Ivory

With the CITES restrictions on the material, it's now next to impossible to obtain elephant ivory - unless, of course, you can find the ever more rare old billiard balls. And I certainly don't intend to hack into the two old Thai bangles I possess; they're a rarity in their own right.

Many netsuke-shi now have resorted to using mammoth ivory, as did some of their predecessors. But that, too, will get increasingly rare. There is, after all, a limit to dead mammoth. It's also difficult to find pure white pieces that aren't too chalky. It won't stand water-based bleaches, stainings or cleansers because that can cause surface cracks that may deepen over time. It's also becoming more expensive at between £100-£200 per pound.

Other ivories? Hippo tooth, fossilised walrus tusks and some sharks' teeth are available, but these tend to be small pieces without the versatility of the bigger mammoth and elephant ivories. On the other hand, they can test the netsuke-shi's powers of adapting his/her skill to fit the material available.

Purists and collectors will probably hand-wring for eternity, but I see no reason why carvings can't also be made from the good ivory-like plastics now coming onto the market. They are, after all, just more blank canvases with qualities of their own. A good netsuke-shi would be able to exploit these.

Tagua Nut

I looked at the price of clean, white mammonth ivory and nearly wept (the same applies to clear amber), so bought some tagua nuts from a reliable timber specialist in Wales.

Of course, being me, I couldn't resist skinning one and cutting it in half to examine its structure, even though I was working on another boxwood piece. The interior suggested a design which I worked up in some sketches and I wanted to practice high gloss polishing, which the nut certainly takes well. It seems to be about the same hardness as boxwood, so would be a little softer than carving ivory. Polished, this piece is very slightly grey in tone, but has a similar appearance to some mutton-fat jades. Whether or not it will take himotoshi (the two holes that make the netsuke wearable as a toggle) without cracking remains to be seen. However, the piece is an experiment to see what the nut will do, so it won't matter if anything happens to it.

One thing not to do with tagua is to soak it with water; that will cause splits. The nut needs to be dried for around seven months after it's picked before it's of a hardness for carving and it's wise to pick out the small gelatinous bit from the stem hole so that the interior (especially if it has fissures, which most nuts do) can dry out evenly. I also keep the skinned material in a plastic bag with ventilation holes when I'm not working on it so it can dry out slowly; unskinned nuts are stored in a plastic bag without ventilation.

Magnifiers

I've old eyes - short and long sight and an astigmatism; the lot! I find I can only work on netsuke with my glasses off, but my eyes start to ache after about 45 minutes, so magnifying spectacles or glasses are in order. My optician at the daft end of the city said that "people don't ask for these, so, no, we don't do them." After searching all over, I found that no optometrist supplies them. I then bought some x3 clip-ons, but they're worse than useless, though my hand-held x8 magnifier is great, if useless for a carver, as I haven't got a stand and it's not wide enough at 3". I've now invested in a headband with multiple attached lens, which, when combined, should give me a much needed x8 vision and I can wear them with or without my everyday glasses.

There are many varieties of magnifiers, though, and I suspect that what people choose will have to suit their individual needs. There are table models, ones that rest on the collar bone, clip-on or stand alone jewellers' loupes, optivisors and the ones I've descibed above. Prices vary from very expensive German and Swiss precision lens to reasonably cheap, if straightforward, magnifiers. I'd have preferred to have found an optometrist to provide the correct types of lens, but if the over-the-counter route is the only way I can go, so be it.

The Loupe Store is the best supplier of magnifiers in the UK that I've come across online.