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Side view of the Kamo Hamono Juhyo santoku knife, showing a VG10 Damascus blade with hammered tsuchime finish, a water buffalo horn bolster, and a stabilized figured wood handle with visible grain.
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife
Kamo Hamono

Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife

Sale price$375.00

Echizen has produced edged tools since the 14th century, when a sword smith from Kyoto settled in the region and found its water ideal for hardening steel. Kamo Hamono works within that tradition at Takefu Knife Village in Echizen City, where Katsuyasu Kamo — designated a traditional craftsman and founding chairman of the cooperative — built a reputation across decades for advancing Echizen's forging methods while holding to their foundation. The Juhyo santoku takes its name from the phenomenon of hoarfrost on trees — the crystalline formations that build on branches when supercooled fog freezes on contact with surfaces. The tsuchime hammered finish across the Damascus body carries that reference directly: each irregular depression in the steel catches light differently, the surface shifting as the blade moves. The core is VG10 stainless steel, layered within a Damascus cladding and ground to a double-bevel edge suited to the full range of kitchen work a santoku handles. The handle is stabilized karinburl wood with a water buffalo horn bolster.
Side view of the Kamo Hamono Juhyo santoku knife, showing a VG10 Damascus blade with hammered tsuchime finish, a water buffalo horn bolster, and a stabilized figured wood handle with visible grain.
Kamo Hamono VG10 Tsuchime Damascus Juhyo Santoku Knife Sale price$375.00

Meet the Artisan

Kamo Hamono

Kamo Hamono was established in Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, in 1936, when Kamo Shintaro founded the studio as a kitchen knife forge within the Echizen Uchihamono tradition. His son Kamo Katsuyasu joined the forge in 1956, beginning with the technique of dual-bevel blade forging, and has led the studio as its second generation. In 1975, Katsuyasu co-developed a vegetable harvesting knife with a highland farmer in Nagano's Sugadaira plateau, producing a dual-bevel blade suited to the demands of harvesting leafy vegetables at scale. The knife spread to farming communities across Japan and became one of the pieces that established Echizen's reputation in agricultural blade-making. Katsuyasu has also been central to the institutional survival of the tradition. In 1973, as the forge-based industry faced declining demand and an aging workforce, he was among the craftsmen who formed the Takefu Forged Blade Industry Study Society. In 1991, he established the Takefu Knife Village Cooperative and served as its inaugural director, working to bring younger makers into the craft at a moment when continuity was genuinely at risk. In 2016, he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure for this body of work. He was certified as a Traditional Craft Artisan in 2008. The studio is now in its third generation under Kamo Shinsuke, born in 1981.