It started as a carpenter's tool

Shukusaburo Kobayashi opened his workshop in Sanjo in 1926, and what he made there was not a nail clipper. It was kuikiri, the end cut pliers a carpenter uses to pull and cut nail heads. Tokyo was rebuilding after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the demand for house building tools was enormous.

The nail clipper came later, in 1950, and it is still recognisably the same tool: two forged blades, a pivot pin, a spring. A carpenter's nipper scaled down to a fingernail.

Suwada stayed in Sanjo for the reason they give themselves. It is, in their words, a place long known as one of the world's leading production centres for high end cutlery, where quality materials and skilled craftspeople are in plentiful supply.

Eight steps, and only the middle of the bar

Suwada publishes the process as a numbered list, and two details in it explain the price of the thing.

The steel is heated past 1000C and struck with 400 tonnes of force. Then only the central thirty per cent of the forged bar is used. The ends are discarded. Everything outside that band is considered not good enough to become a blade.

Near the end of the list comes the step that cannot be mechanised: the two blades are aligned by hand with a diamond file until they meet along their whole length. That is the difference between a clipper that cuts a nail and one that crushes it. Their own summary of the company is that everything, from product development and material selection through to finishing, is done by their own craftsmen.

You can walk in and watch

In 2011 Suwada rebuilt its main factory as the Suwada Open Factory. It is a working forge, not a visitor centre with a viewing window. Their own page says anyone may tour it freely, without a reservation, Tuesday to Saturday, and that photography is allowed. Groups of ten or more are asked to call ahead.

They also repair. Their own FAQ notes that clippers typically come back for maintenance after five or six years, and that they still service thirty and forty year old ones.

What we carry

The nail clippers in Classic, Mirror and Soft Grip finishes at 100mm and 120mm, the foot nail clippers, and the Petite with its red spring.

Alongside them the cuticle clippers in the V series, the satin finish nail file, the cuticle pusher, the traditional nail brush, and a stainless bottle opener that exists because a company that can align two blades by hand can align anything.

One note on specification, since it comes up. Suwada names no steel grade and publishes no hardness figure anywhere. Their own answer is stainless blade steel of the kind used in custom knives and kitchen knives, and we are not going to improve on that by guessing.