technic

[Jean]

What was the method used in Edo or Koto by Kinko masters to plate/coat some Tosugu/kodogu.

 

Were they using amalgame with mercury?

[jason_mazzy]

  Jean said:

What was the method used in Edo or Koto by Kinko masters to plate/coat some Tosugu/kodogu.

 

Were they using amalgame with mercury?

 

 

While we wait for Ford to post, I will venture to say mercury reduction. That has been in use for a long time, and i very badly woulds like to try it. It's the whole neuro psycological damage/death that worries me.

[Lorenzo]

Don't forget nunome for ferrous pieces

[Jean]

Perhaps HAKUTOKIN : 白湯金?

[nagamaki - Franco]

  Quote

Keshikomi zôgan – 消込象嵌 – A technique where, after the design is carved into the surface, powdered gold, silver or another selected metal having been made into an amalgam by combining with mercury is forced into the incised pattern in the ground. This is then heated which evaoporates the mercury, depositing the coloured metal on the ground.

http://kodogunosekai.com/kodogu-glossary/

[Jean]

Hi Franco,

 

This is Zogan, and not coating. I think that the technical term is HAKUTOKIN : 白湯金, but I would like a confirmation

[docliss]

I agree with Jason that most of the gilding on Edo Kinkō work is achieved by the reduction of a mercury/gold amalgam by the application of heat. This process, known as ‘fire–gilding’, was outlawed in England by the end of the 18th century because of the extremely poisonous nature of the mercury vapour it releases. It was discovered in China during the Warring States period (480 - 221 BC) and was widely used in Japan in the Heian period (749 – 1185 AD), where it was known as yakitsuke. Cold mercury leaf gilding, achieved by the adhesion of gold leaf to a surface previously treated by the application of mercury, is an alternative method of gilding which does not necessitate the use of heat.

 

Hawley, in his publication The Application of Gold on Japanese Sword Fittings, states that the surface has to be a soft-metal or alloy and that this process will not work on iron; that the higher the percentage of copper in the base metal the better the gold adheres; and that when the amalgam is applied directly onto iron ‘it runs off like water on waxed paper’. Nevertheless, a modification of this gilding process does enable its use on iron artefacts. Anheuser affirms in An Investigation of Amalgam Gilding and Silvering on Metalwork how, by electron microprobe studies of 16th century, gilded plate armour, he was able to detect the presence of a layer of copper between the iron and steel artefacts and the applied gold. He also describes how such a layer may be fairly simply achieved.

 

Further studies might detect the presence of copper underlying the gold on iron tsuba and indicate the use of such modified gold/amalgam gilding. This would be of particular relevance to the decoration found on many tsuba of the Namban group.

 

John L.

[Pete Klein]

This is from 'Tosogu no Kigan' by Sasano and might help: