Takayuki Shibata

The story

Takayuki Shibata (柴田崇行) is a sharpener and knife designer based in Fukuyama, Hiroshima. Iron Clad's company page names him the representative director of IRONCLAD Ltd.

In 1994 he left school to become a carpenter's apprentice. He stayed for seven years, then moved to an ironworks in 2002.

In 2006 he turned to kitchen knives and started Shibata Knives. A local cutler introduced him to sharpening the next year.

The business began as an export wholesaler for Japanese kitchen knives, with resharpening and maintenance services. Shibata saw that a customer overseas might have no way to restore a dull knife.

That gap drew him deeper into sharpening and later into manufacturing. A 2019 STOREHOUSE Fukuyama profile says the company began making knives about five years earlier, when supply could no longer keep pace with demand from abroad.

Shibata established the business as a sole proprietorship in 2009 and incorporated IRONCLAD Ltd. in 2015. His own site says the business now sells in more than twenty countries.

IRONCLAD holds five brands: Masakage, Koutetsu, Tsunehisa, West Japan Tools and Tinker. Together they extend Shibata's work from knife design and sharpening to inspection and regional product development.

Masakage was Shibata's first brand, launched in 2008. Several smiths took part in its earlier work. Those collaborations belong to the brand's history.

Koutetsu (甲鉄) followed in 2013 as his second brand. Its name comes from Japan's first ironclad warship.

The knife combines traits of a gyuto and a nakiri, with a slightly curved edge and a sharp point. Its spine receives a high mirror polish for grip comfort, while the sides stay rough to reduce friction and help food release.

The established Koutetsu uses an SG-2 stainless powder-steel core with stainless cladding. A Chromax variant joined the line more recently. Shibata serves as the brand's sharpener.

Tsunehisa (恒久) arrived in 2015 as a response to growing orders. Its name means permanence. It is a curation and inspection brand, with knives selected for long service and inspected one by one.

West Japan Tools, launched in 2017, looks directly to Bingo and Fukuyama. Its regional partners include an ironworks for iron frying pans and furniture craftsmen for cutting boards and wall-mounted knife magnets.

The pan keeps a thick base for heat conduction but thins the sidewalls to reduce weight. A 2024 Keizai Report profile says a 2023 limited run of 120 fish scalers sold out immediately.

Tinker joined the portfolio in 2018 as the fifth of IRONCLAD's brands. By then Shibata's work had moved from export and maintenance into a Fukuyama company that designs, sharpens, manufactures and exports knives.