C&S Tools is located in Tokyo, Japan and sells hand-forged woodworking tools made to its specifications by and purchased directly from professional blacksmiths in Japan.
We are a stocking retailer, but without a storefront. We sell only to overseas customers, but at standard prices inside Japan.
The humble proprietor is Stan Covington. He grew up in a middle-class working family descended from pioneers and immigrants from England and Scotland. The men in his family have mostly been in the building trades working as carpenters, cabinetmakers, and plasterers.
Stan’s oldest memories include shuffling through mounds of sawdust as a young boy while supporting boards over his head as his father pushed them through a tablesaw to make cabinets. Stan later worked as a laborer, carpenter’s apprentice and carpenter on construction projects in the US. He also worked as a self-employed cabinetmaker, joiner, and contractor.
He worked for two of Japan’s largest general contractors for 18 years doing construction and real estate development in Japan, Istanbul, London, and the USA. He has managed commercial construction work and the fabrication and erection of structural steel in the US.
Stan’s interest in Japanese tools stems from actually using them over many years to feed his family, and the time he spent working with and learning from Japanese carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths and other craftsmen. Selling tools is not very profitable, but it is an excuse to spend time with the very best Japanese craftsmen. The story of how he fell down this rabbit hole is something for another day.
All C&S chisels are hand-forged from Hitachi Metal’s Yasugi Shirogami No.1 steel, an especially pure high-carbon steel.
We also carry professional-grade handplanes we have craftsmen hand-forge from either Shirogami No1. or Aogami No.1 steel, with hand-cut and fitted bodies of dense Japanese White Oak.
Our handsaws are also hand-forged by the very best sawsmiths in Japan, a rare thing nowadays, and are a joy to use.
All C&S tools are hand-forged from the very best materials by working in their own workshops and smithies, old-fashioned gentlemen who refuse to do shoddy work.
Our blacksmiths are all well-established, old-fashioned masters with 40~70 years of experience, using traditional techniques in one-man smithies. They are very set in their ways, which is a good thing for quality. Sadly, when these gentlemen are gone, there will be no replacements.
They make professional-grade products intended for demanding craftsmen in Japan who rely on their tools to feed their families. These are craftsmen insist on very sharp, extra-hard, durable blades that are easily sharpened.
Accordingly, C&S chisels are not mass-produced sharpened screwdrivers intended for sale overseas to inexperienced amateurs, home-center ninjas, or big-box retailers, but are serious tools that do not suffer fools gladly.
We are confident our prices are reasonable. We charge the standard retail price in Japan with no “gaijin markup.” Prices are low because our blacksmiths do not spend a lot of time making/using pattern-welded jigane, applying decorative etching or engraving, or performing delicate hand-filing on the blades. They are focused on performance. The target consumer is the professional who uses them to cut wood all day long, not to admire while drinking congac or coffee.
In the case of chisels, as in many things of practical value, one’s options are beauty, performance, and cost. Choose any two. We sell high-performance at low cost.
Give them a try.
If you would like to ask questions or learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. We aren’t evil Google or incompetent facebook and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information.
Covington & Sons Tools 