From Ore to Edge: Following Japanese Scissor Steel from Mill to Salon

Your VG-10 scissors started life as iron ore. Somewhere in a mine — probably in Australia or Brazil — someone pulled rock out of the ground that would eventually become the tool in your hand.

Between that mine and your salon, the steel passed through at least four companies, was heated past 1,000 degrees Celsius multiple times, had its molecular structure deliberately rearranged, and was shaped by specialists whose families have been doing this work for generations.

Here’s the full journey.

The Steelmakers: Four Companies That Supply Almost Everything

The Japanese scissors industry runs on steel from four primary mills. Every brand you’ve heard of — from entry-level to ultra-premium — sources from this short list. Understanding who makes what will save you from a lot of marketing confusion.

Takefu Special Steel (武生特殊鋼材)

Location: Echizen, Fukui Prefecture Founded: 1920s (as Takefu Knife Village steelmaker) Key products: VG-1, VG-5, VG-10, VG-10W, VG-10B, V-10 Gold, SG2/R2, VG-XEOS

Takefu is the dominant name in scissors steel. Their VG (V Gold) family is the single most widely used premium scissors steel in the world. If a brand says “Japanese stainless steel” without specifying further, there’s a reasonable chance it’s a Takefu product.

The VG family breaks down like this:

The jump from VG-10 to SG2 is not just a grade upgrade — it’s a completely different manufacturing process. VG-10 is conventionally melted: raw ingredients go into a furnace, melt together, solidify, and are rolled into sheets. SG2 is powder metallurgy: the molten steel is atomised into fine powder, then consolidated under extreme heat and pressure. This creates a much finer, more uniform carbide structure, which translates directly to better edge retention and easier sharpening.

Hitachi Metals / Proterial (日立金属 / プロテリアル)

Location: Yasuki Works, Shimane Prefecture Founded: 1899 (as Hitachi Mining) Key products: GIN1 (Silver 1), GIN3 (Silver 3), ATS-34, ATS-55, ATS-314, White Paper, Blue Paper

Hitachi Metals — now rebranded as Proterial following their 2023 corporate restructuring — operates the legendary Yasuki Works in Shimane Prefecture. This is the mill that produces the famous White Paper (Shirogami/白紙) and Blue Paper (Aogami/青紙) carbon steels used in traditional Japanese knives and razors.

For scissors, the GIN (Silver) series matters most:

The White and Blue Paper steels are historically important but rarely used in modern hairdressing scissors because they are not stainless — they rust without constant maintenance. You’ll occasionally find them in high-end Japanese barber razors and specialty scissors marketed to collectors.

ATS-34 deserves special mention. Originally developed for industrial bearings, it crossed over into the knife and scissors world in the 1980s and offered a significant performance upgrade over earlier stainless steels. It’s still used in some premium models today, though VG-10 has largely supplanted it in market share.

Aichi Steel (愛知製鋼)

Location: Tokai, Aichi Prefecture Founded: 1940 (Toyota Group company) Key products: AUS-6, AUS-8, AUS-10

Aichi Steel is part of the Toyota Group, which tells you something about their manufacturing precision. Their AUS series is the workhorse of the mid-range scissors market:

AUS-8 is probably the most commonly used steel in scissors priced between $100 and $300. It offers a good balance of hardness, toughness, and corrosion resistance without the premium price of VG-10. Many brands start their professional lines with AUS-8 and reserve VG-10 or SG2 for their flagship models.

Daido Steel (大同特殊鋼)

Location: Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture Founded: 1916 Key products: DSR1K6(M), DSR10UA

Daido is the least discussed of the four mills in the scissors context, but their steels appear more often than most people realise. DSR1K6(M) is officially described as being “for kitchen knives and scissors” — a dual-purpose formulation that appears in many entry-level Japanese scissors. DSR10UA is marketed for “small scissors” and appears in student and budget professional models.

Daido steels tend to be workmanlike rather than glamorous. You won’t see brands advertising “made with DSR1K6” on their product pages, but the steel is there, quietly doing its job in thousands of affordable scissors.

How Steel Reaches the Scissor Maker

Raw steel doesn’t go directly from the mill to the forging workshop. Between them sits the kozaisho (鋼材商, steel merchant) — a specialist intermediary who is the first link in the bungyosei (分業制, division-of-labour) chain that defines Seki City manufacturing.

The kozaisho maintains relationships with all four mills and stocks standard grades in various thicknesses and widths. When a scissor manufacturer places an order, the kozaisho selects the appropriate stock — or, for large or specialised orders, commissions a specific batch from the mill.

This intermediary role matters because steel mills typically deal in minimum order quantities measured in tonnes. A small scissor brand making 200 pairs per month doesn’t need tonnes of VG-10. The kozaisho aggregates demand across multiple manufacturers, enabling even small brands to access premium steels.

The steel arrives at the kozaisho as flat-rolled sheet or coil, typically 2-4mm thick. The kozaisho may perform initial cutting to size before distributing to forging specialists. Quality control happens here too — each batch is tested for composition, hardness potential, and surface quality before being released to manufacturers.

What the Chemical Elements Actually Do

Steel specifications are lists of chemical elements. Here’s what each one contributes to your scissors’ performance:

The art of scissors steel design is balancing these elements. More carbon makes a harder edge but increases brittleness. More chromium improves corrosion resistance but can make the steel gummy during sharpening. Molybdenum and vanadium are the “safety net” elements — they add toughness and wear resistance without significant downsides, which is why premium steels tend to have more of both.

