When was it...must have been 1994...when the Japan Foundation sent me around
the world offering up one or two day shakuhachi repair courses. Counting
that and over 30 years of shakuhachi repairing, a large number of shakuhachi
bindings have been accomplished. Here's a general outline of a couple of
satisfactory processes to get a split shakuhachi closed and bound up in
durable fashion.
First, the crack should be closed. It has happened more than once that a
split shakuhachi has arrived here with many metal hose clamps spaced along
its length and tightened to close the crack. Sorry, no success with that.
Other shakuhachi have arrived here wrapped with steel wire, also
unsuccessful. Many other folks have written asking how to close a crack.
Thinking about it one should be able to come up with the reason why the
bamboo split in the first place...excessive drying! To close any crack in
bamboo, and cracks wide enough to accept a wooden pencil are not uncommon,
simply replace the lost moisture. The most recent repair had a wide crack
which took three days of resting in a damp environment to close.
Sometimes cracks just won't close completely without a little help from
something other than moisture, but there should be some place where the
crack is completely closed. This often happens when a crack extends the
whole length of the upper half of the shakuhachi. It will be closed at the
joint, the end away from the utaguchi, because a binding is normally under
whatever ornament has been used at the joint. Start binding there, using
one or the other of the methods described below or some other method,
placing the binding between the ornament and the 4th finger hole. Then work
toward the utaguchi end of the bamboo. Applying a tight binding should
close the crack completely or very nearly so. Sometimes it happens that
while working the crack will begin to open up. In this case, make a couple
of bindings and then place the bamboo back in a damp environment to reclose
the crack. Make a couple more bindings the next day or whenever the crack
has closed. Eventually you'll get to the end of the work.
For rattan bindings square cornered grooves are cut into the bamboo at
intervals along the length of the crack. These grooves can be any width (2
bu is common but 3 bu or even 4 bu or whatever can also be used). The
grooves should be deep enough to accommodate some string which is wrapped
round and round the bamboo in the bottom of the groove, some filler of some
sort (used to fill the groove so the finished surface of the filler is below
the surface of the bamboo by an amount equal to the thickness of the rattan)
and the rattan itself.
Be very careful to not make these grooves too deep. I've seen more than a
few flutes with distortions to the bore, little compression rings, at the
location of each binding.
By all means, never apply any sort of that instant drying super-glue to
cracks. It goes way down inside the crack and is almost impossible to
remove. Many people use it on cracks but after doing so the crack will
probably never close completely.
When making the structural string binding, wrap the string over itself for
the first few rounds and at the end pull the string under itself for the
last few rounds. If the string tension is sufficient it will not slip. The
same technique is used for wrapping the cosmetic rattan. Use a small cross
peen hammer or other suitable tool to eliminate the bumps, flatten them,
where the rattan goes over itself at the beginning and end. Lastly, apply
some sort of liquid adhesive that will seep down through the spaces between
the rattan to the surface of the filler and also fill any other spaces.
More than one application may be necessary. Be sure to wipe off the excess
adhesive before it hardens. Urushi is the material of choice for this in
Japan.
After all the bindings have been done, place the bamboo in a dry
environment, a kotatsu works really fine, to open the crack a bit. Then
fill the crack with some sort of filler that will eventually harden. Keep
it in mind that the bamboo will move with changes in humidity so the
repaired crack is expected to open and close a bit from day to day.
A more simple and structurally stronger method of binding is to use ordinary
string directly on the surface of the bamboo. After the bindings are in
place paint them one or more times with some sort of liquid adhesive to hold
them in place.
These written explanations seem rather tedious. Have a look at the attached
diagrams.
Good Luck!
Tom Deaver
[Tom's diagrams have been removed from his message because they
would not load. I'll get them online soon - bj]
-
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:51 PST