Mr. Fujiwara makes the complete knife from start to finish. For the blade, he uses a proprietary #1 white high carbon steel (1.5%) called Izuha-kou forged laminated between two layers of stainless steel. The blade is then hardened to Rockwell 64-65 and attached to a traditional style Japanese Ho Wood handle. Each knife is fully polished to a razor edge. Blade length is 7-5/8˝, and overall length is 12½˝