How to repair small chipped area

How to repair small chipped area with silver Keshi-fun

Process        fill the chipped area、apply lacquer, sprinkle metal powder

​(Day1)

  1. Use masking tape to cover any area that might get dirty during the process.
  2. ut a piece of #400 sandpaper into a square around 1cm in size, fold it in 3 and polish the chipped area. Apply a layer of basic lacquer to the chipped area with a brush and gently press with a piece of tissue paper to remove extra lacquer.
  3. Make sabi(mixture of tonoko and basic lacquer)
  4. Apply sabi with a toothpick or spatula, the thickness of sabi to be applied each time is aprox. 1-2mm. Since sabi tend to shrink a little after it is dried, apply a little bit more than what is necessary. This process is called ‘sabi-tsuke’. If the chipped area is larger than 1-2mm, repeat the process after it is dried for a few times.

　＊Left over sabi can be kept in food wrap.

​（Day2）

  1. After letting the sabi dry for over 24 hours, remove extra sabi with a cutter or a carving knife. To check if the sabi is dried, slightly scratch it with your nails and if white marks are left that means it is dried. Remove masking tape for this process.
  2. Once you arranged the shape with a cutter, sand down the sabi with #800 sandpaper and water until the surface is smooth. This process is called ‘sabi-togi’ in Japanese.
  3. When the shape is neatly arranged, apply a layer of basic lacquer to the sabi with a brush and gently press with a piece of tissue paper to remove extra lacquer. This process is called ‘sabi-gatame’.

（Day3）

  1. When the basic lacquer is dry, gently polish the surface with water and #800 sand paper.
  2. Make tame-urushi。
  3. Apply tame-urushi with a brush and let dry in a urushi-buro.

*Let dry for at least 24 hours. (Depending on the temperature and humidity, drying time varies greatly.)

*Left over tame-urushi can be kept in food wrap.

（Day4）

  1. When the lacquer (tame-urushi) is dried, polish the lacquer surface with water and #1500 sand paper until the gloss disappears. However, in this stage it is common that the bottom layer of sabi could be exposed to the surface again. In this case, please repeat the process from step 10.
  2. Make bengara-urushi
  3. Apply bengara-urushi with a brush and let dry in the urushi-buro.

　　＊Left over bengara-urushi can be kept in food wrap.

(Day5)

  1. When the lacquer (bengara-urushi) is dried, polish the surface with water and #1500 sand paper.
  2. After nicely polished, let’s get ready to sprinkle Silver keshi powder. Apply tame-urushi uniformly in a very thin layer. If the lacquer layer is thick, the makie powder will sink into the lacquer. And if brush trace is left, it will be reflected on the finishing.
  3. After applying the thin layer of lacquer, let it sit for 5-30 min, when the surface of the lacquer begins to dry sprinkle the silver keshi powder with the sprinkle brush (ashirai-kebo). This process is called ‘Fun-maki’.
  4. Let it sit for another 5-30 min, make sure that the silver keshi powder did not sink into lacquer. In case it did and you see any area with lacquer on the surface, sprinkle some more silver keshi powder again.
  5. When the whole area is nicely covered with silver powder, let dry in a urushi-buro.

（Day6）

  1. When it is well dried in the urushi-buro, clean the extra silver powder and gently polish with a piece of silk cotton.
  2. Arrange the outline with a toothpick and the process is completed.

　　＊If you made a mistake during the process of powder sprinkle or polish, please repeat from step14.

​＊Order of lacquer application

  • Silver powder finishing tame-urushi (black) →bengara-urushi (red) →tama-urushi (black)
  • Gold powder finishing bengara-urushi (red)→tame-urushi (black) →bengara-urushi (red)

By interchanging the color of the lacquer, area already applied with lacquer becomes obvious, this helps to avoid having areas left without application during the process.

. It is said that silver powder looks shinier when the last layer of lacquer before sprinkling is black and gold powder shinier with the last layer being red. But this is not a requisite, you can use a single color lacquer throughout the process without any problem.