Life In 19x19

A few years ago I was visiting a friend’s lapidary shop. I had some go stones in my pocket and showed them to him. I asked how difficult it would be to make some out of, say, dark brown or gray rocks and bright white or light gray rocks. He said, “Two approaches: core drilling and shaping or cutting to rough shape on the saws then days of tumbling and polishing. Might be a fun project. How many?” I told him. He laughed and laughed. Two or three years, two thousand dollars in saw blades and polishing compounds. “No one has that kind of patience!”

I was helping unload a kiln at a glass fusing studio and had some go stones in my pocket to show to the owner. She said we could easily build a shallow ceramic mold, fill it with frit (glass chips), and melt it in the kiln. It would give you a uniconvex stone or one half of a biconvex unit, just glue two together. Then she asked, “How many?” She laughed and laughed. “Ta week of studio and kiln time and $500 in frit. Must be a better way. Can’t you just buy some?”

I was talking with a ceramist/potter. Showed her my go stones. After the laughter stopped, she said, “You might first carve a wooden press mold that would make maybe five to ten at a time. Put a ball of clay in each little mold cup, close the mold, squish ‘em. Including kneading and clean up of the edge, Ten minutes for five to ten units. You’d want to use a fine cone 6 white clay and a nice black clay so you don’t have to glaze them. Fire ‘em up. A week max, start to finish. Clay is much lighter than glass and no two are going to be the same. Umm, if you keep them in those bowls, they’re going to get all scratched from rubbing against each other. Could be cool.”

That might be a fun project: handmade ceramic stones.

Also thought about polymer clay but not enough mass.

Ceramic stones is definitivly doable, but it would probably be better to glaze them (smoother to the touch). The problem with glazing is that you would need to fire the stones three
times instead of only once (you need to glaze each side of a stone separatly)

A black glaze like this for the black stones :
https://www.peterlavem.fr/5828-large_de ... ir-mat.jpg

A white glaze like this for the white stones :
https://www.peterlavem.fr/5312-large_default/blanc.jpg

But you could choose something more exotic :
https://www.peterlavem.fr/1254-large_de ... edonie.jpg
https://www.peterlavem.fr/2562-large_de ... amande.jpg


I may do an experiment later this year

Here is a video on Youtube by Kurokigoishiten showing how to make the clam shell stones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghjOqvV0_o

I think glass go stones and yunzi are made in a mold and there may be some touch up polishing. Plastic and ceramic go stones, also made in a mold, are available commercially. The high grade shell and slate stones are made by cutting thick disks and polishing.

gowan wrote:I think glass go stones and yunzi are made in a mold and there may be some touch up polishing.

Not quite the same, but Youtube showed me some weeks ago a video on glass marbles being done. Basically, they extruded molten glass and shaped it by rotation as it cooled. You'd need some extra treatment with stones, but I'd think the basic idea would remain. In fact, I think I recall some beads in that doc that were, basically, oversized half convex. [*]

Take care.

[*] Not the same video, but the basic idea is there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xLgJ0ZajrE

The one I saw was a Chinese factory, IIRC. Bigger operation, and more detailed video.

Tryss wrote:Ceramic stones is definitivly doable, but it would probably be better to glaze them (smoother to the touch). The problem with glazing is that you would need to fire the stones three
times instead of only once (you need to glaze each side of a stone separatly)
:

Three times. Yes. My turn to laugh like everyone else with whom I’ve discussed this project.

gowan wrote:Here is a video on Youtube by Kurokigoishiten showing how to make the clam shell stones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghjOqvV0_o

I think glass go stones and yunzi are made in a mold and there may be some touch up polishing. Plastic and ceramic go stones, also made in a mold, are available commercially. The high grade shell and slate stones are made by cutting thick disks and polishing.

Nope. YYunzi stones are individually poured from a small crucible by hand onto a steel platten. Looks stupidly dangerous but the experts can pour tens of thousands of absolutely identical stones by sight and timing without measuring anything. One would think that, by now, the process would be automated or at least modified to protect the operators. I love OSHA.

Ferran wrote:
Not quite the same, but Youtube showed me some weeks ago a video on glass marbles being done. Basically, they extruded molten glass and shaped it by rotation as it cooled. You'd need some extra treatment with stones, but I'd think the basic idea would remain. In fact, I think I recall some beads in that doc that were, basically, oversized half convex. [*]

I have never seen videos depicting the inside of a glass go stone factory. However, if was informed decades ago by the guys at Ishi Press that Japanese go stones were molded. That process may have changed since then but they assured me it was the major thing that separated Japanese glass stones from Korean. The other factor was he quality of the glass

bogiesan wrote:I have never seen videos depicting the inside of a glass go stone factory. However, if was informed decades ago by the guys at Ishi Press that Japanese go stones were molded. That process may have changed since then but they assured me it was the major thing that separated Japanese glass stones from Korean. The other factor was he quality of the glass

Well, I have a set of B/W Korean stones (and another of greens, but I'm not yet used to that one), and I'm not 100% sure about the size itself, but the shape is not consistent. By small margins, but you know those diagrams (I think by kurokigoishi) that show which stones are not proper? I think I have some examples...

I think you should be able to mold the extruded spheric-ish yellow-hot "glob" into a go stone. Maybe it would have to be slower to avoid overheating or something, but I can't see why it couldn't be done. Maybe that possible slowing would account for some of the price difference.

For myself, I think I have enough stones for a while. Next stop, gosu and... sometime... shell stones. But I don't think I'll buy those online. For some weird reason, my fingers are starting to ask for thicker stones (mine are 9 mm --black-- and 8mm --green--). Someday.

Take care.

