tetsunosuke" (宮野鉄之助作鋸製作標本) presented on the television program "Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan" (開運！なんでも鑑定団, broadcast July 31, Heisei 22 / 2010) received the high appraisal of 1,500,000 yen.
Some forty-odd years ago, when I was in my twenties, the saw-sharpener (目立て屋) who did our shop's saw sharpening would show me a ryōba (double-edged) saw by this second-generation Miyano Tetsunosuke from his own collection and explain to me the excellence of its workmanship. But at the time my interests lay with planes, chisels, and ink-pots (墨坪), so I merely listened without following up, and until today I never investigated in detail.
Recently someone asked me about "Miyano Tetsunosuke" saws, so I resolved to research this Miyano Tetsunosuke whom I had never known in detail. I asked many people connected with him and searched the internet, collected materials, and was able to learn about him thoroughly.
Our shop possesses a shaku-length ryōba saw bearing the mark Miyano Harumitsu (宮野治光), said to have been made about forty years ago by Hiromitsu (裕光), the eldest son of Tetsunosuke II, when he was in his late forties. I therefore wish to introduce it in photographs and, together with that, to write about the Miki saw smith "Miyano Tetsunosuke."
This manuscript draws on the accounts of many people concerned, on Hirasawa Kazuo (平澤一雄), Sangyō Bunkashi / Nokogiri (産業文化史／鋸, "Industrial Cultural History: The Saw," 1980), the "Saw Collection" of the official website of pâtissier nisio, and the website of Nishimoto Chōkokujo (西本彫刻所, temple and shrine carving). Honorifics are omitted below.
To speak of Miyano Tetsunosuke, one must first speak of saws bearing the mark Miyano Heijirō (宮野平次郎).
The house of Miyano Heijirō, which had been forging saws in Banshū Miki since the middle of the Edo period, is a saw-smith house of great distinction. From the end of the Edo period into the early Meiji era, Miyano Heijirō of Miki was ranked as a master saw smith alongside Nakaya Heijirō (中屋平次郎) of Edo and Nakaya Sukezaemon (中屋助左衛門) of Aizu. Miyano Heijirō saws were said to possess such superb cutting quality that they could even cut driftwood floating on water.
The history of the Miyano Heijirō saw is said to begin with Kamoya Heijirō (加茂屋平次郎). Counting him as the first generation, the line continued as a distinguished saw-smith house down to the ninth-generation Miyano Heijirō, Miyano Kiichi (宮野貴一). The one who raised and spread the fame of the Miyano Heijirō saw was the sixth-generation Miyano Heijirō, Miyano Motokichi (宮野元吉).
Motokichi, the sixth generation, became a pupil of Taniguchi Seibei (谷口清兵衛), a distinguished saw smith of Kyoto-Fushimi, mastered the oil-quenching technique — the most advanced hardening method of the day — and returned to Miki, where he produced saws of outstanding sharpness and at a stroke raised the reputation of the hitherto not especially famous Miyano Heijirō saws. It was this Motokichi who, as the sixth-generation Miyano Heijirō, was ranked together with Nakaya Heijirō and Nakaya Sukezaemon.
Thereafter, saws bearing the Miyano Heijirō mark continued through the seventh generation Kichinosuke (吉之助), the eighth generation Tanekichi (胤吉), and the ninth generation Kiichi (貴一).
The first Miyano Tetsunosuke was the second son — by another account the fourth son — of Miyano Motokichi, the sixth-generation Miyano Heijirō, and trained as a saw smith under his father. Since the eldest son succeeded to the Miyano Heijirō mark, he set up independently and took the name Miyano Tetsunosuke. A ryōba saw believed to be the work of this first Tetsunosuke — long said to be no longer extant — is introduced on the website "Honmono Ichiba" (本物市場, "genuine-article market" for carpentry and power tools).
According to it, the front of the neck is engraved: Kanete (兼テ) — Miyano Tetsunosuke (宮野鉄之助) — Hōju (宝壽) — kaō (花押, stylized cipher signature); and the back of the neck is also engraved Ganso (元祖, "originator") Kanete (兼テ). The kaō used by the first generation is also called the "snail" (でんでん虫) mark, and it was afterwards engraved on saws made by the second generation and his sons.
