F. Morley Fletcher

Both surfaces of the plank should be planed smooth and then finished with a steel scraper, but not touched with sand-paper.

It is understood that the face of the plank is used for the printing surface, and not the end of the grain as in blocks for modern wood engraving.

The tools needed for cutting the blocks are the following:

The depth to which the spaces must be cleared will depend on their width, as, in printing, the paper will sag more deeply in a wide space than in a narrow one. In spaces of half an inch the depth of the first V-cuts is sufficient, but the proportionate depth is about that of the diagram above. The small spaces are cleared by means of small flat or round chisels without the mallet or the preliminary gouge cut: this is only needed where a large space has to be cleared.

Japanese printing brushes are sold by some artists' colour dealers, but these are not essential, nor have they any practical superiority over well-made Western brushes.