Classical Japanese prints are the result of artists carving into the areas of cherrywood that respond well to different types of ink. Blocks for use with black sumi ink come from the center area of the tree's trunk. Carving into blocks made from the softer, outside areas of the cherrywood better suits artists using colored vegetable pigments and rice-paste inks.
Japanese woodcut printing requires sharp chisels, knives and gouges. Printmakers use the hangi-toh knife, aisuki and soainomi bullnose chisel, along with V and U-shaped gouges. The hangi-toh tool forms outlines. A soainomi is a wood-smoothing tool. They finish woodblocks with an aisuki tool and customarily sharpen their tools with Japanese water stones.
A baren is a hand press that consists of a shin, an ategawa, and a takenokawa. Its shin is made of strands of a thin bamboo sheath, twisted into a long cord. You make this traditional Japanese printing tool by affixing ategawa, around a five-inch backing disk, to the shin with a bamboo sheath, called a takenokawa, They come in several varieties, such as the Murasaki baren and the Yoshida baren. This tool transfers ink onto washi, which is traditional Japanese printmaking paper.