Yamahiro Oire Nomi Japanese Bench Chisel, 12mm. Yamahiro White Steel Japanese Bench Chisel, excellent nearly unused condition. These appear to be red oak handles. Yamahiro is a well known chisel maker from Sanjyo, Niigata – the blacksmith’s name is Okayama Takeshi and he specialized in White Steel #1 chisels. Okayama was born in 1934 and had a forge in the tool production city of Niigata. I don’t think he is still active, but apparently he used the traditional method of hand blowing with charcoal quenching oven and quenching his chisels only in water. These chisels are well known and regarded in Japan, but rarely exported. I haven’t used these besides hand paring some cedar to test the edge, and they are razor sharp, but you will probably want to sharpen them to your own specs.