This post is titled:

Project Four Marudai

I've been talking lately to an awfully large number of people about kumihimo. I know you're surprised about that. Anyway, the biggest barrier for most people is acquiring a marudai. Not everyone has a pile of tools and scrap wood in the basement. This is also an impediment to me teaching classes in kumihimo, as I can't ask people to all crowd around and just watch me braid. So, I decided to make a few more marudai.

Batch of 4 Marudai

I wound up making four. They're made of pine board and poplar dowels, finished in a satin polyurethane. They're about 16 inches tall and the "mirror" disk of each marudai is about 11 inches across with a 1.25" hole. All edges have been rounded. Two are nearly perfect, but two have minor problems. What I'm thinking now is that I'll make a few more, then teach classes on the imperfect ones and offer to sell the more perfect ones to my students.

Most marudai I've seen for sale on the net are $80 to $100, then you have to pay shipping. These are not as nice as some of the commercial ones I've seen, but they take quite a few hours worth of work anyway. I'll probably sell the best of them for $50 or $60. Contact me if you're really interested, so I can gauge how many more I need to make.

2009.04.09 at 12:00am EDT

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