Kintsugi is a traditional Japanese technique for repairing broken china. Since the 13th century, we've been repairing broken pieces and continuing to use them. The technique teaches us Japanese spirit of taking good care of things, and I absolutely love it.
A couple of months ago, when I wrote about kintsugi, my Spanish friend, @druida suggested me to write about how to do it. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my grandson dropped my favorite bowl and broke it. So, let me explain you how to repair it.
The bowl was completely broken into two pieces.
At first, prepare lacquer and lacquer thinner.
In the picture below, the black bottle contains lacquer, and the yellow bottle contains lacquer thinner.
Put four drops of lacquer and one drop of thinner on a palette.
After mixing the drops with a toothpick, paint the mix on the edges of the broken part with using the toothpick.
Paint both sides.
Carefully join the broken pieces and tape them together.
Leave the piece to dry for at least two weeks.
After two weeks, remove the tape. In the picture below, you can see how the piece looks after two weeks.
Mix another batch of lacquer and thinner (four drops of lacquer to one drop of thinner) and prepare a fine-tipped round brush.
To reinforce the repair, paint a line of the mixture over the seam.
Leave it at least for another two weeks to dry it completely.
Once the paint is fully dry, use a carving knife to gently remove any excess mixture.
Prepare another batch of lacquer and thinner, but this time add imitation gold powder to the mix. Use a thinner brush than the previous one, carefully paint a very fine line along the repaired seam. This work influences to the final appearance, so take your time and draw a perfect thin line.
After drawing the perfect line, leave it around for one to two hours.
Prepare 100% pure gold powder and a brush for gold. Put the gold powder in the brush and trace the line with it.
Prepare a piece of floss silk, then polish the gold line with it. You see the shiny gold line in the picture below.
You're done! Leave it at least for another two weeks, then wash away some extra gold powder.
This is one of the techniques, and there are more. So, I'll introduce different techniques whenever I have a chance.
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Thank you very much for your post, Yumy @yumiyumayume . What I like most is the acceptance of the imperfect in Japanese culture, the philosophy of wabi-sabi, which values the beauty of the imperfect, the transitory and the incomplete.
What a profound philosophy! Wabi-Sabi is an ancient Japanese philosophy that encourages us to accept and appreciate life as it is: imperfect. It teaches us to recognize three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing ends and nothing is perfect. Wabi refers to rustic simplicity, humility and harmony with nature.
Hi, @druida . You are welcome, and thank you so much for reading the post. Since your suggestion, it took more than four months, but I'm happy that I finally wrote about it. As you mention, kintsugi definitely relates to the wabi-sabi. When I explain about kintsugi outside of Japan, I also explain that Japanese art is beautiful because we look the beauty in the imperfect art. I like kintsugi because I feel like we give another lives to the broken pieces.
I recently broke a plate. Maybe I should have used kintsugi to repair it. Sadly I threw it away. Oh the ephemeral nature of British tableware.
@t4up3 Aw! What a waste! You could send it to me! (Well, we have to figure out how we exchange our addresses, though) I highly recommend kintsugi to you.