======== Newsgroups: rec.games.go Subject: Re: Drawing Lines on a Goban From: "Stefan Hruschka" Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 20:00:47 +0900 Hi Hans A few years back I visited a go board factory in the south of Japan and watched the how a pretty boring looking slab of wood becomes a beautiful go board. And the master even let me draw a line with the sword-like blade he was using. First about the sword: I had thought that the idea was to actually make a small groove in the wood that would be filled with the lacquer that makes the line. That is actually not the case. The blade only touches on the wood lightly. The reason why a blade is used, I think, is because a sharp blade makes a sufficiently thin line and the curvature of the blade makes it possible to "roll" the sword over the board rather than "pulling" a brush, so that every spot on the blade only touches one single place on the board and deposits the lacquer there. Ok, how to get the lacquer on the blade: the master used a tube of very thick looking black lacquer and he squeezed an amount that looked like 1 or 2 cm on a long piece of glass (longer than the sword). Then he used a spatula to draw out the lacquer into a 5 to 8 cm wide line a bit longer than the length of the sword. I think he spread it out pretty thin. He then set down the blade on the lacquer. The sword is slightly round, like this ")" , so that he can roll the blade over the glass without pulling it. If the lacquer is spread evenly on the glass it should also be attached evenly to the sword. Then the on end of the sword is set down on the edge of the board and the blade is rolled over the board from one side to the other. The lacquer is spread out in a sufficiently wide line on the glass so that the sword can be put down many times without touching the same place twice. To get the lines straight, by the way, a metal frame was clamped on the outside of the board that had slots in exactly the right places to make the lines. By using the slots it was impossible to not get a straight line, but the speed and evenness of rolling motion over the board take practise. I tried two lines and both smudged or had unevenly thick areas. The line is drawn almost to the edge of the board, but the outside rim of the board was covered with paper tape to make sure that the line does not extend too far to the edge. So, I dumped all my "knowledge". Please let me know if you have any questions and good luck with the board. Gruesse Stefan "Hans Wiezorke" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:861fd37d.0204102305.2dddb7bf@posting.google.com... > Hi all, > > I am once again experimenting with making a goban. > > Right now I try coating the wood with carnuba wax, which makes a nice > finish to the surface. However I get problems when I remove the excess > wax. My lines smear. :-( > > So I decided to abandon felt pens and try a more traditional approach. > One method is to apply the paint with a sword. > > My idea is to apply acrylic paint with a large kitchen knife. I > started with making a 9x9 Board, so it should be long enough. However > it is very hard to get a uniform line this way, because I haven't > found a way so far to apply a uniform amount of paint to the entire > length of the blade. Can someone please shed some light on how the > paint is supposed to be applied to the sword. > I figure they don't just dip it into a puddle of paint :-) > > Any help is appreciated. > > BTW: I finally found the right stain to color the wood: very strong > Rooibush Tea :-) Makes a very nice yellow-orange hue when combined > with carnuba wax. > > Read u, > Hans