Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hi Amok,

amokrun wrote:

...Has anyone on the forum seen/owned a shakuhachi that was, say, over 50 years old and had no inlay of any kind? How was edge on the utaguchi? Based on absolutely nothing I'd guess that natural utaguchi would become dull much faster than one made out of something like metal or bone.

Here are a few pre-refurbishing photos of an old flute I worked on:



I've worked on many old flutes that didn't have inlays. Many of which were made by Komuso.  Some are in great shape, without chips and dings. Some have been pretty beaten up. I would say the typical well-cared-for old utaguchi would show a little roundness on the edge.



When this one came to me, it was in pretty bad shape. It had a layer of caked in dust in the bore. It also had severe worm damage at the root. As you can see, the utaguchi is chipped and lost some of it's original edge, but it actually worked well.



The flute is pretty old. It's a 1.75 length with a large bore pitched in D. My guess is around 100 years or older. Probably made by a monk. I'm sure it's older than you:)

The root-end of many old shakuhachi tends to be much smoother and the individual roots tend to become almost round at the ends. I'd assume that the same thing happens to the blowing edge as well even if it is more carefully kept.

Old flutes often have shaved roots. I would say this was a crafting choice rather than a product of aging.



Here is a 2.3 I finished a few months back. This flute felt like a Myoan style flute so I finished it with it's visual aesthetics. Myoan flutes are among the oldest style shakuhachi and often have shaved roots. But, a contributing factor that affected my decision to shave shave this one down was a few missing roots.

Namaste, Perry