making goboards

i will confess that i find very beautiful the go boards that i have seen, especially those with legs, but i cant seem to buy one...not because i cant afford it but because i think is silly.

come on, is a piece of wood with 19x19 lines!!!

is inmoral!!!!!

i have made one but im disatisfied; the lines are not so perfect and the wood is kind of cheap.

yesterday i called some stores that sell different kinds of wood, good wood, but they dont sell it by piece but the whole panel...and is expensive, almost like buying an already made goboard...almost.

im going to try other stores and see their prices.

meanwhile...any tips on making a goboard?

try to see http://gobans.gungfu.de/

u could send message or probably play with player on dragon

Hi again, you say you do not wish to buy a goban because it is only wood -- yet you will not buy wood that costs as much as the goban? Seems to be a contradiction here.

I have made a few gobans, but none that are truly beautiful. Some observations:

Good wood is expensive; the wood in one of the gobans I made cost about $200, and that was not thicknessed or planed or ... Not only that, it was still not wide enough for a single goban so it is two pieces glued together (the glue cost $25 too). As a contrast, a goban I made out of cheap wood cost about one tenth that. (Both gobans were quite thick). Try to find a very light coloured wood with straight grain, the problem with my more expensive goban is the wood is a little too dark. This was just a quirk of the piece of wood I got, the variety I used is usually the right colour.

It takes a long time. Everything needs to be thicknessed, then planed, then sanded, then oiled, then generally polished. It all depends on the standard you're trying to achieve, but if you're trying to make something really nice, expect to spend many hours.

Stones are a matter of taste. The larger your hand, the larger stones you'll be comfortable with, but don't just buy the biggest (most expensive) or you'll find them too big. I personally prefer shell to the chinese stones, but again this is just a matter of personal taste. My chinese stones are pretty cool, and it is nice to be able to play four colour go (japanese white + black, chinese white + black).

Drawing the lines can be done using a draftsman's pen, but I understand better results can be obtained with screen printing.

where is the contradiction?

gobans are expensive and they are only a piece of wood with 19x19 lines.

im saying that i wish to find good wood so i can do it myself because is "inmoral" to spend all that money in something so simple (yes beautiful, but simple).

but thanks for the tips.

like i said, i already made one but didnt like how the lines turned out and the look of the wood.

The contradiction was that you also complained wood is expensive. If you are buying a single huge slab of kaya or other wood of a similar rarity, then I would imagine you have to pay `almost' as much as it costs to buy one.

corrin, your "problem" is that u didnt read all; i said "almost".

but anyway, i think im going to be "inmoral" and im going to buy an "agathis" tableboard.

it looks good and "relative" cheap.

then im going to use the board i made and im going to "remake" it to a 13x13 and 9x9 board.

i know i will feel a lil stupid buying a goboard but i got to thinking that one day im going to die...let me enjoy myself and treat myself while im here.

;0)

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