Richard Mahaffey on mon 2 apr 01
Hi all,
Well you can work with the lacquer over the material that is doing the
mending, but I don't wish to put up with the skin rash that is the bane
of all first year apprentices in an urushi (Japanese lacquer) workshop.
It apparently goes away after about a year. a friend repaired a piece
of mine that I wanted for my MFA show some 29 years ago. When she
returned it to me I was stunned. It was repaired with gold and lacquer,
or so I thought.
She used a mixture of epoxy and bronze powder. You can buy bronze
powder in varying shades of gold and grain size. Mix some with your
epoxy and repair. Be cautious cause the powder makes the epoxy set up
slower and therefore runny. you can try a bit more catalyst, but I do
not know what effect this will have on the strength.
A friend in Japan gave me a pot that he repaired and he wanted to know
if I knew how he repaired it (looked like gold and urushi) i said epoxy
and bronze powder. He smiled and said "Yes, that's right".
So give it a try.
YMMV (your mileage may vary)
Rick Mahaffey
Tacoma Community College
Tacoma, Washington, USA
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