rubber chop maintenance

use "shuniku" stamp pads for your rubber hanko

Many of you now have your own rubber hanko (name stamp or chop) to sign your work. In etegami, carved rubber hanko depicting one syllabic symbol (or letter of the alphabet) are preferred over fancy stone ones depicting intricate Chinese characters. Maybe you carved yours from a rubber eraser. Maybe I carved it for you as a gift, or acted as a go-between for your purchase from a professional chop carver. In any case, chances are that no one has yet explained to you what kind of maintenance rubber hanko require. Today I will try to fix that oversight. This is advice I received from a professional hanko carver:

First of all, you have to understand that rubber hanko are consumables. They do not last forever. To make them last as long as possible, however, you need to follow these rules:

ink paste is no-no for rubber chops

1) Do NOT leave your rubber hanko in a plastic container, or on a plastic surface. The moisture it attracts will cause the rubber to get gooey over time. Store your rubber hanko in a paper or cloth container.

2) Do NOT use red ink paste to ink your rubber hanko. This is safe for chops carved from stone or wood, but not for rubber chops. The oils in the paste will cause your rubber hanko to get hard and brittle over time. The paste also contains particles that will stick in the grooves of your rubber hanko, and unlike the sturdier stone and wood chops, if you try to scrape such particles out of the grooves, you can easily nick your rubber chop and ruin it.

 Get yourself a shuniku stamp pad. They are cheap and have the same bright red-orange color that is traditional for using with chops. These pocket-sized stamp pads (or ink pads) are typically encased in round plastic cases with screw caps,  or square plastic cases with flip-tops like in the photo at the top of this post.

If this post is unclear in any way, let me know so I can fix it.
Here's a link to the post where I explain about making your own rubber hanko