The Mechanics of Constructing
the Suiseki Daiza

Introduction
The philosophy of art can be done either from the top down or the bottom up—in the former, those aesthetic principles that define and characterize the traditional arts (visual, musical and literary) can be used to provide the bona fides for a nontraditional medium, e.g., suiseki; in the latter, specific particulars, both experiential and technical can be used as an argument for the inclusion of a "new" medium into the Olympiad of the established arts. This piece is an effort toward the latter; it is basically technical, i.e., an effort to answer the question, "How are suiseki daiza made?" However, this turns out to be a good deal more than a "how to do it" piece; and if I had students to whom I was teaching the aesthetics of suiseki, this paper would be the first that I would have them read. While I regard the artistic theory of the craft to be important, as a practitioner I regard the techniques of daiza construction to be of even more so. In addition to the theoretical considerations, I sincerely wish that the following information had been available to me when I began making suiseki daiza. The sparse information that I could find was largely incomplete, if not incorrect. If anyone wishes to be a serious student of suiseki, s/he must have the knowledge of constructing suiseki daiza. In addition, there are a set of issues that are essential to know regardless of the particulars of suiseki conception and design that one practices. Thus, I take the technical matters discussed here to be a good deal more than subjective musings.

On the pragmatic side, there are concrete concerns to be addressed—the investment in the necessary tools; the availability of the appropriate exotic woods; the competence, interest and commitment essential to making daiza; and a satisfactory place to work. Finally, an unusual consideration which might escape notice—making suiseki daiza is incredibly dusty; and the dust gets into everything, especially into one's body. Trust me, making suiseki daiza is for neither the weak of spirit, nor the weak of heart and lungs. While designing and constructing suiseki daiza entails a serious commitment, the rewards are one hundred-fold the cost.

Needless to say, it is the daiza which carries the potential to transform the stone into a "suiseki-work-of-art." This is predicated on the assumption that the stone with which one begins has the highest suiseki potential. Stones may be purchased or collected; they may be stones from any place in the world, with or without significant histories and/or pedigrees. Before any other considerations are brought to bare, potential suiseki stone quality must be of the highest priority. This is not matter to be taken lightly—for collectors, geology is a huge problem; it could be cautiously argued, that the only serious suiseki geology in the United States is in California. Purchasing quality suiseki stock is not inexpensive—good suiseki stones purchased in Japan can cost as mush as a million dollars a stone.

Once one has the beginnings of a stone collection for suiseki, basically the process of daiza creation consists of: 1) the selection of materials and the necessary tools; 2) selecting the wood; 3) drawing the stone and daiza outlines; 4) routing the bottom of the daiza, and cutting the daiza-blank; 5) setting the stone; 6) grinding the profile; 7) sanding; and 8) finishing.

1) Tools and Wood
While the tools required are critical for anyone interested in daiza construction, they are neither numerous nor need they be expensive. The basic power-tools include: a router, a power saw (hand saw, miter box or table saw), a small band-saw or jig-saw, a drill and a power grinding tool, e.g., a Dremel or Foredom. Other hand tools and sand papers are basic and readily available.

The craft of suiseki consists of a wedding between stone and wood—the longer I do suiseki and make daiza, the clearer is the fact that following the stone, the quality of the wood is everything. Significant in terms of art is the connection and interaction between stone and wood, which is quite remarkable. Without the wood daiza, the stone is but a rock (suiban notwithstanding); without the stone, the wood is little more than kindling. However, in this artistic combination, they can become exquisite. In the Rubbing the Stone paper, I discuss some of the early aesthetic theory in Japan addressing precisely this relationship of nature and art; and here we have two "natures," one of the earth, and the other from life.

Exotic hardwoods for making suiseki daiza are expensive; after the capital investment in the tools and the "cost" of the stones, the wood constitutes the greatest expense. However if, e.g., you spend $50 on a stone, which is fairly modest, you should expect to spend at least $10-15 on the wood stock for its daiza. One needs to find a source where wood can be purchased in person; buying wood on-line is not recommended; the wood needs to be seen, touched and smelled. Large metropolitan areas have exotic wood suppliers; if not, ask the local lumber yard where exotic hardwoods can be purchased. Initially, it is likely half the battle to find an available source of these woods.

The objective is to have a substantial stock of various species, colors, and dimensions of exotic hardwoods from which to choose for a particular stone. To begin, one might select a small quantity of several different woods to determine how they "feel" and fulfill one's particular needs and tastes. An ideal wood with which to begin is Brazilian rosewood. The woods toward which I gravitate are winge, and rosewood; my second tear choices are: teak, ebony, old mahogany, walnut, cherry, oak and maple. The operative criteria here are: hardness, deep rich color, grain, smell and "finish-ability." Only in the rarest of instances, would I recommend use of a wood-kind that needs to be stained. I have nothing against staining wood, e.g., my tokonoma frame is stained, because given consideration of budget and availability, I could not find 4 x 4 stock in a desirable wood species. However I feel fairly strongly that this is not an option applied to the wood for a suiseki daiza.

