Hey guys,

I have an old katsura floor Goban that I bought from Japan for about 20 bucks. It's a nice floor goban but the surface is pretty beat up and the squares seem too small to fit stones.

If I put stones across the board like so "o-o-o-o-o-o" they overlap WAY too much. (Note that I am using smaller japanese biconvex stones and it still overlaps) Whereas when it is vertical, the spacing is fine. Since the board was cheap, and I'm not interested in it's value since it's more of a sentimental piece, I'd like to restore the surface and redo the lines.

Does anyone know of any good methods of how to go about doing this?

This page on Sensei's Library has some standard Japanese-size board measurements: http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquipmentDimensions

First step is to measure your board to find out whether it can fit a standard grid. The spacing of lines is smaller horizontally than vertically. This is traditional. Because of this there may be some overlap of stones lined up horizontally on the board.

If your board is big enough to fit a standard grid on it then you'll need to clean the surface and redraw the lines. It may be necessary to sand or plane the surface to prepare for new lines. The drawing of lines is not a simple matter. Commercial boards in Japan have machine-printed ink (paint?) lines. Upscale boards have genuine lacquer lines made from sap from plant of genus toxicodendron. Traditionally the lacquer is applied using a sword-like tool if not an actual sword blade. In amateur practice the lines are usually drawn with an indellible Sharpie-type marker or with a drafting pen. The problems include sealing the surface so ink won't spread into the grain of the wood. Here is a Sensei's Library page describing one method: http://senseis.xmp.net/?SurfaceFinish