While the first Miyano Tetsunosuke was active, saws bearing the Miyano Heijirō mark still enjoyed the higher reputation.
It was the second generation who raised the fame of the Miyano Tetsunosuke name. He was born in Meiji 34 (1901) in Fukui, Miki, and his real name was Endō Masaichirō (遠藤政一郎). He apprenticed in saw smithing locally, went to Osaka to train in saw sharpening (metate 目立て), then returned to Miki and entered the workshop of the first Miyano Tetsunosuke as his pupil.
In Taishō 12 (given in the original as 1922; Taishō 12 corresponds to 1923) he was adopted into the family by marriage to Tetsunosuke's eldest daughter Kazue (一恵), becoming Miyano Masaichirō; two or three years later — not through divorce — he returned his surname to Endō. In Shōwa 13 (1938), his skill in saw making being recognized, he formally succeeded to the name as the second-generation Miyano Tetsunosuke (襲名).
At that time Tetsunosuke II also trained in sword smithing, and in Shōwa 16 (1941) he won the gold prize at the Imperial Exhibition of Newly Made Japanese Swords (帝国新作日本刀展). Around Shōwa 17 (1942) he carried out research on sword making together with the master smith Miyairi Shōhei (宮入昭平, later a Living National Treasure) and others, and in Shōwa 19 (1944) he received the President's Honor Award (総裁名誉賞). In this period he also went by the swordsmith name Endō Shihōsai Tomonari (遠藤四方斎朝也). In Shōwa 48 (1973) he dedicated a newly forged sword to the Grand Shrine of Ise (伊勢皇太神宮).
In parallel with this sword making, he produced his own tamahagane by the tatara smelting method (たたら製鉄法), applied the techniques of sword making to perfecting saws forged from tamahagane, and continued to bring tamahagane saws into the world. He also recorded the manufacturing process in written accounts and on film, contributing greatly to the history of Miki hardware, and the fame of the second-generation "Miyano Tetsunosuke — Endō Shihōsai Tomonari" rose still higher.
In Shōwa 51 (1976) he received the special prize of the first Yoshida Isoya Award (吉田五十八賞) of the Arts Promotion Foundation and the Hyōgo Prefectural Culture Prize (兵庫県立文化賞), and the following year the Miki City Distinguished Service Award (三木市顕功賞), among many other prizes. He retired around Shōwa 61 (1986), and ten years later, in Heisei 8 (1996), he died at the age of 95, his name mourned by many.
The saws forged by Tetsunosuke II are of two kinds: tamahagane saws and ordinary-steel saws. On tamahagane saws, the front of the neck bears a cut signature different on every single saw, and the back of the neck bears the date of manufacture in cut characters (some saws lack it), the cut signature "made by Shihōsai Tomonari" (四方斎朝也作), and the stamped mark Kanete (兼テ).
Of the ordinary-steel saws it is said that Yasugi steel Shirogami (安来鋼の白紙, "White Paper" steel) was used, but according to a person deeply versed in Miyano Tetsunosuke, he would "pick out promising steel by eye from scrap such as steam locomotives and test samples" for use. On the front of the neck of these saws is engraved "Registered Trademark — Kanete — Miyano Tetsunosuke — kaō" (登録商標 兼テ 宮野鉄之助 花押), and on the back of the neck, Kanete (兼テ).
Tetsunosuke II had three sons. The eldest, born in Taishō 13 (given in the original as 1923; Taishō 13 corresponds to 1924), was born before the surname was returned to Endō and so was called Miyano Hiromitsu (宮野裕光); the second and third sons were born after the return to the Endō surname — the second son was Endō Kimitaka (遠藤公誉) and the third son Endō Tomoya (遠藤智也). (Reading of the given names 公誉 and 智也 is not glossed in the original; "Kimitaka" and "Tomoya" are the usual readings.)
