materials used in kintsugi
Kintsugi materials, mawata Mawata is a silk based, cotton type material. Regular cotton doesn’t have the natural oils that are necessary to keep from sticking to the metal. You use it to either apply metal to the lacquer or to slightly buff out metal that is already applied to the piece.
Jozuri is a top layer lacquer. The one I sell is a Japanese made lacquer. Some places sell Chinese made zuri and it has about 1/3 to 1/4 of the urushiol that Japanese made does.
You don’t use jozuri unless you are using graded metals. It is used for filling in the metal so it can be polished.
Middle 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. Middle lacquer is not as hard as top lacquer.
Red lacquer is used in kintsugi for a substrate for metal. It is a good quality lacquer that can be polished out to a high sheen and is harder than middle lacquers.
Aluminium is also used in kintsugi. The grind of what I have is fine and since aluminium is so light it almost immediately becomes airborne when the package is opened.
The coarsest metal you can get ‘over the counter’ is #15. You can feel the grains with your fingers. It offers a visually textured finish although the surface of the polished metal is smooth. It is also very durable as the polished layer is so thick.
Number 10 silver and gold are very rough and need a lot of filling in of the grains in order to be able to polish them to a smooth surface. As the graded metal numbers get larger the grains of metal get larger and the finished polish shows more visual texture. The texture comes from the lacquer that fills in between the grains of metal. The larger grains also provide a thicker layer of metal that is a lot more durable.
Number 5 grind is about the coarsest that is usually used in kintsugi. #5 is also the point where you need to switch to a thicker hardening lacquer. You can’t really use regular, high quality lacquer as it is too thin. Using coarser metal than #5 is done sometimes. You will notice if you compare the magnified images of keshifun, #3, and #5 that the grains are getting bigger and the areas between the grains is turning more reddish since they are being filled with lacquer.
The photos show a reddish tint to the gold which is caused by the lacquer.
