Japanese Hunting Knife
The hunting season for dolphins in the Japanese port of Taiji, which was completed in April, was extended by one month, announced Friday a local official. "We have resumed the hunt for the authorities (prefecture) in Wakayama have extended the authorization until late May because of low catches this year," said an official of the cooperative fishery in Taiji. Sixty dolphins were caught on Wednesday and put up for auction on Thursday, he added. Each year from September to April, fishermen from this port in west-central Japan captured some 2,000 dolphins in an enclosed bay, some of which are sold to aquariums or theme parks, the others being killed to be eaten. Some animal rights organizations clamoring for the end of this fishery, denouncing a "brutal massacre and anachronistic. " japanese hunting knife fishermen, who also hunt whales, criticized for their part to environmental activists to ignore the tradition of whaling has been practiced for centuries in the islands. The history of the town of Taiji was put under the spotlight by the documentary "The Cove, Bay of Shame", directed by American Louie Psihoyos and won an Oscar in Hollywood. Our series takes us to Cambodia today to say the least unusual activity: the manufacture of knives and blades of all kinds in the direction of a French Dominique Eluere. Blacksmiths of Citadel whether French or Cham, are aces of the blade: the knife hiking the Japanese weapon (katana, wakisashi, tanto aikuchi, kaiken or shirasaya) through hunting knives Scandinavian Tibetan All weapons manufactured in the workshop in Phnom Penh Citadel are handcrafted with a remarkable level of finish. As for prices, they remain reasonable, given the work involved. The stuff of dreams of martial arts enthusiasts cutting or cooking. It began ten years ago under the direction of Dominique Eluere, blacksmith and japanese hunting knife enthusiast, who settled in Phnom Penh after twenty years in Asia. "When I started I had no idea what a katana (Japanese sword). Fortunately! Otherwise, I would never have dared to launch. . Today it provides many European and American dojos and katanas are used in competitions Tameshigiri (Japanese ritual cup). "In Japan, we are recognized, but the market is closed. There are a few great masters whose swords overpriced require three or four years of waiting. The Chinese are flooding the market of products of poor quality or poor and we, we satisfy a need intermediary. . In the workshops of Citadel, located near the airport - and that can be visited - impossible not to fall in love with these weapons of great delicacy made under the direction of Christopher by a team of artisans Chams, a Muslim minority traditionally composed of fishermen, blacksmiths and butchers. The tools and machines are extremely simple, even archaic. And yet at the finish, these unique blades - each is made by a craftsman - born of the meeting of perfectionism japanese hunting knife labor Cham and passion of two French, are beautiful to breathtaking. Hammered, cut, heated, radiused, polished, with sleeves made from carefully selected materials (shagreen-ray skin - Gulf of Thailand, jackfruit from Malaysia, Cambodia rosewood, buffalo horn Vietnam) and sheaths tailored to each slide, they become objects of art or high craft, unique. "We work only from European steels, French (Bonpertuis, Savoie) or Austria (bolha) because we need for proper heat treatment, to know the exact composition of the steel," explains Dominique Eluère for that the quality premium. To make a sword, it takes three to five weeks. The hand polishing of a japanese hunting knife sword request for four to six days, with sandpaper or stones of four different grains. Blacksmiths chams will then hammering a bar thick red-hot in a forge fired charcoal. The bar is flattened and enlarged to bring it to the template, as was still in Europe, there are hundreds of years. The worker in charge of the weapon from A to Z, the cutting blade at the final size and lime in a straight line on each side to begin the cutting edge. This is then hardened, that is to say, heated to 800 degrees and then quenched in an oil bath to change the crystalline structure of steel and then freeze the change. To prevent the blade becomes hard and brittle - which would be detrimental to a sword fight - the blade is then heated to 250 degrees for the small temperature de-stress. It becomes a little softer but much more flexible. Before the traditional quenching blades are surrounded by a matrix of clay Mekong mixed with powdered coal and steel scrap, a refractory mix, which leaves open air will allow the edge quenching differentiated. Once the strips are ready, they are assigned to a worker polishes the length, then rises. Again a craft extremely clever and entirely by hand, enables the manufacture of sleeves in all possible materials, leather in buffalo horn, wood, precious bamboo, through the skin of skate (stingray) lacquered and polished, clad in leather or silk. A feast for the eyes but also to touch. Dominique Eluère is proud of his company not only for the quality of what it produces but because, he says, "it allows us to offer our workers Cambodian, Khmer or Cham, the opportunity to become excellent professionals and living from their work in their countries, more than respectable, being rightly proud of their achievements. " . . .
