Lesson #30: Baren miscellania ...

Here are a few points on baren usage - none of them major enough to warrant an entire 'one-point' lesson to themselves ...

• When in use, the baren sits on the piece of cloth known as a 'baren-wata'. This is a square cloth 'pad' cut just a shade larger than the baren itself, and which over time becomes quite saturated with the camellia oil used to lubricate the baren surface. Choose a cloth that doesn't shed 'lint' easily, as small threads and bits will inevitably find their way onto the surface of the block.
• Whenever pausing in the work for anything longer than a couple of minutes, flip the baren over onto its back - don't leave it sitting in its 'normal' position on the cloth. The skin must be allowed to air out. Leaving it always 'face down' will give you a 'soggy' and loose skin. After the work is finished, store the baren in a place where air can circulate - an open shelf for example - not in a closed drawer.
• During the progress of the work, after every few prints (after every print in heavy work) rotate the inner disc and coil inside the skin. Push against the disc with a few fingers while holding the baren flat in the opposite palm, and give it a twist. This will ensure that the high spots of the inner coil don't always dig against the same place in the skin, and the skin will thus last much longer.
• If you have done a very good job tying a new skin, it will be extremely difficult to do this twisting, as the skin will be so tight (we should always be so lucky). Tapping the baren up on edge gently against the table top may loosen it a bit. Gently ...
• When selecting a skin for wrapping the baren, it is generally best to choose a thin one. The thickness of skins varies widely, even in any given 'batch', and if you wrap the baren with a thick heavy one, it will be far less responsive, as the effectiveness of the coil will be weakened considerably. The down side of a thin skin is that it will wear out more quickly. That's OK - you'll get more practice tying!