SEKKI

Twenty-four long swords a year,
one for each solar term.

SEKKI, a sword forge in Osafune, Okayama

A sword forge in Osafune, Okayama.
Twenty-four long swords a year, one for each solar term.

Begin with iron sand.

Fold it fifteen times.

Harden it in one night.

One smith, one furnace

One licensed smith may make two long swords a month. That is the limit set for every swordsmith in Japan, and SEKKI names each blade after the solar term it was quenched in.

24long swords a year, the legal ceiling

5 yearsof apprenticeship before a smith is licensed

1 registerevery sword is recorded with the government

From sand to signature · 01 / 09

Iron sand

Every sword here starts as iron sand, satetsu. One smelt uses about 9.1 tonnes of it.

  1. Satetsu
  2. Tatara
  3. Kera
  4. Folding
  5. Kobuse
  6. Sunobe
  7. Tsuchioki
  8. Yaki-ire
  9. Hamon

Kokaji · The Swordsmith, a Noh play

Ko-Gitsune Maru

In the play, Emperor Ichijō orders a sword from Sanjō Munechika, who has no partner good enough to strike with him. He prays at Fushimi Inari. The god Inari comes to the anvil and they forge the blade together.

Munechika founded the Yamashiro school in the late 10th century. Forging a blade was traditionally accompanied by Shinto rituals.

Woodblock print: Munechika at the anvil while the fox spirit of Inari swings the hammer, under a sacred rope.
Ogata Gekkō, Munechika forging Ko-Gitsune Maru with the fox spirit · public domain

Twenty folds make 1,048,576 layers. After that, folding stops helping.

What folding does

  1. Evens out the carbon. Tamahagane comes out of the furnace uneven; folding spreads the carbon through the layers.
  2. Squeezes out slag. Clay, water and straw ash turn to a liquid flux near 1,200 °C and carry impurities out between the layers.
  3. Costs weight. By the end of forging the steel can be down to a tenth of what went into the fire.

How many folds

  1. 8 to 16. Smiths repeat the folding (shita-kitae) eight to sixteen times.
  2. Past 20, nothing changes. The carbon has diffused and the steel is almost uniform.
  3. The grain stays. The layers show on the polished blade as hada: straight masame, wood-like itame, burl-like mokume.

Source: Japanese swordsmithing, Wikipedia

The year so far · 2026

Sixteen of twenty-four

Sixteen blades quenched since Risshun, one each term. Eight terms of 2026 are still to come; the next blade waits for 寒露, cold dew.

See all 24 blades

Commissions · 2027

The 2027 list opens at Risshun, 4 February.

Places
24

one per solar term, no more by law

Price
¥3,200,000

long sword in shirasaya, polish included

You choose
Length, hamon

the term is the night it is quenched

    Join the 2027 list