All three trained as saw smiths under their father: the father took the master's seat (yokoza 横座) beside the forge while the three served as strikers (sakite 先手), and dressed in matching work clothes they forged saws to the ring of perfectly coordinated hammers. The three sons carried on after their father's retirement, but in time the eldest and second sons went their separate ways, and only the third son continued as a saw smith — until, after a while, he too ceased forging saws.
The eldest son Miyano Hiromitsu made saws under the smith-mark Miyano Harumitsu (宮野治光); the second son Endō Kimitaka under the mark Miyano Yoshimitsu (宮野義光); and the third son Endō Tomoya under the mark Miyano Tomomitsu (宮野智光). The eldest and second sons engraved on the back of the saw neck "Saw Manufactory — Miyano Tetsunosuke — Ganso Kanete" (鋸製造所 宮野鉄之助 元祖兼テ), while the third son engraved "Miyano Tetsunosuke — Kanete" (宮野鉄之助 兼テ). According to people concerned, many counterfeits of saws attributed to these three brothers are also in circulation.
Three saw smiths are known today as pupils of Tetsunosuke II: Hirota Kikujirō (廣田菊次郎), Ōnishi Ryūhei (大西龍平), and Hirose Giichi (廣瀬義一).
Hirota Kikujirō was a pupil who lived through Tetsunosuke II's golden age; he was praised in these terms: "His works are exceedingly beautiful; though he falls short of Tetsunosuke only in the study of tamahagane, in forging saws and in finishing with the sen (セン, drawknife-scraper) his technique is in no way inferior to Tetsunosuke's."
Ōnishi Ryūhei was the father of the president who now runs the Miki Tokusan Kanamono Center (三木特産金物センター, Miki Specialty Hardware Center).
Hirose Giichi is said to have been Tetsunosuke's last pupil; he died in Heisei 15 (2003). His son now runs a cutlery shop in Ono City (小野市).
This time, in researching and writing up the Miki saw smith Miyano Tetsunosuke, I not only came to know in detail the first Tetsunosuke, the second Tetsunosuke, the second's sons, and the second's pupils, but at the same time also the history of the related Miyano Heijirō house as saw smiths.
In the process I learned that Tetsunosuke II also devoted himself to sword making and was a celebrated swordsmith who received various prizes. And I recognized anew the high level of skill of Tetsunosuke II, who applied that technique to the making of saws from tamahagane — held to be especially difficult even among edge-tool smithing. I believe this sword making is the reason he is sometimes misunderstood to have turned from sword smith into saw smith.
Since no comprehensive, chronologically detailed "study of Miyano Tetsunosuke" such as the above has existed before now, I believe it will be of great value to lovers of carpentry tools.
Today carpentry tools are no longer used as they once were; the craftsmen called masters and virtuosos are aging with almost no successors, and are closing their workshops or being forced to close them. On the other hand, judging from the internet, the passion for collecting carpentry tools seems to be rising ever higher.
The rise of collecting raises the standing of carpentry tools, which had been seen as mere implements, and deepens recognition and understanding of the craftsmen who make them — craftsmen on whom hardly any light had been shed — which is a great joy. At the same time, unless we now preserve these craftsmen in records for posterity, Japan's carpentry-tool culture will vanish and be forgotten in the current of the times.
So that this may not happen, I have researched and written about carpentry-tool craftsmen and many related matters and published them on our shop's website. There is still much more I wish to research and write, and I intend to leave it as a record for future generations.
In closing, I introduce here Yoshida Shōzō (吉田省三) of Fukui, Miki — the master saw sharpener who, while raising twenty live-in apprentices over thirty years, supported Miyano Tetsunosuke from behind the scenes by doing his saw sharpening for some eighteen years while Tetsunosuke II was active — and with this I close the present essay.
An auspicious day, November, 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)
Suzuki Kanamono Co., Ltd. — "Trowels & Tools" shop site, History of Tools series
The history of smithing in Miki, Hyōgo Prefecture, is ancient, reaching back to the Yamato period. It is said to have begun when karakanuchi (韓鍛冶, smiths from the Korean kingdom of Baekje/Kudara 百済) settled in Miki and practiced smithing. Later, the turning point that made Miki a town of carpentry-tool smiths of the first rank in the nation is said to have come when Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉) poured his energy into rebuilding the castle town of Miki, devastated by the siege of Miki Castle, with the result that carpenters and smiths gathered in great numbers from the surrounding provinces.
