I did the same for my first handmade 9x9 board.
Finding 40+40 small stones with a quite regular shape wasn’t too difficult.
But they aren’t very good for playing since irregularities let them move around more than expected.
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If you have access to a kiln (check out your local arts programming!!!) you could fire these and make them far more durable. Using different clay bodies could be very cool too, as you wouldn’t need to glaze them - they’d just be naturally different colors.
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O yes sure, there should be more to explore on this and I imagine some really pretty stones done like that.
I mostly wanted to point out that it’s easy quick (and cheap) to mold your stones with your palms. In some places you can pick clay for free.
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Haha, yeah, like 12 inches below the mud in my backyard! Time for me to get digging!
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Reforming stone dust into different shapes us common. It’s called cast concrete. One can get sand in a variety of colors.
One could also cast in resin, but that might not be heavy enough unless one added weight, line they do for the plastic Ing stones.
A mold could be made from silicone.
You can probably find many relevant “how to” videos on YouTube.
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I went in my cave, digging for my old work.
Here are my first almost finished wooden stones.
Next step would have been to stain them white and dark brown so that grain was still visible and finish them with some wax or oil or varnish or so…
Here are other blanks that will never be worked.
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If you ever get a chance, that’d be such a cool looking set to finish 
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Polished black stones look weird, but they are beautiful nonetheless. 
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Nice! Now that looks doable as a DIY project 
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I wonder if epoxy is heavy enough in my own feeling
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That was my concern for the epoxy stones as well - I expect they’d have the same weighted feel as plastic stones.
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I also think about making homemade stones, I even made almost all 361 plaster stones but I haven’t painted or varnished yet, and now that I’m thinking of giving up making plaster stones because even with paint and varnish it remains plaster so they will wear out easily. If you want, I’ll explain how I made the stones.
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now i wonder, if i copy the process of the shell stones from the video at the beginning of the discussion but instead of shell, do i do it with slices of broom handle? Then I just cut the broomstick into strips and scrape them off and make wooden stones
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Broomstick is good idea, the problem is shaping which can take a very long time to do one by one.
A stone shape is not compulsory, but rounding the edge a bit still helps a lot to pick them up.
Last thing about DIY stones, think twice if your motivation is to spare money as 361 stones is a big amount and will always cost something. If you take some nice heavy wood sticks (and good quality painting), it may cost you more as a glass set…
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And if you factor in “time is money”, then buying glass stones may be a preferable option. Indeed, I caved and last night bought my first full size set of Go stones (in glass). I’m pretty excited! 
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Hope you find asap a few players to inaugurate these. Congrats.
Thanks. I have friends a my local Go club who are itching to play IRL again (it has been over a year for us now) and lockdown is easing in my country (UK) so we can technically play outside now - just need to find some time on a day with good weather 
Plus, with such a nice set arriving, I may even be able to persuade my wife and or eldest son (7) to play (sadly, they usually aren’t interested 
)
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That might work. Since I got shell and slate stones my daughters refuse to play Go with anything else now…
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I’ve got a couple of packages of these (stone substitutes). Visit the store in person and you’ll find a plethora of sizes and colors. Since my board was “white” i went with black and silver. Allow a few minutes to “close” them all up and you’re in business. They work fine for my “self study”. So far, I only play games with others online. A newbe could have a Go set “up and running” in a few hours.
https://www.joann.com/hildie-jo-findings-jump-ring-metal-5-6-8mm-shiny-silver/14152052.html
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