2) Selecting the Wood
Another consideration in addition to wood species, is dimension—pragmatically, the daiza length, breadth and depth are critical. While I have long enjoyed the benefit of having both a planer and a jointer, these can be expensive and are not necessary to make daiza. In order to glue wood pieces width-wise, a planer is fairly important, because the "gluing" edges must be perfectly smooth. Without a wood planer, it is more important to purchase woods with a variety of depth. One of the first criteria when selecting wood for a particular daiza, is the depth dimension. While one does have more flexibility with wood depth using stones with natural bottoms, in contrast to cut stones; the ratio of 1::7 (daiza to stone height) is fairly sound. In addition, the remaining two dimension are important. I generally buy wood in 6", 8", 10" and 12" widths, in whatever lengths are available; then I cut the length I need from the board. Also, I have no hesitation in gluing wood together for greater width—always use pieces cut from the same board; and always make be best use of grain and color consistency for the eventual daiza.

As I indicated above, my first choice of wood is Brazilian rosewood and winge; they come as close to being ideal as any woods that I know. For larger stones, requiring wood widths exceeding 12" and depths of 2" or greater, wood-species becomes secondary to whatever is available and affordable, or what can effectively be glued together. As is so often the case, pragmatics may need to trump aesthetics.

Natural stones have quite irregular bottoms such that the daiza depth may require double the wood depth available, in which case two pieces must be glued together. In these case, I always use adjacent pieces of the same board and keep the grain as consistent as possible, even if the two pieces mirror one another. When gluing, I only use Guerilla glue, tightly clamped over night.

3) Drawing the Stone and Daiza Outlines
When I began making suiseki daiza, for what seemed obvious reasons at the time, the stone was placed in the middle of the daiza. As my daiza have gotten into their third generation, having an open, horizontal profile, the option has become appealing to place the stone off-center toward the back of its daiza. This has been particularly advantageous in the sense of moving the stone back, increasing the foreground and increasing the perceived size of the daiza. This does wonders for extending the illusion of perspective.

One unintended consequence of the "island-format" daiza is that in the effort to maximize the perceptual daiza size, I tend to rotate the central axis of the stone slightly relative to the axis of the daiza, which creates a positive tension between the two. The distinction between axes must be fairly subtle, to the extent that it is not obvious on first blush.

I place the stone on the uncut board and determine its position on the eventual daiza. I mark the outline of the stone with a black magic marker; and then outline the daiza on the board. While still holding the stone in place, I indicate the location of the feet of the daiza; in my current daiza, often, approximately half of the foot extends beyond the profile of the daiza. (see the Suiseki Photos) Finally using a chop box, I saw the board about 1/2" longer than the eventual daiza.

4) Routing the Bottom; Cutting the Dai Blank
I drill a small hole at the extremity of each foot; turning the board over, on the bottom I draw the feet using the drilled hole as a guide; then draw the approximation of the daiza, tending toward making the bottom drawing larger than the daiza will eventually be. I wedge the cut board (having 90 degree corners) onto the work bench vice, making certain that the vice grips are below the depth of the router blade, e.g.., if I am routing to a depth of 1/8 inch, the vice grips must be down at least 1/8 inch below the that (or down 1/4" from the surface).

As a rule, the depth of the router cut will be no deeper than 1/7^th the thickness of the board. E.g., on 3/4" stock, my router depth is generally about 3/32". Test your router depth at the edge of the board that is being use for the daiza. Error on the side of too little depth of the router dig.

In certain ways, the routing is the most physically difficult of the steps in making the daiza-blank. While I am neither very PC, nor a safety freak, I cannot but be honest with respect to what precautions I take while working with these quite serious machines. For all of the work I do routing, grinding and sanding I wear goggles and a nose-mask. Honestly, this is more to protect my lungs and the interior of my system, than it is for any other safety considerations. In addition, regardless of how toxic the dust from these exotic hardwoods is, I simply cannot stand the dust in my eyes, nose and throat. (I have recently discovered evidence that I am likely allergic to rosewood dust. For several months I had been experience severe headaches, and did everything that I could in an effort to diagnosis their cause. For various reasons I stopped using rosewood for my daiza. After about a month, the headaches had subsided; and then immediately upon making a rosewood daiza they returned with a vengeance. I stopped; the headaches went away. This strikes me as very scary stuff regarding the toxicity of these woods.)

