The Sukehiro line worked in Osaka through the middle decades of the period, its center of gravity in the and Enpō years when the city's swordsmiths set the fashion for the age. The first generation, traditionally said to have begun as a kazūchi (mass-production) smith of Tsuda in Kokuga-shō, Harima, went to Osaka and studied under the first-generation Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke; from the added inscription sōhorō on his signed blades he is commonly called Soboro Sukehiro. Because Kunisuke came from the Ishidō lineage, the first generation's , with a tendency toward a tight and mixing and , reads at a glance as Ishidō work, though the brightness of his already surpasses that of other Ishidō smiths. The second generation, Tsuda no Kami Sukehiro, was born in 'ei 14 (1637) at Uchide in Settsu, common name Jinnojō; he became his master's adopted son, received the title no Kami in Meireki 3 (1657), and in 7 (1667) entered the service of Aoyama Inaba no Kami Munetoshi, castellan of Osaka Castle. His chief pupil, Tsuda Ōmi no Kami Sukenao of Takagi in Ōmi, later married into the family and carried the manner forward.
Across the line the is a tightly forged Osaka in which fine, dust-like adheres thickly and minute enter, the steel reading clear and bright. The second generation's career describes a single arc through the : early in the Ishidō manner, then , and finally the tōran-midare he originated, the billowing-wave temper for which the name is known. His mature blades open with a straight at the base and rise into a large and in the tōran sweep, entering, the deep, adhering thickly, and running, the bright and clear. His drew equal regard, set beside that of Inoue Shinkai as the twin peak of Osaka : here the particles fall finer and more evenly than Shinkai's, the temper carries a shallow five-fold and broadens from below the , and the shows minute activity likened to the fine tearing of hōsho paper. and bead-like appear in places. The progress of the signature, from the angular gyōsho to the rounded sōsho adopted from Enpō 2 (1674), itself marks the deepening conviction of his tōran. Sukenao inherited the tōran-midare faithfully and also worked in and -, his best pieces approaching the master so closely that they call him to mind at a glance.
A collector reads a Sukehiro blade by these points: the cleanly packed Osaka without the least looseness, the at the base, the deep and luminous , and, above all, the regular cadence of the tōran wave with its evenly seated . The line carries documentary as well as aesthetic weight. The great Enpō 6 called Murasame, forged at Aoyama Munetoshi's command and kept by the Aoyama house for rain-prayer rites, bears Buddhist and attributed to the carver Nagasaka Yū, Hōken; a surviving with Inoue Shinkai, praised in Kamata Gyomyō's Bengi, stands among the essential documents of Osaka . Ranked in his own day beside Nagasone Kotetsu of and Shinkai of Osaka, the second-generation Sukehiro gave the period one of its enduring signature styles, and the line of his pupils kept the bright Osaka hand and the tōran wave in circulation after his death in Tenna 2 (1682).