In time the excellence of the carpentry tools forged in Miki became widely known in other provinces, and tool making flourished all the more. Through the Edo, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa, and Heisei eras down to the present day, carpentry-tool smiths have continued to make planes, chisels, saws, and other tools.
At present 21 chisel-smith firms belong to the Miki Industrial Cooperative (三木工業協同組合), and among them six persons are Traditional Craftsmen (伝統工芸士) — chisel smiths recognized by the state as masters.
In the long history of Miki chisel smithing there was once a chisel smith of conspicuous excellence called Kinryū (錦龍). In his day, a Kinryū set of chisels (組鑿) was of the very highest grade, said to fetch five to ten times the price of an ordinary chisel smith's. Our shop, too, owns a Kinryū chisel set. In the late Shōwa 40s (early 1970s) I asked a Miki wholesale house of edge tools and craftsmen's implements (利器工匠具問屋) with which we then dealt for "a chisel set by the finest master chisel smith in Miki," and acquired it.
Since Kinryū died thirty years ago, he is now not well known even in the trade; many of those who knew him have passed away, and he is being forgotten from memory. I therefore made various inquiries so as to write about this Kinryū on our shop's website, and was able to learn about him in detail. So, together with photographs of our Kinryū chisel set, I wish to introduce Kinryū and preserve him in the record for posterity.
I have drawn on conversations with Kinryū's daughter — the wife of the president of the Tokyo hardware store Kanewaka (カネワカ); with Miyawaki Masataka (宮脇正孝), fifth-generation head and master chisel smith of Miki; and with Seki Tadayuki (関忠行), chairman of the Miki wholesaler Sekichū Co., Ltd. ((株)関忠); and also on the Miki City website, the Kōbe Shimbun WebNews series "Kanamonogatari" (カナモノガタリ), and the Dentō Hamono Kōbō (伝統刃物工房, Traditional Edge-Tool Workshop) website.
Honorifics are omitted below.
Kinryū's real name was Nishiki Masao (錦政男), born in Taishō 13 (1924) in Awa City, Tokushima Prefecture, on Shikoku. On finishing local elementary school he was apprenticed to the Miki chisel smith Miyawaki Genjirō (宮脇源次郎), to whom his elder sister was married, and began his training as a chisel smith. Miyawaki Genjirō was a distant relative of the Miyawaki family — the distinguished Miki chisel-smith house continuing five generations from the Edo period, whose present head is the Traditional Craftsman famed as a master, Miyawaki Masataka (宮脇正孝) — belonging to a branch line that split off around the second generation.
His master Miyawaki Genjirō died young, and Masao, who had completed his training and set up independently, inherited the customer connections, partly because he was Miyawaki's brother-in-law. At first he forged many chisels under wholesalers' marks, but as his skill advanced, Masao began to attempt, one after another, new things that no chisel smith in Miki had yet tried.
Using kamaji (釜地, old kettle iron) for the soft backing iron, he found that when it is steeped in a certain chemical it corrodes so that a wood-grain pattern (mokume 木目) rises to the surface; Masao was the first to devise this mokume-uchi (木目打, wood-grain forging) method. He took Kinryū (錦龍) as his own mark, forged chisels under it, and had a dragon carved on the ferrule (口金) of the chisel handle. He also placed sets of hitotsu-ura (一ツ裏, single-hollow back) and mitsu-ura (三ツ裏, triple-hollow back) chisels in rectangular or fan-shaped paulownia boxes, boldly inscribed in black ink "Mokume-uchi — Kinryū — Settsu jūnin — Masao dōjin" (木目打 錦龍 摂津住人 政男道人, "Wood-grain forged, Kinryū, resident of Settsu, the lay-devotee Masao"), and offered them for sale. He further devised and forged fan-shaped chisels and other chisels of original form one after another. He also registered designs (意匠登録), patented manufacturing methods (製法特許登録), and registered the trademark of the Kinryū mark. Masao was the first Miki chisel smith to do such things — epoch-making steps for a chisel smith. As a result, the price of a master's Kinryū chisel set ran five to ten times the ordinary.
