Kintsugi materials, Ishiko
Ishiko is a type of powdered stone that is mixed with oil to polish graded, marufun metals but not fine, keshifun type powdered metals. It is rougher and cheaper than the other polishing powder, roiromigakiko but won’t give you as fine a polish as roiromigakiko. Ishiko is the 5th. step in the polishing process.
Red lacquer comes in many qualities and is a refined lacquer used as a binding lacquer for metal. The red I sell is triple ball milled.
Red lacquer is a high quality lacquer that can be polished out to a high sheen and dries to a harder, more durable surface than middle lacquers.
Kintsugi materials, mawata Mawata is a silk based, cotton type material. Regular cotton doesn’t have the natural oils that are necessary to keep it from sticking to the metal. You use it to either apply and spread metal on the lacquer or to slightly buff out metal that is already applied to the piece. A single piece should last a long time. If you make a mistake and get wet lacquer on it then it won’t be usable.
There are several steps in kintsugi where you need to either sand down or polish parts of the piece.
The initial use of sanding is after you have either stuck the pieces back together or done any kind of work wherein you have to smooth the seam. You can use either sand paper or specialized whetstone type materials. Sand paper is cheaper for the initial stages but as you fine tune your seams it is easier and more precise to use soft whetstones.
Soft whetstones come in the following meshes, #400 #600 #800 #1000 #1500 #2000 and #3000
There is almost no difference between the different meshes as far as appearance goes so I will just put this one photo up. If you have them you have to write on them the mesh as you won’t be able to tell them apart.
I use the meshes #400-#600-#800 to do only the roughest work on the seams. I never use these meshes on graded metals as they are too rough and will destroy the metal. If you use any of the soft whetstones on unglazed ceramic or directly on rough sabi you will wear them right out and have very little effect. You should use the rougher meshes to smooth out sabi but don’t expect them to last if the surface is very hard and rough.
I use the meshes #1000-#1500 to do the initial polishing of graded metals. Use #1000 delicately since it can rip the metal off the lacquer. The #1500 will shine graded metal to your final state. After that you need to use #2000-#3000 to polish away the scratches from the #1500 and get to almost your final shine.
Note that polishing metal is only for graded metal, not for fine powder. If you polish fine metal it will come off and you will ruin it.
There are many types of metal that are used in kintsugi. This post will talk about the most common grind used which is a fine powder and is called keshifun in Japanese.
This is what is mostly seen in pieces that are done using kintsugi techniques. Keshifun doesn’t need to be polished but it will take a burnishing if you want to. It is more durable if it is polished but that also makes it shinier. I prefer it matte so I usually don’t polish it. It also doesn’t need an overcoat of lacquer. If you apply one it will dampen the shine somewhat. Keshifun is a flat grind. The particles are flat, not round.
There are several types of flat grind gold and silver. Hirame is rounded metal flattened out into a round shape, it comes in grades of #1 to #13 size. Also there is nashiji which is hirame thinned out in to oval, strip shapes, it comes in grades of #1 to #10.
Black lacquer is used over both sabi, (jinoko or tonoko/lacquer mix) and mugiurushi, (flour/lacquer mix) as a layer to give you a smooth finish. Without a middle layer of lacquer it is very difficult to get a smooth enough finish to successfully apply a top layer of lacquer and then metal. Applying a layer of black also hardens up the sabi which is a much nicer surface to sand and shape compared to an uncoated, ‘naked’ layer of sabi. Sabi has a rough surface until it is coated. It is made from jinoko which is a non-plastic type clay so there will always be some grit till it is coated. If you use tonoko to make your sabi it will still have some grit although less than jinoko. There are many types oflacquer, top, middle, and what I call bottom. Middle is not as hard as top lacquer. The lacquer I link to above is a top layer which is a better quality than a middle black.
Jinoko and tonoko are 2 types of powdered, clay type materials used in kintsugi.
Jinoko is a powder and is a rougher grain. Tonoko is a mass and is a finer grain.
Tonoko has to be smashed to be used. The material itself is a finer mesh than jinoko although it looks like it is rougher since it comes in rock-like masses.
You use tonoko for making a mix called abura tonoko which is used for polishing graded metals. Graded metals are the rougher grades that start at #1 and go to #15. You can’t use tonoko for polishing the fine gold powder called keshifun. You use jinoko for making a mix called sabi which is used to do restoration work. It is mixed with water first and then lacquer.
There are many ‘recipes’ for sabi. I don’t use set proportions to mix sabi but I have seen suggestions of 2/jinoko to 1/water to 1/lacquer.
You use more jinoko to make your sabi stiffer if you like. That is, if you are doing restoration work you can add more jinoko to the mix and it will be a stiffer mix. If you use tonoko for mixing sabi often it will shrink more and crack requiring an additional applications to fill those cracks.
Kiurushi, basic lacquer.
Basic lacquer has many names, one is kiurushi. It is about 60% urushiol, the active ingredient that is responsible for both the skin reaction some people experience and urushiol contains the enzymes that are active in the 25C-38C. optimum is about 25C-29C, temperature band along with at least 75% humidity to form a natural polymer. Lacquer is collected from 10 – 20 year old lacquer trees that are tapped once with part of the process involving cutting down the tree. That is to say, lacquer comes from a tree that is only good for 1 tapping and then cut down, yielding about 200 cc of liquid. Kiurushi is that liquid with the only processing being that it is stirred and slightly heated.
It is possible to only use kiurushi for all the steps of kintsugi excepting advanced metal work.
Below is the general description of basic lacquer.
There are several types of lacquer you use in kintsugi. Basic lacquer is called kiurushi. See here, https://www.kintugi.com/?product=hon-urushi-basic-lacquer-100-grams is used in most of the basic steps of kintsugi. For sticking pieces back together you mix it with flour or rice, to do fill work or to do restorations you use it and mix it with either jinoko or tonoko to make a mixture called sabi. If you are doing a repair such as fixing a blistered glaze you would use this lacquer too. I don’t use wood powder that often, it is called kokuso, but if you did you would mix it with kiurushi. It comes out of the tube a brown milky color and as it drys it turns black or a very dark brown. It can cause skin rashes but doesn’t seem to do so with everyone. I get rashes but most of the people I have had in workshops have never gotten a rash despite having direct contact with it. Like all real lacquers it requires a damp and warm environment to dry properly, it won’t usually cure in a normal environment.
kiurushi kintsugi after 1 day