Making of Yunzi Making of Yunzi 2 Yunnan Weiqi Factory Sadly, I don’t understand a word of what’s being said, but I’m happy to own two sets of Yunzi stones: one single-convex, Jade (i.e. the white stones have a green luster), and the other bi-convex, black and white, and the black stones of both sets are green-ish when I look through them at a light.

Bonobo wrote:Sadly, I don’t understand a word of what’s being said, but I’m happy to own two sets of Yunzi stones: one single-convex, Jade (i.e. the white stones have a green luster), and the other bi-convex, black and white, and the black stones of both sets are green-ish when I look through them at a light.

I _think_ I saw similar videos years ago at... chiyodad's page? [*] But I shudder to think the price those would fetch if done in the West. Getting Japanese slate & shell would be easier and cheaper, probably.

I mean... look at the world distribution of marbles' makers. Comparing amazon to a European Go seller, marbles are slightly more expensive. Let's say that extra is a packaging matter or something (marbles do NOT come in 361 packs... although some seem to come in Kg). Even so, the price for something round and automatic (90% of which are made in Mexico) is about par with the price for go stones in a specialty store. I simply don't see how we can make those in the West at a competitive price unless we go for precious materials or something. I haven't seen his products in real life, but there's someone who's on that path already. Has been for years, AFAIK [+].

Take care.

[*] Hmm... likely. I just saw who uploaded the last video originally. So, very likely.

[+] The page has been up for at least 10 years, and he answered a query some months ago, so I'm assuming it's the same person behind it, but I can't recall the name from, well, 10 years ago. Sorry.

[quote="]
I shudder to think the price those would fetch if done in the West. Getting Japanese slate & shell would be easier and cheaper, probably.
[/quote]

Ah, chiyodad! He had a good run blogging about his go experience. Entertaining and just the right amount of detail as he introduced odd video clips and unusual products. Yellow Mountain Imports is a much different company than it was back then.

Capitalism is a weird thing. The global market for quality go equipment is apparently vast, the demand remains unsatisfied, and the returns for equipment makers are possibly quite lucrative. Japanese slate and shell sets are not ever going to become less expensive. Ceramic and glass sets coming from the east will continue to get more expensive as the regional standards of living increase, costs of materials rise, and leaders squabble over tariffs. Alternative materials such as exotic stones and minerals will remain quirky oddities until, of course, the costs of traditional sets rise to approach the costs of the exotics.

If price is the primary factor that determines demand, then, yes, western manufacturing probably cannot compete with the handmade Yunzi products coming out of a spectacularly unsafe facility that pays low wages and offers no benefits like health insurance and a pension or union dues.

The bigger question for me is simply, “Why not?”

the history of glass marble manufacture is a good example. The dominant maker was Germany until the 1920s when the USA took over due to sophisticated manufacturing techniques and better glass chemistry. Now the industry is owned by a single Mexican company with two small USA makers still in business. However, there are hundreds of highly skilled glass people making exceptionally cool handmade marbles that command steep prices and are highly collectible.

http://www.marblecollecting.com/marble- ... arble-faq/

Mexican workers are now being paid well and the machines they use are sophisticated. I was in a toy store just yesterday and found marbles For sale that came from four different countries but not the USA. The range of quality was awful to fabulous but was not associated with price.

I can easily see the Mexican marble maker Vacor setting up a sideline of go stones. Maybe even doing interesting colors and patterns that would resemble the precious and semi-precious stones (that we imagine owning but not playing with).

http://www.buymarbles.com/marblealan/vacor.html

If they were reasonably priced and were comfortable in the hands, maybe they’d sell. However, I do not think the process of making perfect multi-colored glass spheres is directly adaptable to the manufacture of the traditional dual-convex lens shape. Perhaps there is room for a third design for go stones, a shape determined by the manufacturing technique rather than an applied aesthetic. What would that be? Yunzi weiqi stones are shaped by the manufacturing technique of dribbling a gather of molten ceramic onto a metal platten. Yunzi dual-convex stones are ladled by hand into a formed mold. Japanese glass stones are molded (so I’ve been told). Japanese slate/shell are hand-formed. Korean stones come in plastic, ceramic, and glass, with glass coming in traditional black and white and various clear colors, not unlike marbles, from Six Brothers. I guess a third shape, one that could be easy to manufacture, would more closely resemble a plano-convex lens, dead flat on one side and elegantly spherical on the other. They could be Japanese-style with hard gloss white and matte black or acid rinsed so both black and white had a matte finish.

I think if somebody would create some nicely coloured single-convex ceramic stones of the quality and with the haptical feeling and weight of Yunzi I’d immediately want to spend more money than would be wise …

Hi Bonobo, maybe 3D printing will come up with a very nicely shaped, textured, weighted, anti-bacterial, and durable set like the ING stones.

EdLee wrote:Hi Bonobo, maybe 3D printing will come up with a very nicely shaped, textured, weighted, anti-bacterial, and durable set like the ING stones.

ING stones had a piece of metal in the center, a not-trivial manufacturing feat! Pausing the printer to insert the weight is a hassle if you’re making them in your kitchen, probably the death factor in figuring out how to automate a series of 3D printers. And that’s only if you can find a steady supply of weights that are lead-free, congruent, and dirt cheap.

Keep the fantastic suggestions coming!

The discussion of go stone manufacture, even of a single set, is fun but academic until one comes up with a process that is, after objective deconstruction, actually doable.

Bonobo wrote:I think if somebody would create some nicely coloured single-convex ceramic stones of the quality and with the haptical feeling and weight of Yunzi I’d immediately want to spend more money than would be wise …

In solid colors or patterns? An extruded pattern would be possible. However, I’ve still got to wonder if buying Yunzi stones is not somehow a bit immoral; supporting that kind of dangerous manufacturing is not a good idea any more than supporting exploitative agriculture. On the other hand, Yunzi provides employment to many. So, who knows?