#4: New stuff

I found some good tutorials for hon Kintsugi on YouTube this week and thought I'd give them a go because my traditional repair ingredients arrived. I'd picked up some cracked crockery from charity shops this week that were perfect as the first technique was spotting raw urushi along the length of a crack to let it wick into it and seal it. It worked well which I was chuffed about but I'm curious if it would've been more effective if I'd heated the pieces to improve flow and expand the gaps slightly. Brushing the cracks down with turps might also draw the urushi further in through capillary action. At least I think that's the term!

I taped along the crack so that I could quickly identify the start and finish of each one and dotted the urushi along it.

Here you can see that the urushi has been drawn through the crack to the other side.

I also intentionally/unintentionally got raw urushi on my hand in the process. I knew it'd inevitably happen but was being careful but not careful enough really. I've never had a reaction to the red bengara urushi but raw urushi can give you a mild allergic rash as it's from the same family as poison ivy and oak. 90% of people don't suffer any subsequent reactions though so I'm seeing this as a right of passage! A couple of days later you can clearly see where I got it even though I wiped it off. It’s no more itchy than the mild eczema I get though so no cause for concern just now!

I'm expecting a commission in the post this week which will be finished with gold which will be nice. I'll be posting updates on the repair as they progress here!