Japanese letter stamps wanted

[hunggaur]

Hi folks I am doing some work for a friend and am making some Japanese weapons and other stuff.

One of the things I would like to do is stamp his name on the items with Japanese letters. However whilst I can find lots of English alphabet letter stamp sets I cannot find any Japanese ones.

Would be very helpful if some one could point me in the right direction


Cheers Jon

 

[AJB Temple]

Japan has more than one alphabet style. If you are intending to do this in Kanji then the letter forms are derived from Chinese and you will find these available for import if you do a google search for Kanji metal stamps. You will struggle in the UK I expect so you may have to do a Google advanced search for US import or direct Japanese import. You could of course easily and quickly have rubber stamps made up, but I suspect your quickest route may be to carve the letters. Don't forget to get the correct orientation. Traditional tetegaki system uses vertical columns read from the right side downwards and then back to the top to the next column on the left. Japanese text is a minefield for westerners! So make sure you have it right before marking the wood.

 

[Alexam]

You could try and find the actual chinese lettering required and either carve it, or get someone to burn it into the wood with a pyrograph pen? Could be far less costly that way as you would probably never use the stamps again.

Malcolm

 

[bugbear]

Japanese knives have the letters cut using a simple cold chisel, one strike per stroke.

There are no (AFAIK) Japanese letter stamps, for any of their three alphabets.

BugBear

 

[AJB Temple]

You can buy Japanese letter stamps BugBear. I have some that I picked up in Osaka (have been to Japan quite a lot). You can buy types that you heat up in a brazier or with a torch and use them for burning on, or you can buy stamps for marking wood or forged iron. Often the marks applied to hand forged knives which designate the steel type (blue 1 or 2, white 1 or 2, whatever), are done with a ready made forge stamp. I did a knife making course in Japan (twice - at different places) and used these myself. They will also hand mark as well, especially in shops like Aritsuga or the Tokyo fish market places, but it is very easy to tell the difference. I have some photos somewhere.

 

[bugbear]

You can buy Japanese letter stamps BugBear. I have some that I picked up in Osaka (have been to Japan quite a lot). You can buy types that you heat up in a brazier or with a torch and use them for burning on, or you can buy stamps for marking wood or forged iron. Often the marks applied to hand forged knives which designate the steel type (blue 1 or 2, white 1 or 2, whatever), are done with a ready made forge stamp. I did a knife making course in Japan (twice - at different places) and used these myself. They will also hand mark as well, especially in shops like Aritsuga or the Tokyo fish market places, but it is very easy to tell the difference. I have some photos somewhere.

I stand corrected - and better informed. Thank you.

BugBear

 

[nev]

further to Malcolms post above..

http://www.kanjizone.com

please note I have no idea whether the results are accurate or bull dust.

 

[bugbear]

They will also hand mark as well, especially in shops like Aritsuga or the Tokyo fish market places, but it is very easy to tell the difference.

Google to the rescue, at least for Aritsuga;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK02ObfvNXM

BugBear

 

[AJB Temple]

Indeed. They will do them while you wait in the shop. I am a bit of a knife fanatic and, seriously, I have probably been in every artisan knife shop in Japan. Aritsugu make (or in reality these days buy in) excellent knives but these days mainly sell them to tourists at crazy prices. If you go to somewhere like Takefusa knife village you will see them stamp into hot forged metal. The stamps shown in the video din't look that great in practice compared with proper stamped and/or etched blades. I think they only do straight shapes as well and to my eye the spacing is always far too wide. Aritusugu will also mark your knives with western initialls if you want. There is a different Aritsugu shop (same family but estranged) in the Tokyo fish market and they come pre-stamped as far as I recall.

Japan is a fascinating country - highly recommended for a visit. It is very easy to get to see knife makers, joiners etc at work.