In the spring of 1885, when Gonshiro was still only 14 years and a few months old, he finally achieved what he had desired for and arrived in Osaka. However, to Gonshiro this was a completely new and unknown place, and Osaka at that time was also in the middle of a severe recession due to the rebound from the special procurements for the Satsuma Rebellion and the effects of budgetary austerities.

Gonshiro visited many blacksmiths to find work but was simply refused at the door. He sheltered the nights under the eaves of houses and just about when the little money he had brought with him was exhausted, he found himself at Kuro Casting in Kujo-mura, Nishinari-Gun (in what is now Nishikujo, Osaka City). Gonshiro begged the master Komakichi Kuro hard for work, and was eventually allowed to live-in and work as a babysitter, cleaner and errand boy.

Gonshiro had started working at Kuro Casting, but he wasn’t allowed to do any of the main casting jobs, and nobody would teach him them either. However, Gonshiro worked seriously at the miscellaneous chores he was given and occasionally when he was told to clean the work area he would happily take the tools and products in his hands, and could also get a peek at what was going on to learn.

His sincerity and enthusiasm were finally recognized by the master and he was given an introduction to the first steps of casting, and it was not long before Gonshiro’s skills surpassed those of the veteran craftsmen.

After he had finished his three-year apprenticeship, and the period of free service after the apprenticeship, Gonshiro moved on to Shiomi Casting, which produced metal domestic items. This was in order to acquire new skills, and to save money to enable him to start his own business.

When Gonshiro left Kuro Casting, the master gave him a parting gift of 10 yen, bringing his total fortune to 21 yen and 60 sen. At the time, at least 100 yen was necessary to open a casting works.
His wages at Shiomi Casting were 25 sen per day, making it a long road ahead before he would have the necessary funds. However, Gonshiro saved everything he could, and in just a year and a half he was able to reach his target of 100 yen.

In February 1890, Gonshiro opened up Ohde Casting in one corner of an old tenement house in 23, Okurato-machi, Minami-ku, Osaka City (currently Nipponbashi, Chuo-ku). He lowered the floor of area 2 rooms wide and four rooms deep (about 26 m2) as a place to work and set himself up with all the tools he needed, such as a cupola furnace and foot-operated bellows. He started making fittings and weights for balances.

Gonshiro was 19 years old at this time, and this was the origin of Kubota Corporation.

He had started his Ohde Casting company as intended, but unfortunately in the summer of the next year (1891) the landlord asked him to leave. The other residents of the tenement house had complained that the work was creating dust and was a fire risk. In the end, Ohde Casting was forced to move location three times in the first 5 years of operation. The name was changed to Ohde Casting Iron Works during this time.

In the casting business, casting sand is as important an asset as tools and equipment, and moving location was a very expensive business. The meager amount of funds he managed to save was used up at each move. However, the casting industry experienced a boom, and at the third relocation Gonshiro was able to rent a building which had three rooms along the front. This land was later bought up and became the Nishisekiya-cho plant.

Gonshiro had lost his father in 1888, while he was doing his period of free service at Kuro Casting, and ever since had worked hard at his work to please his mother. It was his mother who suggested San, from his birthplace of Innoshima, be his wife.

San was 18 years old and the daughter of a blacksmith. After marrying Gonshiro in 1891, she worked herself to the bone, cooking for her new husband and his apprentices, and also pulling a large wagon and working the bellows. Needless to say, Gonshiro also began to work even more diligently than he had before.

However, in July 1895, shortly after Gonshiro’s third relocation, he lost his beloved mother Kiyo. As pleasing his mother had been a major driving factor for Gonshiro, he was temporarily stunned by his loss. However, he eventually managed to bring himself around and started to put himself into the production of water pipes, which would later become the basis for the business’s great leap forward.

One of the customers of the Ohde Casting Iron Works was the Kubota Match Machine Manufacturers. The master was already nearly 70 years old and the elderly couple had no children. One day when Gonshiro visited their shop on an errand, the master asked him if he would become his adopted son. He had observed Gonshiro’s character through his work and had come to think that he would be a worthy adopted son.

When given the proposal, Gonshiro suddenly asked if the family had any assets, and agreed to become their adopted son when he found out that they did not have any in particular. This was because he didn’t want people to say that he had succeeded because he had been adopted into a rich family. From then on, Gonshiro used the surname Kubota, and the Ohde Casting Iron Works was renamed the Kubota Iron Works.

This was in June 1897.