Wako Museum

The Wako Museum in Yasugi traces the traditional tatara steelmaking method that once supplied over 80 percent of Japan's steel from the iron-sand-rich Chugoku Mountains. The process begins with kanna-nagashi, a winter gravity-separation method using diverted streams to isolate iron particles from rock and mud. Each three-day smelting cycle burns 12 tons of charcoal in a clay furnace to produce a 3-ton crude iron block, from which only a small portion is the prized tamahagane used for sword-making. Full-size dioramas and videos explain the process in detail. The museum is named after the term coined by metallurgist Tawara Kuniichi in 1914. The tatara method virtually disappeared by 1945 but was revived to continue producing steel for traditional Japanese swords.