Board craftsman Mr. Miwa made Shin-kaya (Spruce wood) Tachi-mori finish table Go board Size 30 *Off-spec SKY30-MW505-01

Tenchi Masame grain runs straight through the top, bottom, and cutting sides, creating an exceptionally beautiful board.
The lines are crafted using domestic natural lacquer in the tachi-mori technique, achieving a superb finish.
It bears the 'Keihou' stamp, signifying the craftsmanship of Board craftsman Kyoji Miwa.
The bottom of the board features a carved center mark ("heso").

There is a tar spot on one cutting side, and an intergrown knot on one side.
*Please refer to the photos for details.

■History
Miwa Gobanten is a long-established Go board manufacturer and shop in Nagoya, that was founded in 1917, with the history of more than 100 years. Now the workshop and shop are owned and operated by Mr. Keiji MIWA with his official artist name "KEIHO". He is the third generation owner, following Mr. Saburo MIWA as the first generation and Mr. Yasuharu MIWA as the second generation. The origin dates back to the first owner Mr Saburo MIWA, who was a craftsman of Hako Hibachi (box type brazier), loved Shogi and Igo very much. Saburo learnt from one craftsman in Osaka how to make Shogi and Go boards.


■Philosophy and Passion: Identifying wood quality and professional drying technique
We are highly proud of the quality of our boards but also all the process starting from selecting material wood through drying technique. Currently. The third generation owner Mr. Keiji MIWA has visited a lot of lumber markets all over Japan to see and feel as many as wood as possible with his own eyes and identification skill, even though many Japanese Go board manufacturers depend only on distributors to purchase material woods.
Supported by his long experience, Mr. Keiji MIWA acquired a special skill to identify the best wood to make best Go and Shogi boards, making their products truly valuable that we are able to proudly introduce to our customers. Especially we want to emphasize their splendid drying process. Miwa Gobanten has kept natural drying method, among them some of the wood are dried for more than 10 years long.

■Philosophy and Passion: Carving on legs
People say that carving on board legs always requires patience of craftsman. Carving work using a small knife is not a simple work. They finish carving and engraving just a few pieces in a day. Furthermore, it also requires additional polishing work that usually takes several days more to finish.

■Philosophy and Passion: tachimori
The symbol of high-end Go and Shogi board is Tachimori, making lines on board using a Japanese sword. Miwa Gobanten adopts a special Tachimori technique called ‘Yarai’. They apply Japanese lacquer on the tip of sword blade and gently press and print it down on the wooden board. This method enables them to make beautiful, gentle, smooth and elegant lines that can be only accomplished by a manual work. These boards with Tachimori lines are true value of Miwa Keiji as the top artisan in this field.

He has long experience in board making and knows how the weather and humidity will affect lacquer conditions. He accumulated all kinds of data so that he will able to fully utilize these information in his Tachimori process. Japanese lacquer as painting material is hard to handle as it is easily affected by temperature and humidity. By fully utilizing both of his experience and accumulated data, he always tries to produce the best of best quality Go and Shogi boards from his workshop.

Shin-kaya wood, also known as "new kaya", is a spruce wood grown mainly in North America, which is different from Japanese kaya.
Spruce wood is widely used because it grows straight, is odorless, has low oil content, is easy to process, and is in good supply, making it relatively inexpensive to produce Go/shogi boards.
Spruce board is sold at an affordable price but it has a similar grain and color to honkaya but is not as high quality as honkaya wood.
The quality of the spruce is comparable to that of honkaya or Hyuga kaya, but it is less prone to deformation and cracking.
Spruce wood is also used as SPF (spruce, pine, fir) material for furniture and building materials, but unlike kaya wood, it shows significant deterioration over time, such as changes in wood color, and has a shorter life span.

*Go board materials are explained detail in "How to choose a board".
Please take a look.
Go to "How to choose a board".

"Tenchi-masa" literally means the grain runs from the top to the bottom or from the sky (ten) to the earth (chi).
As there is no visible itame (flat grain), you can see the beautiful masame (straight grain) from the top to the bottom of the board.
When the top and bottom surfaces have masame (straight grain) but the side has itame (flat grain), the board is classified as tenchi-masa.
Just like the shihou-masa board, the tenchi-masa board is made from a large-diameter, well-aged tree.
The kaya (Japanese Torreya) tenchi-masa board is synonymous with the finest Go boards made of valuable wood.
Also, most of the boards called tsugi-ban or hagi-ban (composition boards made from several pieces of wood joined together) have tenchi-masa or masame (straight grain).

*Go board cutting styles are explained detail in "How to choose a board".
Please take a look.
Go to "How to choose a board".

• Board craftsman Mr. Miwa made Shin-kaya (Spruce wood) Tachi-mori finish table Go board Size 30 *Off-spec
  Product No.：SKY30-MW505-01
  Size：About 460 ㎜ × 430 ㎜ × 90 ㎜
  Weight：About 7.5 kg
  Comes with a certificate
• 1,000 JPY flat rate shipping within Japan, free shipping for purchases totaling 20,000 JPY or more.
  Please bear the actual cost for shipping charges outside Japan.
  

You may find small knots, burrs, rolled-in bark as all these products are made of natural trees. There may be some small flaw or scratch, dent, chipping.