Louis Mills has been making Japanese style blades for over twenty years and has pursued the craft with a tenacity and honesty that is unequalled in the business. He developed this style of steel making in order to achieve the quality and look of the ancient Japanese blades.
After the fire has been charged to the top with layers of charcoal and iron powder, Louis begins the process of reducing it down. His bellows is a push/pull set up and he has to maintain an intensity to the air flow to keep the fire hot enough to carburize the iron and fuse it together.
The process took under an hour before the fire had burned down sufficiently for Louis to reveal the steel in the bottom.
The next step was to flatten the steel under the hammer.
The resulting steel looked like this and was ready to be broken into pieces and sorted according to carbon content.
