The first purchase I made was a set of stones. I can't afford a set of snow stones (about $900) so I decided a nice set of glass stones would suffice. I like a fairly thick stone so I decided on 10mm stones from Samarkand; at about $50 they were a steal.

While at the mall, I went into one of those neo-hippy, new-age naturalist stores because they were having a clearance sale. I happened across some nice mahogany bowls for $15 each. They looked about the right size for my stones so I bought them. They fit perfectly and after a cote of oil, they look as nice as the $150 dark chestnut bowls I wanted.

Finally, my ban. I have a couple of gobans already. A fabric roll up that is quite portable and was also my first board. My first attempt at building a tabnle board was somewhat successul. It is a plywood board that splits into two halves. The faces are reversable and the backs of each half have 9x9 and 13x13 boards. It's ok but it is too small for my glass stones so I don't use it much. I want to buy a nice floor ban but an inexpensive 4.5 inch katsura ban is $750; way out of my budget right now so I built one. Here's some info on the process I used.

My parents had some extra butcher block left over from their kitchen. It's about and inch and a half thick, three feet on a diagonal, and almost square. It's a little dense for a ban and it is shiny from the varnish but it's also free. My dad cleaned up the edges and I put some varnish on them. After search Lowes for feet, my roommate found an old 4x4 post in his parent's garage. The corners had been ripped to make an octagonal post. He cut it into legs about five inches high and I put a couple of coates of polyurathane on. Some post skrews and felt pads and I had a reasonable approximation of a table. One of the benefits of the top is that dry erase markers are easy to wipe off varnish. I measered out a 16.5x17.75 board, found the center lines, and drew in the lines for one quadrant of the board. I made sure my stones feet and that everything looked good then I marked the entire board with a fine sharpy. I painted in the lines with testors enamel paint (the stuff you paint models with). This took a long time as it's difficult to paint straight lines. It's a little bumpy and uneven is spots but it's square. Besides, the asymmetry is rather nice. A coat of polyurathane to protect the lines and my goban was nearly done. If I get daring at some point I'd like to carve a resonance chamber to get a better sound but that's for another time.

That's the story of my set; I'll put pictures up when I can borrow a digital camera.