The design block
Not a needle: a carved wooden block, inked and printed onto the skin, so the tattooist follows a line instead of remembering one.
The instruments
Brass rods, bamboo splints, boar tusk combs, thorn bundles and bone needles — what they are made of and how long they are.
{'name': 'Poked', 'th': 'แทง'}
Hnitkwasok
A brass rod about two feet long, weighted at the top with a cast figure, with a split four-way point at the other end.
Khem sak
User:Phydoughx · Public domainเข็มสัก
The sak yant needle: a long steel or brass shaft, pushed with one hand and steered with the other.
Lek char
เหล็กจาร
The northern instrument: an iron stylus of the kind used to incise palm-leaf manuscripts, taken to skin.
Nomi
A wooden rod with a group of needles bound to the end in silk, pushed at a shallow angle rather than straight down.
{'name': 'Tapped', 'th': 'ตอก'}
Au
A set of combs — wide ones for filling, narrow ones for line — each hafted at a right angle and struck with a light mallet.
Gisi and pat-ik
A citrus thorn — or a bundle of them — lashed at a right angle to a short stick, tapped by a second stick.
{'name': 'Stitched', 'th': 'ร้อยด้าย'}
Needle and sinew
The same needle that sewed the clothing, threaded with sinew blackened in soot and drawn under the skin.
{'name': 'Cut', 'th': 'กรีด'}
Uhi
Gottfried Lindauer · Public domainA chisel of albatross bone hafted to a handle and struck with a mallet, cutting a groove that the pigment fills.