2. Shaping the body
Shaping the body involves four major steps as follow:
1) curving the sound board (scooping out the inside of the sound board),
2) carving keshobori,
3) attaching backboard, and
4) scorching the surface.
The quality of sounds depending on the thickness of the sound board, thus trimming the sound board is often done by hands. The keshobori improves reverberation and design of Koto to look gorgeous. There are several designs of Keshobori, sudaremebori (straight line carvings), ayasugibori (herringbone-shape curing), and komochi ayasugibori (herringbone-shape carvings in pairs).
1) curving the sound board (scooping out the inside of the sound board),
2) carving keshobori,
3) attaching backboard, and
4) scorching the surface.
The quality of sounds depending on the thickness of the sound board, thus trimming the sound board is often done by hands. The keshobori improves reverberation and design of Koto to look gorgeous. There are several designs of Keshobori, sudaremebori (straight line carvings), ayasugibori (herringbone-shape curing), and komochi ayasugibori (herringbone-shape carvings in pairs).
Komochisugobori
Ayasugibori
Shape of Koto
The Koto is designed as an image of a dragon, and the wider side is considered as a head of the dragon (Ryutou), and the thinner side is considered as a tail (Ryubi). Unlike the surface of the soundboard, showing the grain pattern of the wood does not matter for the backboard, and often the backboards were made of a few pieces of boards combine together, unless the quality of Koto is above average.
Scorching the surface of a Koto
In addition, the backboards tend to be made of hard wood. After the backboard is attached, scorching the surface of Koto to bring up the grain of the wood as well as to extend the life expectancy of the Koto. Finally, smoothing the surface of the Koto by using the wire brush, uzukuri.