Nishiki Masao "was a man who was the very picture of the craftsman's temperament," yet he was unbound by old ways, brimming with the spirit of challenge, always thinking of things no chisel smith had yet attempted. A devoted smoker who loved canned Peace cigarettes, Masao — so the anecdote survives — would knit his brows as he exhaled tobacco smoke, forever pondering whether there might not be some new method.
He was blessed with two daughters, but he collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage (the original prints 脳益血, a variant of 脳溢血), and in Shōwa 55 (1980), mourned as the master Miki chisel smith Kinryū, he ended a life devoted single-mindedly to chisel smithing at the young age of 57.
After Masao's death, his younger brother Nishiki Kiyomi (錦清水, born Shōwa 13 / 1938), who had been apprenticed to his brother Masao at 13 and become independent at 25, carried on the Kinryū line, forging chisels under the mark Kinshimizu / Nishiki Kiyomi (錦清水). Like his brother, Nishiki Kiyomi was esteemed a master among Miki chisel smiths, and is famous for the nejiri mokume-uchi (ねじり木目打, twisted wood-grain forging), in which the chisel is twisted during forging. (The original glosses the reading of 錦清水 as ニシキキヨミ, Nishiki Kiyomi.)
This time I have written up Kinryū, esteemed as a master among Miki chisel smiths. The Kinryū chisel set in our shop's possession, introduced in the photographs, was acquired in the late Shōwa 40s (early 1970s) by asking the Miki wholesaler Yokomitsu Kanamono Co., Ltd. ((株)横光金物), then a trading partner of ours, for "the finest chisels by a Miki chisel smith." (Translator's note: the Introduction attributes the purchase generically to "a Miki wholesale house of edge tools"; the Conclusion names it as Yokomitsu Kanamono.)
Until now I had known nothing at all of the career of this Kinryū chisel smith (Mr. Nishiki Masao). To write him up for our shop's website I searched the internet and made inquiries of Mr. Seki Tadayuki (関忠行), chairman of Sekichū Co., Ltd. of Miki. In the course of gathering these materials, I learned that the wife of Mr. Wakai Motoji (若井元次), president of the hardware store Kanewaka (カネワカ) in Itabashi, Tokyo — whom I had met at trade gatherings — was Kinryū's daughter, and by telephone I was able to ask her many things: his birthplace, where he trained, the age at which he died, and so on.
Having heard that the smith to whom he was apprenticed was apparently a chisel smith named Miyawaki, I thought there might be a connection with the Miyawaki family, chisel smiths in Miki since the Edo period, and telephoned the present fifth-generation head, Mr. Miyawaki Masataka, of high repute as a master, and was able to ask in detail about the late Mr. Miyawaki Genjirō and Kinryū. I also heard from Mr. Miyawaki that the elder sister of Mr. Yokoyama Mitsunosuke (横山光之助), first president of Yokomitsu Kanamono, had married into his grandfather's family — an unexpected connection I had never imagined. As a result I was able to complete a manuscript under the title "The Master Chisel Smith of Miki, Kinryū."
Since Kinryū (Mr. Nishiki Masao) is not well known, I wish to publish this manuscript on our shop's website so that lovers of carpentry tools may know him widely, and to leave it as a record for posterity.
I express my deep thanks to the wife of President Wakai and to the fifth-generation head Mr. Miyawaki Masataka, who kindly taught me many things despite my sudden telephone calls, and to Mr. Seki Tadayuki, chairman of Sekichū Co., Ltd., who always so readily shares his knowledge.
An auspicious day, May, 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)
Source pages (Shift-JIS originals archived): bansyuumikinonokokaji1–4.html; mikinomikajinomeikou1–3.html — misyuku-suzuki-kanamonoten.com. Copyright (C) 2006 Suzuki Kanamono. Translated for private research use.