Hello everyone!

In this thread I will keep a journal of my experimenting with refurbishing my antique goban.


Background:
I bought an antique goban and bowls with new glass stones from Ebay a couple of months ago for a few hundred dollars. The dimensions of the board seemed small, so I double checked with the seller who said it was "standard size". I did the math at home with my stones and it seemed to be all correct. 19 by 19 stones would fit.

Me and my girlfriend unpacked the nicely wrapped box a few weeks later and tried playing our first game only to notice that the packaged glass stones were in fact too wide for the board. I was fairly annoyed by this, but tried with my yunzi stones which actually did fit. We nicked the board "Eban", portmanteau for Ebay goban.

The everyday handling of the board started to take its toll on the goban. I started to notice it did not at all enjoy the temperature changes that occur in my old apartment house, me living in northern Sweden with raging cold temperatures that sometimes penetrates the walls. Maybe I had a storage issue in the first place, I don't know, but the effect was that some of the lacquer chipped off on the side of the goban that usually rested against the wall.

The bottom of the board had some previous repairment engagements which all now started to shatter. To avoid further problems I put eban away and I was really starting to question my purchase.

Fast forward a few months and I live at a new place. It's time to put the board at a good spot in the room. Some dust removal procedures and ... no... the ink of the board is chipping off. Now I am not feeling any frustration, only determination to make the best I can with this nice piece of wood.


Step 1: Anamnesis.

Some information about the board.

Dimensions:
Height: 13,7mm
Length: 45cm
Width: 40,4cm

Material:
I am not sure which type of wood the board is built off. Any help would be appreachiated. They do have a set of legs, but I'm not planning to ever use them.

Oil and coating:
The oil has taken on a more orange/brown tone, my belief is that it had a more yellow tint earlier as shown by dents on the edges and the clean bits of wood where the oil has chipped off.

Condition:
The board is warped, it has a few cracks and repair work has been done on the bottom side of the board. This affects the resonance sound of placing stones at different places.

Photos:

Such an old japanese goban. Judging by all marks and scars it wears, it must have witnessed many glorious Go battles!
I cannot "read it" from your pictures, is it a ki-omote cut?
PS in the first picture the lower right corner can still be killed by Black

Galation

_________________
When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time.
Jonathan Hop - So You Want to Play Go?

An old Asian goban ends up in the northern part of Sweden. Who could have thought? If only the maker and previous owner(s) knew...
It is almost as if they don't have wood and logs there themself
I wish you many good games!

Hi farran,

Congrats on a fun project.My "very basic" Japanese shin-kaya table board ( circa. 2003 ) is ~45.7 cm x ~42.1 cm.
I believe its dimensions are quite usual for contemporary Japanese boards.
It works very nicely with Mr. Kuroki's slate and shell stones.

It's possible they had a smaller standard in the past...
( Or, the wood very slowly shrank over decades... ? )

Step 2: Wood finishing


I have started working on the bottom side of the board. This is the progress after one hour. My tools at the moment are grain 80 sand paper, paper wipes and a vacuum cleaner. Whatever this is coated with is rather "chewy" (in lack of a better word). The dust sticks to the sand paper and gives everything else it touches a glossy finish. Linseed oil doesn't behave that way afaik so my guess is that it's some kind of wax.

For the heso and the small chips used to fill the cracks I will be using a dremel tool.
(Is using modern electrical tools blasphemy when working with an artefact this old? I don't know. Maybe this whole project is unholy and disrespectful to the boards original creator.)



I am yet to see what cut it has. The coating is too opaque to reveal much at the moment.
(PS: the placement of those stones were after the game had finished, we had moved them around to make the counting easier. If I remember correctly I lost by 6.5p giving 6 handicap stones)



Big thanks!



I believe in the different standard theory

Yes, it is probably wax.
Kuroki Goishi site recommend waxing (and btw sell wax suitable for Go boards).

Galation

_________________
When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time.
Jonathan Hop - So You Want to Play Go?