VG-10: The Industry Standard, Up Close

VG-10 deserves its own section because it is, without question, the most important scissors steel of the last 30 years. When someone says “Japanese scissors steel,” they probably mean VG-10 whether they know it or not.

The nominal composition: 1.0% carbon, 15% chromium, 1.0% molybdenum, 0.2% vanadium, 1.5% cobalt. Those cobalt and vanadium additions are what distinguish VG-10 from lesser stainless steels. Cobalt raises the overall hardness ceiling and maintains hardness at elevated temperatures (relevant during high-speed cutting). Vanadium forms very hard carbides that resist wear and refine the grain structure for a keener edge.

But not all VG-10 is the same.

VG-10W is the variant used by Kasho in their Blue and Ivory series. The “W” indicates adjusted tungsten content, which modifies the carbide formation during heat treatment. The practical result is a blade that Kasho considers optimal for their specific heat treatment process and intended edge geometry.

VG-10B adds enhanced cobalt and vanadium — pushing the alloy closer to what you might call a semi-cobalt alloy. This variant appears in specialty models where extra edge retention is desired but SG2’s price point isn’t justified.

V-10 Gold (V-10G) is essentially a marketing designation. Some retailers use it to differentiate their VG-10 scissors from competitors, sometimes with minor compositional tweaks, sometimes without. Treat “V-10 Gold” as VG-10 unless the brand provides specific compositional data showing otherwise.

Powder Metallurgy: The Next Level

Conventional steelmaking melts raw ingredients in a furnace and pours the result into ingots or continuous cast sheets. This works well, but the cooling process creates carbide particles of varying sizes. Large carbides are potential failure points — they can chip out during use, creating microscopic rough spots on the edge.

Powder metallurgy (PM) solves this by atomising the molten steel into a fine powder using high-pressure gas jets. Each powder particle is essentially a tiny ingot that cools extremely rapidly, creating very fine, uniform carbides. The powder is then consolidated into solid steel using Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) — simultaneous high temperature (around 1,150 degrees Celsius) and high pressure (100+ MPa) in an argon atmosphere.

The result: steel with carbide particles several times smaller and more uniformly distributed than conventionally melted steel. In practical terms, this means a finer edge that lasts longer and resharpens more predictably.

Takefu’s SG2 (Super Gold 2, also marketed as R2) is the powder metallurgy steel you’ll most commonly encounter in scissors. Joewell uses SG2 in their FX PRO series, and it represents a significant step up from their VG-10 models in both performance and price.

Mizutani takes a different approach with their Nano Powder Metal (NPM) technology. Rather than using a standard mill product like SG2, Mizutani specifies a proprietary PM composition and adds their own HIP processing parameters. The result is a steel that Mizutani controls from specification to finished blade — a level of vertical integration that’s unusual in the industry.

Both approaches deliver the PM advantage. The difference is philosophical: SG2 is an off-the-shelf premium product available to any manufacturer willing to pay for it. NPM is a proprietary system tied to a single brand. SG2 democratises powder metallurgy; NPM exclusivises it.

The Journey in Full

Let’s trace a single pair of VG-10 scissors from start to finish:

1. Iron ore mined in Australia or Brazil, shipped to Japan
2. Smelting at a primary steelworks into basic iron/steel
3. Alloying at Takefu Special Steel in Fukui — carbon, chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, and cobalt added to precise specifications
4. Rolling into flat sheet stock, typically 2-4mm thick
5. Distribution via kozaisho (steel merchant) to Seki City
6. Forging by tanzo specialist — heated to 1,100 degrees Celsius, pressed into blade blanks
7. Rough grinding by kensaku specialist — blade geometry established
8. Heat treatment by netsushori specialist — vacuum quench and temper to HRC 58-62
9. Assembly by kumitate specialist — pivot, handles, blade matching
10. Final sharpening by togishi (master sharpener) — convex edge hand-finished
11. Engraving by kokuin specialist — brand, model, serial number
12. Quality control and packaging by the commissioning brand
13. Distribution to dealer or retailer
14. Your hand

Fourteen steps. At least six different companies. Multiple heat cycles. Months of calendar time. And every step matters — a failure at any point compromises everything that follows.

What This Means for Buying Decisions

Understanding the supply chain changes how you evaluate scissors in two practical ways.

First, steel grade is not destiny. The same VG-10 steel can produce a mediocre scissor or an exceptional one depending on forging quality, heat treatment precision, and — above all — the skill of the togishi who creates the final edge. Don’t buy scissors based solely on steel grade. A well-executed AUS-8 scissor from a reputable maker will outperform a poorly finished VG-10 from a questionable source.

Second, premium steel commands premium prices for real reasons. SG2 costs significantly more than VG-10 at the mill level, and it requires more careful handling during heat treatment and forging. If a brand offers “SG2 scissors” at VG-10 prices, ask questions. The economics don’t work unless they’re cutting corners somewhere else in the chain.

The steel in your scissors has a story. It started as rock in the ground and ended as a precision cutting tool in your hand. Every step between those two points was performed by someone who spent their career mastering that specific part of the process.

That supply chain is what “Made in Japan” actually means.