Shigeki Tanaka is a famous Japanese knife maker. He is the son of Kazuyuki Tanaka who passed away in 2012 after a period of illness. Shigeki has been hard-drilled since childhood and after his father's death, he leads the factory and determines the future design of Tanaka knives. All knives are completely handmade and very exclusive. Through our unique collaboration with Tanaka, we have had the opportunity to visit the factory several times. Spectacular craftsmanship is witnessed there, completely according to ancient traditions. The factory is very small and unassuming and is located in Miki City which is outside the city of Kobe in Japan. To get there, we were guided along a lonely dirt road far outside the busy metropolitan pulse. In a way, it felt like we had gone back in time by a couple of hundred years.
In Tanaka's factory, they rely entirely on knowledge and feel, and there is a complete lack of high-tech machinery. The only machine in the factory is actually a spring hammer that strikes repeatedly in the same place. It facilitates otherwise very stressful manual work, even if manual work with hammer and tongs is often used. You notice that there is great pride in the work that is carried out. Every step is meticulously evaluated and production never continues until Tanaka is completely satisfied with the result. For the R2 Custom series of knives, the maximum production capacity is only 5 copies per day, so it is easy to understand that the supply is very limited.
