Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi Ambi,

I was given a cracked shakuhachi some time ago and this summer
I finally got the courage to attempt a repair:

1. store it in plastic with damp cloth for a while
1a. try it when the crack has closed due to moisture (great!)
2. wash the mold off that developed during life in plastic
3. bind it (I used well stretched kite line from an earlier life of mine,
    before Monty kindly sent me some line he uses --- thanks Monty!)
    as tightly as I could

Looked fab when I was done.  I did not put it back into plastic so that
the mold would dry away.  When looking again a couple of days later
the crack started opening up again; now it is again wide open, despite
the binding which is still in place.

I would be grateful for more advice (I would love to have it professionally
repaired but, at the moment, I just don't have the money for it, I guess).
I can see two possible causes for my failure:
- when wet the bamboo expands and when it dries it shrinks; hence,
  tightly binding it while wet does not suffice since the bamboo will shrink
  (and the crack open) as the bamboo dries
- udo's binding wasn't thight enough (perhaps he isn't as strong as he thinks);
  hence, another person or better tools are required to do the binding.
As a solution to both I have now gotten some metal clamps (the ones that
you use to affix water hoses) with the idea to fix and tighten them while the
flute dries to then bind it in its dry state (to me this sounds quite scary and
I will certainly take it very slow and carefully).

However, I might have gotten the cause wrong (in which case the solution
doesn't make sense) --- or one of the causes is correct but the solution is
nonsense anyways?

Ambi, how does your flute look like today, two weeks after your repair?

Cheers, udo.

I have a few things to be mentioned here:

udo.jeromin wrote:

I was given a cracked shakuhachi some time ago and this summer
I finally got the courage to attempt a repair:

1. store it in plastic with damp cloth for a while
1a. try it when the crack has closed due to moisture (great!)
2. wash the mold off that developed during life in plastic

It doesn't take long for the crack to close with the moisture. For mold to develop it sounds like you kept it in the extremely moist environment too long.

udo.jeromin wrote:

3. bind it (I used well stretched kite line from an earlier life of mine,
    before Monty kindly sent me some line he uses --- thanks Monty!)
    as tightly as I could

Looked fab when I was done.  I did not put it back into plastic so that
the mold would dry away.  When looking again a couple of days later
the crack started opening up again; now it is again wide open, despite
the binding which is still in place.

I'm sure you're not the only person this has happened too. It could be that the bindings weren't wrapped tight enough. You've got to tie the free end of the binding line to something immoveable and then really pull hard when binding it. That way the elastic binding material will still be applying force even though the bamboo contracts. It could also be that you overdid the moistening and there was too much of a size difference when the bamboo dried.

udo.jeromin wrote:

...
As a solution to both I have now gotten some metal clamps (the ones that
you use to affix water hoses) with the idea to fix and tighten them while the
flute dries to then bind it in its dry state (to me this sounds quite scary and
I will certainly take it very slow and carefully).

Be careful with the hose clamps. In fact, save them for use as a last resort. They'll work, but my experience in using them on my first flute is that they introduced some othe surface cracks. Those cracks didn't go all the way through, but I still regret the hack job I did with that repair.

And there's a bit more, most here will probably scream at you not to do it, but it will get you a working flute even if it's not too pretty. You could use the clamps and put some regular superglue in the crack. Then if it still leaks (it sounds like you've got a really nasty crack and a good chance that it will still leak) you can try to seal it with some of the gel kind of superglue. Like I said, the result won't be pretty, and will be difficult if not impossible for you or a repairman to make look good again.       

I'm not sure how precious this flute is, how bad the crack is,  whether it's a jiari or jinashi, whether it's a 2 piece flute and the crack goes thought the joint,  or if the crack goes through a finger hole. All of these things need to be taken into consideration. If the flute is precious, by all means avoid superglue and hose clamps and get it to a repairman if your binding attempts don't work. If the crack is really wide it might be hard to avoid superglue gel to seal it, again, if the flute is precious get it to a repairman. If it's a jiari flute there might be some bore repair to be done too, although you could wait until you've got enough bucks to have a repairman look at it after you've got the flute working with simple bindings closing the crack. If it's a two piece flute and the crack goes through the joint it's getting out of the do-it-yourself realm too. If the crack goes through a fingerhole and you're experiencing mysterious leaks after what looks like a good binding, look into the possibility of your fingers not sealing the holes due to the crack even though it's been closed. I've found a drop of superglue in the fingerhole is an OK fix for that, but maybe a better option would be some paint since superglue is so hard to remove once it's applied.       

Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing what some qualified repairmen (ie., not me have to say about this.

udo.jeromin wrote:

radi0gnome wrote:

Be careful with the hose clamps. In fact, save them for use as a last resort. They'll work, but my experience in using them on my first flute is that they introduced some othe surface cracks. Those cracks didn't go all the way through, but I still regret the hack job I did with that repair.

...many thanks for sharing your experiences with the hose clamps.
Did you apply them when the flute was dampened or when it was dry?
Are those surface cracks cracks that developed because of the tension or
were they caused by the metal of the clamps
(i.e., are they cracks or marks --- the answer may give a hint on how to prevent this)?

They are cracks caused by the tension from the hose clamps running down the enitre tube. I padded the clamps with paper towels so the metal never touched the flute. They were applied while the flute was dry.

udo.jeromin wrote:

radi0gnome wrote:

I'm not sure how precious this flute is, how bad the crack is,  whether it's a jiari or jinashi, whether it's a 2 piece flute and the crack goes thought the joint,  or if the crack goes through a finger hole.

I don't know how precious the flute is (it was given to me as a present and I only played it very
briefly in a soaked state).  It's a 2 piece ji-ari, the crack goes all the way from utaguchi down
to the root end, including through the joint.  Looks pretty bad.  But, on the positive side,
it doesn't involve any finger holes.

It sounds like it might be a nice flute and a difficult repair. I wouldn't suggest using the hose clamps or superglue with it.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2007-12-25 11:02:53)