Horn bachi

Building/Repair
#1

I finally completed my first attempt at a horn bachi. I think it came out pretty decent. I used black water buffalo horn and a piece of scrap black ebony I had. I made a jiuta style bachi which is much larger than Tsugaru style. The piece of ebony I had was not quite large enough so I had to adjust the design. Overall the face is good but I had to taper the profile earlier than a standard bachi. I also did not add any weight so it is very light. This weighs 122g vs 236g for the bachi I modeled it after. As my first attempt the blade is a bit thick but it still flexes more than the acrylic bachi.

I have been using it for a few days and it works great. It glides across the strings much better than the acrylic bachi. Sukui is much easier. Overall it seems to perform much like bekko which isn’t a surprise since they both are keratin. I think horn is a great cheap alternative that is accessible to us do it yourselfers without sacrificing the performance of bekko.

Here are some comparisons to the white acrylic bachi.

#2

Michael ,
Wow! That is awesome! Great job! I’d love to try one of those out!
Might start a new trend! Really curious about how it sounds…

#3

Michael! where did you get your hands on such material!? i see you’re from San Diego as well! and it looks great!

#4

That’s awesome Michael! I’m with Kevin, any chance you could post a sample of you using it?

#5

Great work!

#6

Awesome bachi!

#7

WOW you should be really proud man well done!
I wanna hear it, please post a video.
Maybe one day we will own bachis hand crafted by Michael :slight_smile:

#8

OMG that’s amazing, i still have a stack of horn pieces that are waiting and waiting for me to get around to tracing out the handle patterns on wood and doing a hybrid…

how did you find the polishing?

#9

Cool! When I read the title I though it was a sanshin chimi,or tsume

#10

totally forgot to ask, did you use oil or water to heat it?

#11

I’m not really a video person, but I think my wife has a small camera. I will see what I can do.

The blackness of the materials match very well giving it a more seamless look. The nice thing about the material is that they are fairly common and readily available. I have gotten polished water buffalo horn (usually from India) off of Ebay and at local craft shops (particularly Native American). Good black ebony is expensive but you don’t need very much and everyone seems to carry it. Turning stock is very common.

Overall horn is fairly soft. It is also has a high friction coefficient. I don’t recommend power tools as sanders can burn it and saws get stuck if they are not cooled. Even sawing by hand with a coping saw I would drizzle water on the blade to keep it cool and from getting stuck.

For getting “polished” surfaces in both horn and wood I sand until ~400 grit then use Micro-Mesh. This is a specialty abrasive on latex. You can get a set of small papers with a sponge block for ~$25. It is expensive but this stuff doesn’t wear out like regular paper and it lasts a long time. I am able to get to what I call a matte polished finish. I haven’t been able to raise a mirror finish yet. I have read that horn can be polished with green chrome oxide paste but I haven’t tried that yet. My final finish on everything is the shamisen way - I use pure tsubaki (camellia) oil.

For shaping I originally was using boiling water. But this takes time. We have a hot gun that works great. Once the piece reaches a certain temperature it becomes pliable. Just be careful not to overheat any spots and don’t touch it with bare hands. A hot hair dryer may also work.

#12

I know I have trouble understanding the differences in the instruments, bachi, etc until I see it side by side so I though I would include this picture. As most of you are Tsugaru enthusiasts you will appreciate the size of the jiuta bachi. The picture is the bachi I made on top of the page from Kyle’s book showing the bachi template. The wooden bachi is one that is very close to a standard Tsugaru size and is marked as size 15 (though I am not sure what that means).

#13

thanks for the extra info, i find it better to get knowledge from others experiences of a thing rather than just plain text.
I’ve read oil is a bit better than hot water, just enough to cover the piece. I’ll try both ways as i seem to have acquired about 8 pieces…

#14

Whoa nellie!!

Yesterday, I quickly opened and glanced at this thread before heading out, and thought, “Ah, looks like Michael is selling his horn bachi. That’s nice.”

I guess that says it all! You fooled me, it looks so pro!! Did you split the horn down the middle like a bekkou bachi?

Man, that is so pro. Inspires me to try making a bachi again! (after the aluminum koma, of course)

Congratulations, Michael!

#15

wow it looks abit like my buffalohorn bachi with bekkou tip ^.^

#16

So, I did some reading up on materials after I saw this thread. The horn and turtle shell are indeed both keratin, which means they might perform similarly, but the turtle shell is a harder form, called beta-keratin, whereas materials from mammals are alpha-keratin, which is softer in general.
The bachi looks awesome and I’m tempted to give it a shot myself, but I think people should be aware that it may not hold up as well under the pressures of tsugaru playing compared to turtle. Actual experience may vary, of course.

#17

I am very interested in knowing how you made this remarkable bachi!! how on earth did you do it?

#18

Thanks everybody, I appreciate the support.

Eric, horn is a little softer and that is the reason I made it a little thicker for the first try. Horn is great because it is probably the closest thing to turtle shell and is cheap and available. I am much more likely to use my homemade horn bachi hard than an expensive and difficult to get bekko one too.

Karolyn, I am not really that skilled. I used a coping saw, a rasp and sand paper and some glue (a vise and clamps help too). It really isn’t that complicated. The next one I am thinking about weighting so that will be a little more tricky.

#19

Really nice! It’s awesome to see people creating alternatives!
You may not think it difficult to make, but you have to understand that you are extraordinary. Give yourself credit where credit is due my friend!
Sweeet!

#20

not sure about weight, i had been thinking about drilling a hole and adding parts of heavy curtain weights to get the weight i wanted, then closing it up with dowel

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