– Unique technology born in remote area –
The Headquarter/Factory is in the coastal town of Japan Sea, about 500 km apart from Tokyo.
At the time of founding, people had to get over some mountains to reach the town, especially in winter, heavy snow made the town isolated.
However, predecessors took advantage of this inconvenience. They did all designs, manufacture and repairs of production equipments including jigs and tools by themselves.
This self-reliance spirit has succeeded even today.
“Considerate works like Omotenashi (A Japanese word meaning hospitality).”
-This is “made in Japan” we aim.
-In 1873, start with sewing needles –
Our first business was making sewing needles (already discontinued). In 1873, we constructed a factory for manufacturing sewing needles supplied to Kyoto area.
After that, we have developed various products unexpectedly.
-Record stylus-
Thomas Edison invented gramophone in 1877 and made-in-Japan gramophone appeared in 1909. In this situation, we applied a technology for making sewing needles to gramophone styli, started to manufacture that and exported to 40 countries in cooperation with other needle factories in the area.
Then stereo gramophones appeared and we started to produce record styli in 1966.
We manufacture about 2,200 types of stylus for about 30 manufacturers.One stylus has from 2 to 45 parts and craftsmen assemble it manually one by one.Tools, jigs and inspection equipments are designed and manufactured by ourselves, and they are essential to maintain quality of many kinds of products.
-Other products-
JICO has manufactured many products besides record stylus.
1. Gauge contact (from 1973)
Gauge contact is displacement meter in grinding process of manufacturing cars, electrical appliances, PC and so on. We make it of natural and artificial diamond one by one, changing shapes for uses.
2. Medical and dental diamond bar (from 1978, discontinued)
Diamond bar is used for shaving teeth. It is stainless steel plated with diamond powder. We use natural diamond for sharpness. Not only for dental treatment, but for processing brittle materials like cemented carbide, glass, ceramic and so on(products for dental treatment are discontinued). Of course, used for processing our “SETO-HORI” cartridge made of ceramic.
3. CD pickup lens cleaner (from 1990)
Optical data from CD is read by pickup lens. Dust and oil on the lens cause reading error. For precise readings, we invented pickup lens cleaner. This cleaner looks the same as a CD, but ultra fine fiber is planted on that and this fiber brushes the lens.We also produce the cleaner for DVD and Blu-ray.
4. Diamond dresser (from 1933)
Diamond dresser is used for a whetstone. Whetstones are used for grinding the parts, but whetstones are also worn out. The shapes of whetstones affect the shapes of the parts, so whetstones have to be shaped by diamond dresser.We make various types of diamond dresser as necessary. Conical, pyramidal, etc.
-Lastly-
“Save the world of music.” This is our catchword in recent years.As mentioned above, our styli have been made carefully and heartily by hand since a long time ago.As long as there is even one order, we continue to produce record styli.