Aesthetically, one of the most important aspects of the suiseki daiza is the space beneath; it must stand on feet raising it above the surface that supports it (its "ground" as it were); also, there must be room for air and light to circulate under the dai, in order for it "to breathe." As I indicated above, I use the ratio of 7::1, daiza depth to space beneath. Save where the feet meet the floor, the underside of the dai is completed routed out; this is for several reasons, not the least of which is that light must be perceivable under the dai. Once the bottom of the daiza has been removed, it can be cut on its outline with a band saw or a jig-saw; this yields the "daiza-blank," i.e., the daiza prior to the stone being set and any of the profile being cut.

5) Setting the Stone
When I began doing suiseki and I used cut stones, it was fairly straight forward to set the stone - trace the outline of the stone onto the daiza, and then carefully rout out the inside where the stone would drop into the daiza. Once again I used the ratio no deeper than 7::1, dai depth to stone-drop depth. However, setting natural-bottom stones is somewhat more challenging—I use old fashion carbon-paper, and grind out the drop little be little until I reach the desired depth. (This is the how the dentist works on your teeth.) While slow and sometimes tedious, I have not found a preferable means of doing this. When using dark woods, e.g., winge or ebony, where one cannot see the carbon paper trace, I use white or yellow chalk on the bottom of the stone, which works fairly well.

I might say a word here regarding the distinction in the "stone-drop" between cut and uncut stones - among other consequences, cut stones have a clear sharp edge along where they are cut. I recall arguing decades ago, when I felt the need to justify using cut stones, that this hard edge could be taken to symbolize the horizon or the point between the water and the emerging mountain range. I still believe that this is likely the most convincing argument that can be made for cutting suiseki stones. The commitment to using cut stones went a considerable distance in determining the nature of the daiza which was possible with these stones, i.e., the stone's sharp, cut edge was impossible not to translate to the top edge of the daiza into which it was placed; one easily "reads the cut-stone" in the edge of the daiza. Among its other liabilities, cut stones telegraph the fact that they are cut, even we you cannot perceive the bottom of the stone. The very attempt to hide the cut base, is in itself not only are their bases unnatural, but the necessary effort to bury the cut is itself ugly. (see Cutting Suiseki Stones)

That the stone being incorporated into a suiseki has a natural bottom is so important that there is no need to disguise the fact of its natural bottom; as a matter of fact, there is value in not doing so. Thus, it is no longer a liability to see the stone's girth diminishing at the point it drops into its daiza. And it has only occurred to me recently that this is likely one reason why my own daiza have evolved into the open form that they now have, because the need for this hard edge at the point where the stone meets its daiza has been eliminated.

What are the criteria for setting the stone into the dai blank? The stone's: 1) specific placement, 2) direction, 3) attitude, all of which should have been determined at the time the dai outline was drawn on the board. As the stone is being set, one needs to attend to these and the appropriate modifications made. Once again, 4) the axis of the stone and dai will benefit from being in slight tension, i.e., the axis of the two are not the same. 5) As with the rule in bonsai, wherever possible and appropriate, the stone should lean slightly forward, as if it were bowing toward you. Almost ironically, 6) with vertical stones with a straight edge, placing the stone's straight edge at a 90 degree angle with the daiza is good. This provides a sense of stability and the interactive play between the stone and daiza's curves can be striking. 7) The depth criterion for the stone in the daiza is in part determined by the need for the stone to be secure and stable; there must be no chance of the stone's falling over, once the daiza is completed.

6) Grinding the Daiza
The stone needs to set as well as can be consciously calculated at this point, because the daiza profile ought to be cut to the set stone rather than vice-versa. Obviously, even when the daiza is complete, it is crucial to go back to be certain that the stone sits "perfectly" on its daiza. I am reminded of the stone currently photographed in the tokonoma in my Japanese room; after the daiza was finished I had a difficult time getting the attitude of the stone adjusted correctly—the criterion was the left edge of the stone—that edge needed to be at a 90 degree angle to the plane of the floor, which meant moving the right side of the stone down further into the daiza. The other factor was that the suiseki continued to improve as the right edge of the stone came closer to approaching the daiza on the right side. ("Interior Photos" #2)

Since one is removing very little wood with only a small amount of dust while setting the stone, wearing mask and goggles is not essential; however, from the point of beginning to grind the profile, until the completion of the power sanding, it is essential to wear both. Cutting the profile of the daiza is fairly straight forward; however, there are a few creative decisions to be made. As a general rule, the wood directly adjacent to the stone remains at full depth; the daiza drops off precipitously from the stone and then tapers to virtually nothing at the outer edge; thus, the profile approaches being horizontal. The main point here is that there is a great deal of wood to be extracted from the dai blank before one begins sanding; and then still a great deal before beginning hand-sanding.

