Marudai

'round stand') is the most common of the traditional frames used for making kumihimo, a type of Japanese braid.

[1] The marudai is generally made of a close-grained wood and consists of a round disk (kagami or "mirror")[1] with a hole in the center, supported by four legs set in a base.

The warp threads that form the braid are wound around weighted bobbins called tama (lit. 'egg').

The weight of the tama maintains even tension on the warp threads, and is balanced by a bag of counterweights called omori[1] that is attached to the base of the braid.

Modern braiders often replace the marudai with a foam disk with numbered slots that tightly grip the warp threads to maintain warp tension, so that weighted bobbins are not needed; instead, flexible plastic bobbins are used to prevent tangling of the threads.