Last week I started to carve my own hanko. My Sensei found me a stone. Don’t know what kind.
But one thing I can tell you is that it is very soft. You can smooth it down with sandpaper. Which is how I flattened it out to prep the 
surface. First with rough sandpaper. Then with really fine stuff.
From there, I had to find the right style of character. My Shodo name is
Sho-Un. I could try and get both onto the stone, but frankly it’s a lot to expect on my first go so I just went with 
the first character, Sho. I checked out a book with the right style for these things.
I decided on the one you see below.
But since this is a stamp, you have to carve the reverse.
And then transfer it onto the stone that I flattened earlier. Thing is, it’s hard to mark these things, so you paint em red with the Sensei’s correction 
ink and then draw in pencil.
From here I tried to cut around the kanji, the red area. Almost immediately, I cut across the edge.
Fortunately, you can just sand it away and start all over again.
Which I did.
Finally, I mangled my way through to a finished product. When I say finished, I don’t mean polished by any means. I only mean to say I stopped carving.Below is just partway through.
You can see the left side pretty well. The right is a disaster.
Just in case I might have applied the ink badly (hey I can hope right?), I tried it again a couple more times.
Long story short, there was no problem with the ink. Still, it was a lot of fun, and a great experience.
B.S. Donovan 
I like the finished result! Neat project.
[For some reason can’t click notify.]
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Thanks, Bill. Yeah, it was fun. Still is, since I’m not finished. Maybe not quite as fun as your augmented reality game https://billcollinssite.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/night-of-the-link-amps/
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Is your name Shawn or something by chance? Just wondering why your sho name is 祥雲.
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I have just enough Irish pride to be mock offended by the spelling but yes, Sean. Not a secret, I wrote it in the About page. Probably need to make that more clear. Honestly, I just couldn’t get the URL I wanted so…
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Ah, sorry bout that. I kind of drift through posts on WordPress so I completely missed that. Cool approximation of your name though!
And out of curiosity, if Sean is the Irish spelling, where does Shawn come from?
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Must be a British thing I suppose. BTW, I read your name and think it looks Chinese rather than Japanese. Am I wrong? Mou Fengchu?
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Ah, my sho name. My last name begins with ボー so I looked for a kanji to abbreviate that. One of 某’s readings is それがし which can mean basically anonymous so I thought it would be kind of fun to go with that kanji. 風 is the part of my name passed down from my teacher’s teacher and his teacher and so on. So my teacher is 竹風 etc. and 書 (sorry can’t write the 草書体 in text) is just the regular suffix indicating that I’m writing an “original” (though based off of a mihon) not a 臨書.
I suppose the reading of my name is ぼうふう which actually has kind of an ominous sound to it to me ー 暴風.
Sorry, went on kind of a rant there XD
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Love the 暴風 part. I mistook the 書or かくfor 出.
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Ah, I see!
Yeah, it’s the 草書体 version of 書. To be honest, I struggle with my signature still so I tend to favor that version because it’s easier for me to write reliably. As you know, the signature can make or break a work.
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And also, do you speak Chinese?
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Poorly now but yes. I studied Mandarin formally but moved to Japan. Go figure 😊
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So cool! I’d like to do this! I once had hanko for the normal reasons one has them in Japan. Actually my first one was all katakana for my maiden name. If I could make one for my “bonsai” persona (my a.k.a. the name I use for my foreclosing book) that would be awesome. You have inspired me. Maybe I can order one since I’m not that talented!
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Thanks! I have my official one too. And one to sign for parcel deliveries, etc. This one was all hobby.
I’m sure you can order online. If not, I think that theobstinatenail hand makes them.
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