Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-01-02
N
 JAPANESE LAcQuERiN0.
The Art as Practiced by the Artisans
 Il TOl<io and Osaka.

The Art as Practiced by the Artisans of
 .i TOl<io and Osaka.
 A portion of the raw lacquer, about sixteen pounds, is poured into large circular wooden vessel and vigorously stirred with a long-handled tool for five Or six hours, while the heat of small charcoal furnace is ingeniously thrown upon the surface to evaporate tho water During the stirring certain ingredients may be added from time to time. I have seen this operation as conducted in Osaka. The rotro, a fine black lacquer, is made by adding iron at this stage. In Tokio soluble salt of iron is used, but the Osaka manufacturer objects to that, asserting that it iniures the quality of the lacquer. The materi- al used in Osaka was the fine iron dust collected from the grinding of knives. This was added in quantities of about teacupful of powder mixed with water at time, until the desired color was obtained. When Sne work is finished the lacquer is poured into vessel to settle, and is afterward drawn off from | the sediment. The wood gener- ally used for lacquer work is the. light, easily-worked hinohi, a. coniferous wood from the CHanepcyp-.
 
 to receive the lacquer in various ways. For inferior work it is first covered with paper, but in the finer qualities paper is not used. The operations to be de- scribed apply to the manufacture of that variety of lacquer known as Wakasa lacquer, and are from personal observa- | ton. The wood is first carefully | smoothed and the corners of tho boxes strengthened by gluing pieces of cotton or hemp cloth around them with raw lacquer. All joints and imperfections are then filled with tsugi uruxhi (tsugi to fasten), which fills like putty. This is a dark-colored mixture composed of rice | flour made into a paste with water and | mixed with seshime urushi. It soon hardens | so that it can scarcely be cut with knife. l Sometime finely-cut hemp is mixed with the tsugi Urushi The tool used for this work is the take no herd. The work is then covered with .jinoko, a miXt- ure of seshim2 urushi Ca commoner lac, quer) and coarse powder of a yellowish color. The mixture is soft, of yellow ish-brown color, changing to black by exposure to the air. It is spread with a wooden instrument called Aera. The article is left for a few days in the open air to allow some of the water to evaporate, after which it is placed in a moist-air closet to harden. In this way very hard, gritty surface is obtained, affording an excel lent ground for the succeeding coat This process is not applied in making inferior goods. For these mixture of r the powder with glue is sometimes used. and for this reason cheap ware some times bli5tcrs when used with hot wa ter, the glue swelling if the water !, reaches it. Similar blistering may also 0 be occasioned by the natural gum of the lacquer if it should be present in ex- cessive quantity. The next process ecu. sists in covering the entire box With , two coats of lacquer, containing a finer powder known as t0n0h0, which is a kind ' of ochre much used in Japan for clean , ing and polishing. This is likewise evenly spread with the hera. Three coats of this are applied over the joints. ; The object of this process is to secure an even, smooth-grained surface for subse- n quent work. The surface is finally rubbed down with kind of stone called toishi. The parts that are not to rocoI vC any decoration are now ready for the finishing applications of lacquer. The . other parts are next covered with a black lacquer, nahn muri urushi, applied to the outer surfaces and top edges ot the sides. The lacquer used is sAaaii urushi mixed with kind of black lacquer known as honhur0, hon meaning not false, hu,o, black. This is probably the best kind of roiro lacquer It is ap piled with a brush and requires to be rubbed down.-Proceeding of the United States National Museum.