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August 08, 2004
Shoddy shakuhachi repairs!
This is a photo of a shoddy repair. It was done by an American working out of Kyoto. This is the case where getting a repair done can do more damage to the flute than the original crack.
The owner of this flute brought it to me explaining that she wanted the flute to look better. I was a bit shocked to see the work and she even said the guy apologized for doing a bad job. She wanted the thin rattan, the standard used in inlay repairs these days. But, the person in Kyoto used this less expensive thicker grade. In addition, while doing the repair, he ended up marking up her flute with deep file gouges, heavy grade steel wool scratches and left over super glue. Doing this kind of work is sort of like corrective surgery on a botched operation. It's a lot more work to cover up a bad job than to do it from scratch.
There was a discussion last week at the Fourth Annual World Shakuhachi Festival in NYC where Yamaguchi Shugetsu said repairs should be done by professionals. His remark was made to someone in the audience who asked for advice on working on flutes when he has nothing to do late at night.
Monty Levenson said he should do all he wants to the flute since that's how he got started. I agreed with Monty, if it wasn't for my own inquisitiveness, I would have never gotten into shakuhachi making. But, after having seen this shoddy repair, I now understand where Shugetsu San is coming from. I mean, you can dig into your own flute and mess it up all you want but you should not dig into another person's flute, scar it up, and then charge for it! That's just not cool..
Here's what it should've looked like.
Posted by Perry Yung at August 8, 2004 11:23 PM