Wiley Horne--So. Calif.
>Hi Manny,

Yes, they're from So. The only handmade Mitsukawa I have is a 400mm tatebiki, so it's not a good comparison. However, I have a friend up in Canada who bought the $500-600 small katabas from Iida-san, and who also bought a smallish Heiji saw--he then sent the brand-new and unused Mitsukawa's overseas to Heiji to try to get Heiji to do some metate on them.

This is just my take, so use a handful of salt. But Mitsukawa-san has figured out a way to make a living making saws, and he does it by segmenting the market, and then differentiating his product with a wide range of offerings which vary in quality. Heiji-san makes his living making knives, because he refuses to compromise on saw quality. He only does one quality of work. His metate is way up there, and in fact, he is an excellent man to hire for metate on your good saws, though it may cost you $100 per saw. The $500-550 was for white steel #2. He also has some togo reigo stock, and will make a togo reigo saw for $1,500 as I recall. According to So-san, the hand work content is the same on the white steel saw as the togo reigo one.

My Heiji saw came with a burnished finish, clearly hand done, but did not have the 'pebbled' texture that you can see under low magnification on a Miyano saw. The Heiji saw showed some tensioning strikes, whereas I can find no tensioning strikes remaining on a Miyano saw. The Heiji saw is incredibly sharp. I don't mean to sound like I'm generalizing, because I've only seen one Heiji saw.

I've been meaning to say, that was an inspirational sawing job you did to make that pyramid free-hand! So of course you have saws to beat the band. However, if curiosity gets the better of you.....

Wiley