DIY doukake at Bachido?

Store/Sales
#1

While zooming around the net I discovered that there is such a thing as a DIY plastic doukake base & tenjin cover (example by Yuzu-san https://yuzumusic.net/2018/01/30/778/ ). Does Bachido ever stock them?

I know that there are directions to build a doukake from scratch in Shamisen of Japan, but:

  1. It assumes you already have a shamisen.
  2. You don’t mind your shamisen being unplayable for a while.
  3. You only want to paint/lacquer one doukake at a time.

A plastic base from which to start would be awesome… :innocent:

#2

Such plastic bases are made, but for some reason they are only made for tsugaru shamisen. I wish they were also made for nagauta/jiuta shamisen, as it makes painting much easier. For nagauta/jiuta shamisen, I think the base is made from layers of thick paper… or something, but I’ve never actually seen one made. :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

While making my own doukake and doing some research on different methods, I’ve stumbled upon this:

http://www.kokoro-shamisen.ch/d/doukakebasteln.php

They make a plastic doukake base by deep-drawing baked polystyrol on a premade dou-mold.
A pretty cool thing to do, aside from the smell I suppose. And you can easily paint and laquer it.
Downside is, you have to make at least one dou-part and build/buy a deep-draw box.

Another site suggested to make a mold out of epoxy-clay, where you just press the doukake you already own on a lump of self-drying clay and afterwards you can use it again and again.
I most certainly gonna try this the next month.
For my first try I went with the paper-maché method, which is quite okay, but I gonna make another one this weekend with gypsum bandages.

#4

I’ll just reuse this thread for a few doukake related questions.

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So here’s first try with gypsum bandages.
I thought it would be a good idea, but it turned out to be pretty crappy. Too porous and too many unwanted elevations which led to uneven layers of lacquer + I never spray paintes before, so it’s not really good looking. But still, sturdy as hell.

But for future tries, I think I’ll just stick with paper maché.
So I’d like to know if there is a recommended kind of paper for the doukake or a certain thickness that works best?
And what kind of lacquer works best with the cloth layer? Acryl, Epoxy or maybe something different?

2 Likes
#5

Washi paper decorated with kimono patterns layered with starch on a hard form…?

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