lacquer on saya damaged

[Jock]

Hi Folks,

 

I have a Wak and the lacquer on the saya has some big open areas... any links were I can read how to fix that?

 

Thanks heaps!

 

 

Jock

[Henry Wilson]

It might be best to send it to a professional. From my experience lacquer is tricky to work with and can be toxic as well. If you feel it is worth restoring, then a pro would be the best bet.

[b.hennick]

Generally I just live with it. In order to prevent further deterioration I have in the past added a water soluble white glue. The glue dries clear and prevents further chipping. It can easily be removed when necessary. The restoration of lacquer is difficult unless you want it sprayed with a can of car paint.

[Shinigami117S]

get really good lacquer like cashew paint. Sand the saya smooth then put stage (primer) on it. smooth the stage then spray on lacquer with an air brush. i recommend spray painting because the coat is even and can be buffed out quickly and easily. brushing it on is a huge pain. It wastes alot of paint because you have to brush on layers of paint then buff then do it over and over. Do Not Use Rattle Can Paint! It really Sucks!

[John A Stuart]

Cashew is soft and easily damaged. I wouldn't put it over an urushi nuri. If you want something done right send it to a good sayashi. eg., John Tirado, there are others see links. http://www.sayashi.com John

[Ted Tenold]

get really good lacquer like cashew paint. Sand the saya smooth then put stage (primer) on it. smooth the stage then spray on lacquer with an air brush. i recommend spray painting because the coat is even and can be buffed out quickly and easily. brushing it on is a huge pain. It wastes alot of paint because you have to brush on layers of paint then buff then do it over and over. Do Not Use Rattle Can Paint! It really Sucks!

 

DIY (do-it-yourself) advice can be dangerous and not really what we condone here for complicated processes. There is not enough known about the piece in question to determine the approach that should be taken. Leave lacquer answers to lacquer pros such as John has suggested.

 

Please sign your posts per forum rules.

[Henry Wilson]

I completely agree with Ted. Spray paint????? Come on!!!!

[sanjuro]

I once lacquered a whole saya for myself way back when I didnt know better. I learned a lesson from that experience. Two lessons actually. Firstly that cashew paint or any other proprietary DIY stuff is rubbish compared to the real thing and though it may look OK, it really isnt and it isnt lacquer in real terms either. Secondly that to fix up the saya properly and have it relacquered by someone who knows what he is doing is far more expensive when he has to remove the crap that some well meaning idiot (In this case myself) has put on there.

Its better by a thousand percent to have it done properly than to excercise your democratic right to indulge in false economy and the mistaken belief that you can do it yourself, thereby screwing up an otherwise perfectly good saya. You will never be satisfied with the result because it will aways be at best a band-aid and not a repair.

 

Just my two cents worth

[Guido]

DIY aside for a moment: Cashew, applied by a professional, can be a great finish that looks as good - and sometimes even better - than "real" Urushi. Attached are a few close-up shots of Sayanuri of some of my swords (sorry for the glare in some of them): I dare you to tell the difference!

[Guido]

And some more:

[Ford Hallam]

I would have to second what Guido said regarding Cashew urushi. Properly applied and finished I would defy even the most experienced collectors to tell it apart from regular urushi. It dries to exactly the same hardness and is capable of taking precisely the same sorts of finish. Like most things...it's how you use it that makes all the difference. Most amateurs tend to apply it far too thickly and use it like paint.

 

Having said that I would have to agree with Keith's point...if you aren't a professional artisan with a reasonable amount of experience and skill then DON'T!

[Bazza]

A long time ago I sent a tanto saya to Japan for lacquer repair. It was a "centipede" style with"waves" about two inches (~5cm) long. There was a patch of damaged lacquer about the size of one's little fingernail. The lacquer was brown with some slightly raised pattern. When it came back from Japan the repair was to me a disaster. Not only was the damaged section not to be seen, but an area some 3 inches overall (~7.5cm) was smeared all-over with some "bog" that bore no resemblance in style or colour with the original lacquer. It was the most insensitive, philistinic repair I could have imagined. I was gobsmacked and truly felt I could have done a more sympathetic job myself. On reflection, it would have been better left alone. The first point I want to make is that mentioned in a post above - a repair always looks like - A REPAIR... I have never repeated this mistake.

