How to Ruin armor in 900 days..... the nuances of professional, traditional, and improper restoration or armor.

[Miura]

Some people promote themselves  as being a professional restorers who practiced traditional methodology in the restoration of Armor.  In one case, the more I found out, the more that epoxy and other non-natural-traditional-Japanese-cheap materials came into the picture.  When I said, "thats not urushi, and it looks terrible", the answer was "They'll never know" or "they dont care".    One thing that we have to keep in mind is that Japan was never successfully invaded over 2000 years or more.  Why is this significant?  Because intangible culture by and large was able to evolve and survive with a continual line. Other parts of the world suffered war, uprisings, trauma, and political overhaul which result in the archeological and historical record being the only source for tangible and implied intangible culture.  The point being that over 2000 years of using certain techniques such as urushi, there is probably a lot of uninterrupted trial and error that took place to come up with good techniques, and materials that were successful, beautiful and long lasting... so why undo all that it took to get to that level now?  Ignorance and greed.   Lets try to adjudicate that. in this thread.

Id like to introduce some work that was done in a "shortcut" fashion by what the Japanese might call a "kowashiyasan"  or "trasher". 

First the Lacing: 

What most people dont know is that traditional armor lacing by the nature of the weave has a front, and a back. This is important for many reasons. 1. it allows for consistency in orientation during lacing, 2. for facility of passing through the hole of the armor, 3. a nice straight shoulder to form where it protrudes fro the hole.

 

 

 

 

 

Front and back of a typical Japanese woven lace. Notice the curvature on the lacing in the photo on the left.

 

Without the front and back of lacing, when protruding from a hole, the "shoulders" of the lacing will appear to sag.  This is an eyesore to people who want a real, traditional restoration.

 

 

 

This is what happens with lacing that is produced on a shoelace string machine rather than a traditional Japanese lacing weave. The "shoulders"  sag, the lacing hangs down and appears flacid and out of proportion.  Proper lacing will produce much nicer results and prevent twisting such as you see here:

 

 

 

 

This particular helmet restoration is a very odd case.  It was "restored" once by a Japanese studio with body filler, fake urushi, and proper lacing yet poorly done. The owner wanted it properly restored, so it was restored again by a different "expert" who removed the body filler, fake urushi, etc, and  "restored" it again. This time with the shoelaces.... and yet again with fake urushi.   Why is this done?    well, urushi once opened does have a life span. Actually it lasts forever as long as newer urushi with active enzymes is introduced.  Or it never hardens. Urushi is also very expensive.  So if you dont use it frequently, it can go to waste.  Finally, it will cause you to itch like crazy unless you build up an immunity.  In my case it took me two years before I was immune. Even with immunity, if you get it on your skin and leave it on there for a given amount of time, it will cause sever inflammation. This is what people fear the most. However, urushi is extremely strong and long lasting.  Which is why I only work in real urushi.   One reason that you do not want to use a fake urushi or cashew urushi with real urushi is that they dont mix and its only a few years before they separate. Among artisans, urushi is said to be "living" because it expands and contracts with the changing seasons. Non-urushi products do not, and therefore it is only a matter of time before they separate. So dont restore urushi with non-urushi products. In the case of this helmet, the owner was told urushi would be used, but it is not the case.

 

 

 

Generally a Shitaji (under coating) is used to prepare the surface for urushi to flow on top of.  In this case, thick oil based fake urushi was applied directly to the metal. As it does not flex, when the shikoro was applied, you can see where it chipped on the top.

 

 

 

 

 

the red bleeding over the top of the shikoro is because it was not properly masked.  In this case, the red lacquer should only be viewed from one side of the helmet. Not from the top. or the back of the helmet.

 

Appropriate Kanamono (soft metal fittings)

 

 

Here we see a very nice kanamono. I should know - I made the original and it was silver, not brass.  I know not how my work came to the hands of the Trasher who did this "restoration", however, I know my work. Unfortunately, the restorer has made a fake brass copy of it and used that to attach the shikoro. Kanamono proper to a kabuto are very important in making it look right. Any helmet that has fake kanamono, fake urushi, and shoe-lacing stands out like a sore thumb to a professional. I assume that some people are ok with this though.  I accept this. My point in posting such threads is so people will at least have a little bit of an idea about what they are really hoping to get if they hire a restorer.

 

Hopefully other people can add to this thread. Or at least glean something informative from this short post.

 

 

[chris covington]

Why 900 days? I feel like that is a mighty specific number?!

[Miura]

Oh sorry! Im sure it didnt take 900 days to actually do the work, but it took around 3 years for the owner to get his helmet back!  

[Arthur G]

Dear god... I mean I'm slow as can be with my projects.... but 900 days for that!?!?!

I mean if he was using the urushi cure-time excuse that I myself am so fond of (Sorry Chris ) then yeah maybe but.... how did this take 3 years?

[Miura]

18 hours ago, Arthur G said:

Dear god... I mean I'm slow as can be with my projects.... but 900 days for that!?!?!

I mean if he was using the urushi cure-time excuse that I myself am so fond of (Sorry Chris ) then yeah maybe but.... how did this take 3 years?

Yes... the urushi cure time excuse. 😂

A muro can make a big difference.