As I search through my last tool haul, I am finally getting to bottom of some boxes, and I found this gem. It's a Japanese hatchet, or machete, made by "Nata". The stamping on it translated is "Nata Single Edge".

I love this tool, it's heavy, strong, and I could easily see walking through the forest and coming up on some small branches and logs, and splitting them with a maul, and this tool, green chair making? It could be in my future.

Here is the Nata, the sheath is actually made of wood, covered in swede.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My new found friend Ikeda Tomoko helped me ID this tool, she is a woodworker in Japan, and we corresponded through Facebook on this. She also judges woodworking shows in her home country, as seen in this image below, she is holding the shave from dropping.

 

Beautiful.  There always seems to be something magical about an old tool.  I wonder how many hands it has been in and hope it ends up in the right hands when I'm gone.  If only the tool could the story. 

20 minutes ago, HandyDan said:

Beautiful.  There always seems to be something magical about an old tool.  I wonder how many hands it has been in and hope it ends up in the right hands when I'm gone.  If only the tool could the story. 

I hope the gent who passed this on to me Dan, is looking down and saying, "his hands will do".

Somehow, I don't think he'd have anything but good things to say about his wife's selection of the caretaker/user of his tools.