Tsunesaburo 70mm Meimon Smoothing Plane

Tsunesaburo was founded in 1947 in Miki City, Hyogo Prefecture, when Uozumi Tsunemi, known as the original Tsunesaburo, established Tsunesaburo Kanna Manufacturing Studio after 28 years of study under his grandfather, a master plane-maker known as Fukusaburo Kanna. That grandfather had apprenticed at 13 to Kurokawa Utaro, a former sword smith, and absorbed the forging methods of Japanese swordcraft before redirecting them to plane blades. The lineage was built on that transfer. Uozumi Akio, the second generation, began learning at 13 alongside the studio's founding and spent 70 years at the forge, combining classical tempering with modern steel research into what the family holds as a guiding principle: that ancient and contemporary techniques are not in tension but in conversation. The current generation, led by Uozumi Toru as president, has extended that thinking into planes made from steels ranging from Meiji and early Showa period stock to modern high-speed alloys including HAP powder steel. For Tsunesaburo, the plane is inseparable from the Japanese built environment, and every blade that leaves the forge carries with it the expectation that a craftsman's work, and the spaces it produces, should be worthy of the steel.