 

The second point I want to make (also made above) is that repairing lacquer is the most difficult thing you can imagine. It is not "paint" like oil paint, nor like repairing auto lacquer. For good quality Japanese lacquer (urushi) the process is EXTREMELY COMPLICATED, TIME CONSUMING and TEDIOUS if it is to be successful. This is NOT something to be done by a first time amateur. Indeed, a poor repair can reduce the value of an antique scabbard originally made with high quality lacquer as it sticks out like a sore thumb. I think even the cashew lacquer work that Guido and Ford talk about would take a considerable time to develop the skill required for the results Guido posted (lovely work, agreed).

 

I believe that in Japan to become a lacquer artisan takes even longer than apprenticeships in sword forging or polishing. This should give a better idea of the magnitude of the undertaking. Jock, if you are determined to have your lacquer repaired could I suggest you have an experienced person to look at it first and see if it is at all worth repairing in the first place. Much lacquer on sword scabbards is shoddy and poor quality and one may be better completely re-doing the saya. I hasten to say take caution here and tread lightly, for lacquer is a "high art" - you wouldn't take an Old Master painting to a house painter to restore. That is an analogy true to the specialist nature of lacquer. A person to approach for this in the USA is Dr Thomas L. Buck - his website in general is an excellent read - http://www.tsukamaki.net/

 

I have loved lacquer for 40 years and have always wanted to "do" it. Now retired, I'm approaching this with caution. For anyone wanting to "bone up" on lacquer the urushi section of Ford Hallam's 'followtheironbrush' forum is a good start - http://www.followingtheironbrush.org/vi ... 8f639639a5. The next would be to buy the book "Urushi" from Gunther Heckmann of NIHON ART PUBLISHERS - http://www.nihonart.de/en/index.php for the website and http://www.nihonart.de/en/produkte_seturushi.php for the book itself. It is very, very comprehensive and a tribute to Gunther Heckmann's years of study under a Master in Japan and his own skills at lacquer conservation. I have only just begun to read my copy.

 

Finally, in this long-winded treatise, just trawl google with keywords 'urushi' ; 'Japanese lacquer' and as many urushi related keywords you can think of.

 

Best regards,

Barry Thomas.

[Ford Hallam]

a repair always looks like - A REPAIR...

 

I feel this statement needs to be qualified somewhat ...if it looks like a repair then it may merely have been done by an inept artisan...if it was done by a suitably skilled artisan, on the other hand, you wouldn't necessarily notice a repair...it may actually be invisible to you as such.

 

I've seen enough top class urushi restoration to know this to be true. Much of it by Mr Tomizo Saratani, Gunter Heckmann's own teacher.

 

regards,

 

ford

[John A Stuart]

I have a couple of saya that have cashew. One I use almost daily. The surface shows wear. Although it has a wonderful finish it couldn't take this day to day use. Ford, you find it as hard as urushi? Maybe mine needed a better quality of cashew. If I had a choice I would always use urushi. Guido's examples are truly great and fine for display saya. John

[sanjuro]

Guido

 

Those are truly amazing cashew paint jobs. I dont mean that in an unkindly way at all... they look first class. Urushi ... good urushi is however an extremely hard wearing finish, something that cashew is not. For display purposes cashew can fool, and I do mean fool, even the most discerning eye. But real nihonto never had Cashew paint jobs. They had urushi. Only urushi is therefore correct. Sorry to be a stickler, but regardless of how good it is, cashew is not an original finish on saya and in my view it is not therefore an appropriate replacement or repair medium.

