Posted 26 July 2009 - 01:15

Hey guys,After almost a year of work on and off and several failures, I've finally finished two urushi fountain pen customizations. So, as promised, I'm posting pics of the results.Sheaffer Snorkel Sentinel & Valiant: 唐塗/石目塗Urushi TechniquesTsugaru-nuri: Karanuri (津軽塗: 唐塗) - The mottled effect is made with a form of the kawari-nuri (変わり塗り) technique by applying a thick, sticky, gel-like mixture of urushi and egg white with a spatula to create an irregular surface--a sort of impasto. Once dried, it was covered in 23.5k gold powder, then covered with several layers of transparent urushi. The lacquer layers were finally sanded down to a smooth even surface, revealing the black splotches, and the surface was polished using roiro migaki (呂色磨き).Ishime-Nuri (石目塗) - The texture of the gripping section was made by lacquering granules of dried urushi to the base lacquer, sanding them lightly, then applying a couple more very thin layers of lacquer.The white dot on the Valiant is a white pearl atsugai raden (厚貝螺鈿) inlay, the signatures were done in keshifun maki-e (消粉蒔絵), and the kaou (花押) with shu-urushi (朱漆).As is traditional for urushiware, I made storage boxes for the pens, especially because the sentinel will be given to a friend as a gift.If you have any comments, suggestions or critiques, i'd love to hear them--it'll help me in my future projects.Ern.

Edited by richardandtracy, 18 June 2010 - 07:33.

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