I have been slowly working at learning lacquer repair. For a more detailed explanation on tonoko, the clay powder I use in the video, please see http://nanbanceramics.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/86/ The following 4 videos show how to fill large holes. 2 of them are long and the other 2 short. The round vase had a very large hole that I filled with a mixture of tonoko and lacquer. To support the application of the lacquer and to help shape it I used an inflatable ball in the vase.
The round vase turned out to have some kind of strange crack on the interior that is making it very difficult to make it water proof. When I test it by putting water in it the water seems to find some sub-surface channels to flow through and it is still leaking so I don’t know if I will pursue that vase further.
The blue and white pieces are from the Edo period, one is a Nanking piece. The most important part of the process is the sanding of the repair/fill material after it has hardened. That is a difficult process and takes a lot of time but it is the determiner in a nice repair. The application of the gold material is done after thinning lacquer. One point to remember is to not thin it too much. Too thin and the lacquer mixture will run. If it runs when you apply the gold the gold will stick to the runs and you will have a mess.
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- Hole in vase.
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- Crack in vase.
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- The ball is inflated and I have wax paper between it and the vase.
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- Rim crack in round vase.
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- Tokoko clay.
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- Repaired rim crack. I haven’t applied gold to the repair yet.
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- Repaired crack. There was some shrinkage in the lacquer/tonoko mixture. I should re-apply the mixture and redo the gold.
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- This is the round vase with the major hole repaired, before gold application. The material you see is an epoxy/tonoko mix.
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- Rim chip, after.
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- Rim chip, before.
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- Rim chip, after.
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- Foot chip, after.
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- Foot chip, before.
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- RIm with many chips.
