I found some videos of katsura (cercidiphyllum japonicum) wood trunks being sawed. It is quiet soothing, though the high pitched sawing noise might be annoying to some.




Are there any videos of katsura being worked into a goban?

The Chinese and Korean go board makers that appear in yootoob clips are using largely unidenfiable species. Fascinating to watch but their operations are largely automated or at least reliy heavily on machines. Several of the older Japanese craftsmen still use hand planes and chisels.

I've shot photo and video at several sawmills around the Northwest States. Mostly pine being processed into slabs or peeled into plywood veneers. But every now and then we'd get to shoot an old cedar, maple, oak, locust, or walnut being converted for seasoning.

A neighbor of mine has a hobby mill in his yard so he can process trunks he buys from the city's tree removal operations. He's a got a set of disks of some ancient maple trunks that would make stunning go boards of ANY thickness. But the maple chunks are seasoning and will not be ready to work for at least five more years.

Found this, unkown species: https://youtu.be/W3xAnMqGkkc?si=_tTH2giNHi4xC8vN

That is a nice video. I agree it is more interesting when they are actually making them by hand. I gather from the automatic subtitles that he is using a traditional Korean method to make the boards. At least he is doing it differently than what I have seen before.

To me it looks like he has more than one type of wood in his workshop. There is one in the background that I'd guess is Agathis but that one appears finished and is next to one that has legs attached, it is possible that he is repairing or restoring these boards.