[raven2]

To say that the urushi process is complicated is an understatement. here is a link to the basic process (only 50 steps). :D http://www.urushi-kobo.com/process.html

[Ford Hallam]

John,

 

if a cashew finish is properly applied over a correctly prepared ground then it should not show any marks when you try to indent it with a thumbnail.

 

I tend to use natural urushi (mainly because it's more fluid and is capable of finer applications) but I have experimented with cashew and in most respects it works very much the same. Bear in mind though that the only difference I made was to substitute cashew for urushi, I still applied all the usual ground work etc. This is, I suspect, not done when cashew is used as a cheap alternative. This is understandable but doesn't really give a very accurate impression of the usefulness of Cashew. It's not entirely synthetic either, it's derived from an oil extracted from the shells of Cashew nuts and is made up of urushiol, the key component (after water) of true urushi.

 

As for

Urushi ... good urushi is however an extremely hard wearing finish,

I think this is only partially correct. Urushi is certainly hard...but hard wearing? A quick examination of old lacquer will reveal a great deal of wear, not to mention cracking, chipping and denting.

[Stephen]

to all who use cashew, please expose the danger of it and other lacqures, less a new newbie wants to try it out and comes back and says....hey them guys told me to do it.

[John A Stuart]

Thanks Ford. maybe I only notice the wear on the saya because they are in use, as the others are coddled. John

[Bazza]

a repair always looks like - A REPAIR...

 

I feel this statement needs to be qualified somewhat ...if it looks like a repair then it may merely have been done by an inept artisan...if it was done by a suitably skilled artisan, on the other hand, you wouldn't necessarily notice a repair...it may actually be invisible to you as such.

 

I've seen enough top class urushi restoration to know this to be true. Much of it by Mr Tomizo Saratani, Gunter Heckmann's own teacher.

 

regards,

 

ford

Ford,

 

Yes indeed, I meant to say AMATEUR repair. Thanks for the correction.

 

Regards

Barry Thomas.

[Ford Hallam]

Barry,

 

no worries

 

regards,

 

ford

 

btw; we hope to have some significant additions to the urushi section of the ironbrush next year. I'll keep you posted.

[Shinigami117S]

cashew is soft? it seems pretty hard to me. I spray the cashew on and it turns out perfect!

 

both sword and stand have cashew paint.

[Kevin]

a repair always looks like - A REPAIR...

 

I feel this statement needs to be qualified somewhat ...if it looks like a repair then it may merely have been done by an inept artisan...if it was done by a suitably skilled artisan, on the other hand, you wouldn't necessarily notice a repair...it may actually be invisible to you as such.

 

Completely agree. We use the services of a guy who trained in Japan. I've sent him saya with chipped, battered and peeling urushi for restoration. You couldn't tell that they've been repaired when they come back.

 

If cashew is still soft then too much has been applied and there's still some thinners in it. It will dry very slowly if there's any thickness. However, even thick layers will dry very hard, given time.

 

Kevin

[Kevin]

I know this thread has been dead for a while, but it appeared the appropriate one for a follow on.

 

According to a conversation that I had with our suppliers today, new regs brought in this month means that cashew lacquer and thinners can no longer be shipped by either sea or air from Japan. Apparently it is something to do with security and the fear of terrorism. My own thoughts on this are along the lines of "bloody stupidity!" only less polite

 

I'm currently having a chat with a company with regards to sourcing cashew lacquer from them. The thinners is no problem - we've already sorted that.

 

Kevin

[johnb]

It really depends on the finish. If it's high gloss then probably best to re finish entirely (Urushi of course) textured or patterned finish, I'd go for the wood glue. I have a lovely saya old with gloss black mon showing through a brushed textured finish. It had been damaged here and there and the chips were getting bigger as brittle edges often broke off. The wood glue worked a treat. However, I would recommend diluting it prior to carefully squeezing it into the broken areas with your finger. Oh, be sure to clean thoroughly with a damp cloth.