All of my basic grinding is done with the Foredom grinder using a wand and a foot-controlled power pedal. The only grinding bit that I use is a diamond tear-drop bit, about 1" long. This is the single tool without which I simply could not make suiseki daiza. While I began using the largest Dremel that I could find, I soon realized that it was simply insufficient for what I needed to do. Once the basic grinding is completed, I use the 11/2 x 2 "diameter, barrel sander, with course grade paper. At this point in the process, I am still eliminating wood in what would be considered a "structural" manner. When appropriate, I move directly from this course sanding with the Foredom to sanding by hand.

During the process of setting the stone, the stone must be placed on the daiza-blank every 30 seconds or so; however, once the profile grinding and sanding begin, one need look at the stone on the daiza only rarely, i.e., whenever it might make a difference. As the grinding and sanding get further along, the primary reason to place the stone in the daiza is for the sheer enjoyment of the visual improvement—to see how much better it looks than it did the last time. An important lesson to learn in all of this is that there are few problems which arise that cannot be solved by some adjustments or modifications. The other side of this is that, whenever a problem appears, it is always better to fix it sooner rather than later, because it will not go away.

The outer edge of the daiza needs continuous tending; at this point only the basic outline need be of concern. The idea is that, as one grinds and sands, the edge becomes ever more refined at each step. Thus, the degree of finish on the edge is directly proportionate to the extent of the overall finish. While this basic idea holds for the bottom of the daiza as well, its application to the bottom is much less rigorous. The rule applying to the finish of the bottom is that , while is should be reasonably smooth, it is appropriate for the router marks to remain visible on the bottom. I am reminded that every daiza has three levels of finish: 1) the exposed daiza wood, which must be completely finished; 2) the daiza wood under the stone, which can be moderately finished; and 3) the bottom of the daiza, which tolerates the visibility of the original routing tool.

7) Sanding
Given the fact that the first sanding with the large drum wheel on the Foredom is structural, one need not be overly concerned that insufficient grinding has been done before one starts this sanding. As was the case with the grinding, this Foredom drum-sanding can remove a great deal of wood. As a matter of fact, this is the criterion for the power-sanding stage - is the profile structure of the daiza satisfactory? This initial power sanding should include brief attention to the edge and the bottom of the daiza.

The hand sanding constitutes at least half the total time and energy expended upon the daiza. I am reminded of what a old-time local carpenter told my brother and me when we had just completed drywalling the house that we designed and build in upstate New York; he said that we should be happy because we were half finished with the house. We thought that he was crazy in that we were far further along than that. As a matter of fact, he was crazy because we were not even that far along.

The grits of the sandpaper in descending order of coarseness are: 60, 80, 120, 150 and 220. A useful criterion here is—be certain that all evidence of the preceding sanding is removed; or put slightly differently—remove all chatter marks present from the previous step of the process. This criterion is operative even after the daiza begins being oiled, because nothing reveals imperfections more than oiling does. Another criterion might be—is this the best that can be accomplished with this grit sandpaper?

I must say a word regarding the sanding—this is indeed the core and essence of daiza construction, and maybe even more important, the entire endeavor of suiseki. (see Rubbing the Suiseki Stone) Without delving into the existential here, suffice it to say that this is what and why one does suiseki. I cannot imagine anyone making suiseki daiza if s/he did not at least understand and appreciate the phenomenon of "sanding a small block of wood." This is really what it is all about. If there is no psychic benefit in the sanding, then there is really very little here at all.

8) Finishing
I have two small containers for oil: 1) mineral oil for the stones, and 2) pure tung oil to finish the daiza. After the hand sanding is completed, I begin applying tung oil to the wood; rubbing the oil on with my fingers. After 10-12 hours remove all excess, and apply again; two coats a day for about two weeks, or as long as it takes (could be up to25-30 coats). Once the wood has begun to be saturated, rub the daiza with 0000 steel wool before reapplying. The wood always must be kept completely clean of oil residue. When the wood no longer absorbs any oil, the process is complete.

Apply mineral oil to the stone sparingly; leave no excess on the stone. Reapply when the stone looks dry and chalky. Don't oil stones within a week of their being shown. (see Rubbing Stones)

It approaches irony that this humble block of wood, made to support the suiseki stone, in fact is the very phenomenon that transforms the humble stone into a potential work of art. At the core of this creative process is the technique itself in virtue of which this transpires. I hope that my sharing the thoughts above will provide some insight into how this occurs for me.

April 17, 2008