For 100+ years, the craft of blade making was passed down through the Kabayama family. Today, Kabayama Blacksmith continues this tradition as a 3rd generation workshop in the Kuma region of southern Kumamoto, a mountainous area with a long history of forestry tools, where the Kuma kama sickle has been crafted for generations.

The workshop was founded in 1904 by Akira's grandfather, Takeyoshi Kabayama, in Asagiri.

The current maker, Akira Kabayama, first studied architecture in Tokyo and worked at a design firm, where he was on the commissioning side of ironwork. After returning home to take over from his father Goaki, he saw an opportunity to expand the workshop's craft. In 2000, he established Libra Workshop, a Western ironwork division within Kabayama Blacksmith. Two years later, he traveled to Italy, to study wrought iron under master blacksmith Luciano Seranti, bringing that tradition back to Kumamoto.

Today, Akira works across two worlds: forging traditional knives, sickles, axes, and garden tools the old way (heating, hammering, folding steel into iron, again and again) while also creating architectural ironwork such as gates, fences, and railings, designed from sketch to finished piece.

Designated as Kumamoto Prefectural Traditional Craft No. 193, his work has been exhibited and sold across Japan.

"I try to make things that make daily life more interesting and more rich."

Akira Kabayama believes that, whether a hand-forged kitchen knife or a wrought iron candleholder, each piece carries the same conviction: that craft should be lived with, not just admired. Akira's blades are built for use, and his ironwork is designed to belong in the spaces where people live.