Manu Propria - Kujaku-Ishi-Nuri

[Manupropria]

Some months ago I have started making a new urushi with sprinkling malachite pieces into wet lacquer.
This Kujaku-Ishi-Nuri I have eventually seen on a Japanese Sword scabbard called "saya".
Kujaku-Ishi = Peacock-Lacquer (Malachite).
First I had to crush some malachite pebbles I found in a drawer and sieved it to different sizes.
It was then sprinkled into wet urushi lacquer.
After many layers of black lacquer have been applied over the malachite partcles I had to wait many months until the lacquer has reached a certain hardness close to the hardness of the malachite itself to grind the surface even and to polish. It is a very time consuming lacquer version

Best regards,

Martin

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[jskraba]

Gorgeous!

[Haefennasiel]

I want! *sniff*

[Lady Onogaro]

Thank you for the in-progress pictures. Have you thought of publishing your in-progress pictures on Instagram as Renee Meeks of Scriptorium Pens does? I would l think it would be fascinating!

[fqgouvea]

I love the in-progress photos as well.


Fernando Gouvêa -- fqgouvea@roadrunner.com

[Titivillus]

Oh dear don't tempt me so much. I love to see lacquer with 'bits' in it!

[MY63]

Thanks for giving us an insight to your production process. I would have expected all of the pieces of Malachite to fly off when you offered it to the grinder. It must take a long time to produce each pen.

[fountainpagan]

Very nice, very instructive.

Thank you, Martin.

[ethernautrix]

Amazing. If you ever use garnets... I don't even know what to say, cos I'm lost in imagining it.

[tandaina]

Can you imagine OPAL? No one would be able to afford it but oh the pretty!

[Titivillus]

Can you imagine OPAL? No one would be able to afford it but oh the pretty!

Maybe mother of pearl would be a close choice. Or even a mix of stones from top to bottom.

[tandaina]

Can you imagine OPAL? No one would be able to afford it but oh the pretty!

Maybe mother of pearl would be a close choice. Or even a mix of stones from top to bottom.

I have a couple pens with MOP (raden). Which is why I thought of opal, if mop is that pretty imagine opal.

[Manupropria]

The problem with urushi and other material inlay is, urushi reaches a hardness of MOHS 6 similar to glass. Material harder than this cause problems.
MOB is fine, malachite or jade is fine as well. Moon stone would fit as well but opal and garnets are much harder and probably difficult to combine