Naoki Munetsugu

Naoki took his first hammer blow at nine and his father's forge at forty-one. Between the two lay eleven years as an unpaid apprentice — sweeping, sorting charcoal, and watching — before he was permitted to quench a single blade.

He works alone at the fire before dawn, when the light of the steel is easiest to read. His honyaki blades — forged from a single piece of steel, water-quenched, the most demanding discipline in the craft — number fewer than twenty a year. Most are spoken for years in advance.