Name: Echigo Yoita Uchihamono — MASTER'S ARTISTRY
Uploaded: 2015-01-01
Description: Planes, chisels, broadaxes, and adzes are the four designated products. Yoita is now home to Japan's sole remaining adze (chouna) smith, preserving a

Echigo Yoita Uchihamono

Japan's last adze smith

Planes, chisels, broadaxes, and adzes are the four designated products. Yoita is now home to Japan's sole remaining adze (chouna) smith, preserving a technique critical to traditional temple carpentry. These forging skills, unavailable in Europe, are prized by violin makers and shrine carpenters alike.

Echigo Yoita Uchihamono

Forged Blades of Yoita

Four products are designated: planes (kanna), chisels (nomi), broadaxes (masakari), and adzes (chouna).

Yoita is home to Japan's only remaining adze smith, making it a critical guardian of a technique essential to traditional architecture and heritage restoration.

European violin makers prize Yoita tools for forging techniques unavailable in their own countries, demonstrating global relevance of this local craft.

○ Main production area: Nagaoka City

Echigo Yoita Uchihamono Association
134-2 Yoitamachi Yoita-ko, Nagaoka 940-2402 (inside Yoita Town Chamber of Commerce)
Tel: 0258-72-2303 / Fax: 0258-72-3328
Email: yoisho@fancy.ocn.ne.jp