Awesome idea, I’d definitely support that with a few €€.


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But what about the black stones?

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Those could easily be made the regular way. It is only clam which is in short supply.

Maybe I am missing something here, but WHY would you want to involve 3D printing? That's something that we tend to associate with producing shapes that are difficult to easily/cheaply obtain starting with a mass of the material and removing what is not to be part of the finished object. But in the case of go stones, the shape is simple.

In other words, all you need to be able to do is to be able to make slabs of the desired mineral.

But please note that this is NOT necessarily so simple and just stating the "almost only" chemical composition deceptively unhelpful. Molluscs, for example, are able to form their shells in such a way that the resulting material has much more strength (especially tensile strength) than if you simply form a block of the chemicals from solution. Not just molluscs, of course. Our concrete may just be sand and pebbles bound together, but somehow isn't up to the strength of sandstone with embedded pebbles.

In other words, I am far less sure than you that current state of the art would allow us to produce a material closely resembling the clam shells in appearance and strength. Probably nobody will be working to tackle that problem until after they have solved how to set concrete as strong as the stone it is "almost like in the chemical sense".

Now as for the black stones, I wouldn't worry about us running out of suitable parent material any time soon.

Double-convex would not print easily. If you do not add supports then you will have a high failure rate due to the small contact patch with the work-table. If you do add supports you will need to laboriously remove them from the finished workpiece.

Single-convex (think Yunzi style) would print very easily. But if you did not infill 100% you would get oddly light stones (they'd feel cheap) and if you infill 100% it would take a very long time to print.

I think you're better off just going with the real deal, unless you're posting from the ISS or some other such remote location with a 3D printer but no postal service!

I know that 3D-printers can handle calcium carbonate, which is the substance that make up most clamshells. It's also possible to 3D-print calcium phosphate, essentially teeth enamel.

I wonder if anyone has tried to 3D-print a clamshell Go stone? I'd imagine it'd be fairly easy to mimic the lines of a natural clam shell stone. With some surface polishing, the end product should look pretty nice.

This ought to be an interesting Kickstarter project. Anyone interested?

[..] the legendary Hyuga clams in Yuki grade with desired thickness (9.5mm or up), which cost hundreds of U.S. Dollars PER STONE at a minimum. [..]

As someone who owns several 3d printers this does not sound simple at all. First of all calcium carbonate is not a typical print material, I haven't really seen/heard anyone having success with this material. Since it doesn't melt it could only be applied by adding small drops at a time which would mean a ton of post production making it smooth. I also don't know how one would minic the lines, how would you get the two different colors? I love 3D printing and there is a ton of uses for it but the simple shape of go stones and the need for 361 stones a set strongly suggests mass production is the way to go. I highly doubt people will pay top dollar for man made shell stones (just check the price difference between man made and natural diamonds)

Uhm, no.

Yes, Yuki grade stones are expensive, but not THAT expensive.

See here: Kiseido Go Equipment

And at Mr Kuroki’s store: Clamshell Go Stones BLUE LABEL, Clamshell Go Stones Premium grade, Legendary Hyuga Special Clam Go Stones

The most expensive set of stones I could find on the above pages costs 720,000 JP¥ which is US$ ~6,476 —> US$ 6476/180 = US$ ~36 per clamshell stone (if we neglect the shell stones)

by78, I’m all for your idea about 3D-printing stones and as said, I’d also put a little money in such a Kickstarter project. I just thought that the prices for clam stones that you mentioned were a bit over the top … maybe you took ¥ amounts for $$? But be it as it is, I like the idea.

But … maybe, since the material is a mineral, it would even be possible to grow it like people grow crystals? Maybe some electrochemical process? (But Calcium … dunno)

The set I linked costs around $38000.00! That's over $200.00 per stone.

OK, you were right and I was wrong: that one I missed, and I admit that I only counted the “available” sets.

Wow. The price difference between Blossom Grade and Snow Grade is rather large. The Snow Grade can be >= 3x as expensive. (What is Blossom Grade? Never heard of that, to be honest. I do know Moon Grade. Maybe it's something exclusive to Kuroki.)

The set I linked costs around $38000.00! That's over $200.00 per stone.

If you wanted moon grade you could send him a message and see if he can put together a set for you (If you do, please post the answer since I'm curious if that's still a possibility).

Blossom (Hana) grade is specific to rare Hyuga (Suwabute) clamshell stones. They're graded more on color than on grain since the grain is fine throughout (so much so it puts Mexican snow grade to shame).