Restoring an old koto

         

  So I've been meaning to post this for a while. My amazing koto teacher is letting me use her fabulous 6ft koto. It got me interested in looking at kotos on ebay, and I found a good deal for a half size one from a seller in Japan. It arrived on my doorstep in only bubble wrap, and it looked, and smelled not so good, like a really, really old, stale book. Parts of it were broken, and cracked. I didn't want my family to know I bought it, so I hid it, and then, I eventually told my sister, and then everybody found out.

It was not what I was expecting, so I decided to take a chance and give it a make over, and fix several broken cracks. It also did not come with any bridges. I was scared to take off the strings, because I didn't know I could put them back. But with help from my koto teacher, also my sister Bess I was able to re-string it. My koto teacher is very generous, and she also sent me a new set of strings to put on this one---though I decided to wait until the silk strings break to see which koto needs new strings first. I sanded the koto, and painted it. I wasn't going to varnish it at first, because I liked the blond wood, but I thought it might help preserve my painting, and the wood as well.

After fixing this one up, I really appreciate the koto my teacher is letting me use, as mine goes out of tune, really fast.

        I also had the urge to paint a set of wooden bridges, and they look pretty cool on the koto, but I sanded the bottoms of that set too much, so they slide too much. So they are mostly for decoration. 

On a funny note, I was talking to my koto teacher, and told her that I noticed that the koto music I was learning from, looked like the code symbols you see in the matrix movie. So I had to google it, and sure enough, I found that the matrix code is simply just recipes for sushi in Japanese. So if it's raining fish, you know you're seeing the code koto. 

 

        This is how it looked originally. Though it looked a lot greener.

This is the koto sanded. I really liked the blond wood.

Starting to paint it. 

These are some Bridges I painted to look like the seasons. 

        Starting to varnish.

Done!

I had fun writing koji symbols all over the edges, and on the inside. This one means peace.

I wanted to paint a dragon on it, so I painted the back of the koto as well.

I wa

I wrote my name in Japanese, and also the meaning of my name in kanji