Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

thats not a bad idea..
My bass flute is made in China..was very cheap. I did some upgrades to in US & its fine now.
They have good prices..

yes.

Yungflutes wrote:

Hi, I was replying to costademarias entry and somehow ending up posting under his ID and ended up to deleting his entry by accident. I didn't know this was possible. A big apology to costademaria!

He posted that he received an estimate of 7000 Euros for a Chinese mold made for a two piece 2.4. I basically asked how much they wanted for a mold that include the finger holes.

All the best, Perry

You pressed "edit" rather than "quote" and then got confused. I do that sometimes too, remember WE HAVE THE POWER as moderators/administrators.

Costa, please re post.

7000 Euros means you'd have to sell 700 2.4's at 100 Euros per flute just to break even. The problem is that most of the shakuhachi market is in Japan and they are reticent to buy gaijin products. So can you sell 700 or more in the West? Seems possible if you can get teachers on board. Since most people want to study honkyoku and not gaikyoku (according to Ronnie) maybe you could persuade the teachers to start teaching the students on A flutes.

Another possibility is to cobble together a group of investors each of whom would get a certain number of flutes to sell from the initial run.

Of course you'd also have to decide exactly what kind of 2.4 (or 2.3 A flute) you want to make. How big are the holes? Offset or inline? The bore? Is it a 2.3 or 2.4? Etc. Some guys are making 2.5 A flutes. Way too thin for my tastes.

I would be interested in a 2.3 (A) wide bore nobe plastic flute with big inline holes and no attempt to make it look like bamboo. Preferably orange.

Hey Perry, tonight we are going to supposedly the best Chinese in Tasmania. Check out the menu:

http://www.mewah.com.au/contact.html

hi, i said that they wanted for a mold which can produce from injected plastic 2 pieces from bamboo looking material /there are different types of plastics,heavy,strong,light... and so on/ s.th. like 7000Euro and they were may be the only ones with a sensible prize and accepting small runs of under 500 pieces./1 month survey and many emails and explications/, and  this without the holes,with holes the price would be insupportable,believe me. its not a big deal making the holes and the benefit is that even one mold can produce variety of different shakuhachi,big holes, small holes, oval , offset  and so on. so it gives even more possibilities

investing some deep thinking about that idea i rejected it for 2 main reasons.
the main reason was that not only i am a "gaijin" but also a beginning player and maker. even if i made a good product it would be difficult and time taking to convince the shakuhachi community what to speak about the Japaneses .... after that i thought of finding some very good flute which is by unknown maker and with the help of the modern technology to make a copy, but the my name problem still was there. of course i could do it and slowly make a name for the plastic shakuhachi
i also thought about proposing to some famous maker / you guys/ to do it together
there comes the second reason-i like making and learning to make  bamboo shakuhachi even non root ends / thats what i find here in spain/. so the eternal doubt again arose in my soul- bamboo or plastic. looking at the "imperfect" pieces i have at home, i rembered that they are Perfect,cause this is life...

so i thought,if i continue playing and making after only some 10 - 15 years may be i can stand with my name and "for now boy , dont be in a hurry"



in fact i don't see this as a copy right so even if s.b. decides to make it i can help him with some info, ideas and so on. i spend many months thinking and checking this issue, this to say i studied all the possible ways to do it and i am deep in the molding

profitable would be, don't worry. by the way 70 x 100 =7000.  but this doing it together is a good idea, i start reconsidering. so who is ready? :-)

ps. i would like also to make for me an orange one. by the way today came a guy at home and he bought 2 shakuhachi. he saw my screaming blue plastic shakuhachi 1.7 which i made with only a knife this winter in India sitting on the beach and it cost me some talk to make him not buy it when he heard me play it. cause i like it also. this i say cause that from making many plastic shakuhachi my opinion is this
-the plastic iz zen cause its easy obtainable
-those who say that the plastic sounds the same and the material doesn't matter  should take the plugs from their ears
-if the type and thickness of plastic is well chosen for a certain length after many playing tests its difference of the bamboo can be made an advantage and made a superb shakuhachi. even better than the bamboo one, but if this is mistaken it can be a disaster. do you know what i mean,you can not make something without knowing well the properties of the material. and this is valid for any art
contradictions but this how is the real life

So it sounds like the solution is for a consortium of makers to get together and decide upon a length and a bore profile. Maybe the utaguchi angle would also have to be specified? And color of course. That would be orange.

Then they get the "blanks" and do the holes by hand and sell them to their customers.

Sorry about my math error, I was never good at that subject!

Yungflutes wrote:

My question is, "Would any of the teachers who presently teach Honkyoku on long flutes have a problem teaching on a PVC Choukan?

I guess it's just a question of whether anybody is going to put in the effort to design, invest and manufacture something more satisfying than PVC. If it would be possible to have a long flute as good as the Yuu and which aesthetically is more pleasing than either the Yuu or PVC, a lot of people would be willing to fork out $100-150 for it. Until then PVC rocks! I played one of the PVC 2.7's you made for me yesterday. It was good.