Miniature tamahagane billet by Yoshindo Yoshihara

Roughly 45x22x15 mm. Each billet varies slightly in dimension. Gold kao on the top surface.

These little gems demonstrate what the initial billet of tamahagane looks like after forging the platelets together and after the first fold. This is a great visual demonstration of why it is not necessary to fold the billet thousands of times to get thousands of layers. Fifteen folds give in excess of 32,000 laminations assuming a single shet of steel. The original billet was composed of ten to twenty layers of platelets. Fold that ten times and you get between 10K and 20K laminations. The joy of exponentials.

It also demonstrates that both masame and itame are present in the same billet, depending on which side you see and on how the smith continues the folding process.

Comes in a custom fitted Paulownia box.

Currently out of stock, but Yoshindo sensei sends us a few from time to time.