Archive for the ‘Go | Wei Chi | Baduk’ Category
Two Eyed Cliffhanger: My First Homemade Goban Experiment
I was inspired by a post by Orum on godiscussions.com ( see the post here) to make my own goban this weekend. I ended up with a goban that is just as imperfect as my go game. To tackle the task, I imposed two requirements for this first prototype. … I had to make it fast and cheap. It had to be fast because I have two small children so I have no time. It had to be cheap to accommodate my vintage slate and shell stones I scored on ebay for only $92 (with the bowls! ). Fortunately, I lucked out a few months ago and found a nice pile of 3″ scrap wood at the local landfill. I am pretty sure it is pine but I am no woodworker so I am not sure. The board cost me $8.69 in materials because I did not have any satin finish polyurethane on hand. Since it was my first shot at making a goban, I used the least perfect two pieces of my dump-find stockpile to make this “club” board. Here is a picture of what I ended up with:
The side grains came out better than I thought (also on flickr):
I recklessly followed Orum’s guide on his website as a starting point. I did learn a lot in making this first board. here are some of the highlights:
I call this goban the two-eyed cliffhanger because:
1. The board has two knots on the surface that look like eyes. Maybe it will remind me to make two eyes once in awhile.
2. I did not make the board quite as wide as I wanted. I also laid the grid down slightly off-center so one border line is closer to the edge of the board then the other. The board is 2.8″ thick mini-cliff.
Some things I will change in the next iteration:
1. Find something better than a fine tipped sharpie for the lines. the line is a little too thick and too flat. I am thinking of trying some lacquer paint next time to see if I can get a raised, thinner line.
2. Scrounge up a hefty single piece of wood. I will make some more boards using the wood I found first to get some practice in though. Our club is short of boards so even imperfect boards will help.
3. Don’t screw up the lines. see a mistake here:
4. Don’t use gray wood filler to fill in an imperfection on the board (see photo above). The gray just popped right out once I coated it with poly. I may try to use a more traditional wax instead of satin poly too although the satin poly does look nice for this “club” quality board.
5. Start with a bigger board.
Overall, I am very happy with the new club-quality board. I will test it out a the Wesleyan go club this Friday night to see if it acceptable to others as well.
Think Globally, Play Go/Weiqi/Baduk Locally
Check out the beta global go map at www.goplayer.com/gomap. Better yet, post yourself and your local club onto the map.
–Mike
Don’t Forget Weiqi and Baduk Players
I am happy to announce that goplayer.com now includes weiqiplayer.com and badukplayer.com. I haven’t figured out the best way to divide and conquer yet so all three domains point to this one for the moment.
I am working on expanding the site beyond the present state ( rarely updated blog that it is) .
-Mike
The 23rd Annual US Go Congress (2007)
… will be held July 28 - August 4, 2007, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. See this link for details. I have yet to be able to attend a Go congress. Hopefully I can finally attend this year. Everyone that I know that has attended says that it is an awesome experience. See this link for details.
Basque Open Go Championship 2006
Here is a nice 9 minute video of the first Basque Open Go Championship (November 2006). The video quality is good. Subtitles were a little small but readable. The video includes a very basic introduction to the game. I wish I was there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM2n1CUl0yw
Welcome to goplayer.com
Since I don’t have any meaningful go information posted yet, check out the American Go Association for all things GO.
Best Regards,
Mike