Kintsugi Pot Repair

[lieuz]

While I wait for the pot to cure, I figured I'd post some pictures of some other repaired work I've completed. Here is a repaired Sara Rayner piece that had a small chip in it. The gold is very matches the clay very nicely.





Chips are my all time preferred repairs because they're fully functional.

 

[lieuz]

One nice thing about broken pots are, that at raffles, they don't get picked. But I pick them. This chipped pot was repaired with silver. A much larger chip which requires a natural composite of flour, clay, wood dust, and lacquer creates a material that is very dense, very hard and very strong. This is the same pot I showed earlier with a design, but I stripped the design off and regilded it with silver.

I'm going to just leave it as silver.

 

[lieuz]

Not bonsai related but this is one of my more labor intensive repairs. Lots of missing bits and pieces on this yixing zisha tea pot. It get's renewed life. Quite proud of this one. It's for my sister's boyfriend. This teapot used to belong to his dad and he's no longer with us. This is a nice sentimental piece.

 

[lieuz]

I was able to fill in the very obvious voids and also had the time to apply the finishing as well. The pot is now ready for refinement polishing to make the surface very smooth to receive the gold powder. Will likely have to go through 2-3 cycles to get this to look flush. But so far so good!








This may look wet but it is past its tacky phase and is now unreactive to the touch. The foot is very sturdy and the pot feels very solid. Can't want to further refine this pot.

 

[lieuz]

The composite and lacquer have now cured to a very hard consistency. I am now testing the gold against the glaze to see how it fits, I haven't applied the silver; yet, I don't think I have to, I like the gold. Here are some of the test areas I applied the gold to.

 

[JudyB]

The composite and lacquer have now cured to a very hard consistency. I am now testing the gold against the glaze to see how it fits, I haven't applied the silver; yet, I don't think I have to, I like the gold. Here are some of the test areas I applied the gold to.

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So beautiful this art form to me. I don't think I'd like silver though, but I've never seen it used.

 

[penumbra]

I have a few pots set aside once I overcome the timidity to begin.

 

[lieuz]

This pot is finally complete. Very fortunate this pot broke with the holes still intact with the larger super structure of the overall pot. That way, anchoring the tree down into the pot will still be strong and viable vs having to worry about the structural integrity.

 

[gooeytek]

That came out really nice.

 

[lieuz]

That came out really nice.

Thank you, it only took 8 months haha.

 

[JudyB]

Makes me want to break a pot and send it to you… I wish I had done a better job on the one I did several years ago. The joinery turned out well but the glue and technique (or lack thereof) made the glue bulge out of the cracks a bit. This is beautiful. I always get excited when I see a new post on this thre…

 

[lieuz]

Makes me want to break a pot and send it to you… I wish I had done a better job on the one I did several years ago. The joinery turned out well but the glue and technique (or lack thereof) made the glue bulge out of the cracks a bit. This is beautiful. I always get excited when I see a new post on this thre…

Epoxy is reversible . And that made my heart smile, thank you for the kind words!

 

[lieuz]

I posted this before, this is a Mike Flannagan pot from Jim Doyle. He quite likes this pot and it broke in such a way that it's easily repairable. I looked this potter up and it seems his signature is these interesting designs. I figured I should probably capture this in some way so I plan to outline the missing design and add them to the gilding as an overpaint. Here's the before shots with the processed fill-in composite.

 

[lieuz]

To fill in these small dimples, I just applied a very thick coat of finishing lacquer so I won't have to add any additional filling material.



Note the excessive amount of overflow added to ensure a flush surface transition.


I sanded this down with a lump of charcoal to ensure a flush transition.


The entire surface is now primed for gilding.

 

[lieuz]

The lacquer is now set enough to gild.


A simple breath of condensation to check it. Condensation means the surface is now dry enough to be tacky vs wet, tacky will take on powder and will provide a very clean and flat surface vs wet which will take on a gritty look.


Metal of choice for gilding will be silver.

More to come!

 

[lieuz]

The lacquer took the silver powder well. Surface is smooth and at this point I would let the lacquer and order cure longer; however, I want to complete the design to tie the repair to the pot.

I'll add in the missing design and gold it shortly after it cures some more.

 

[lieuz]

I have some tin, metal which I think will go fairly well with this idea. Tin is duller than silver in color, but it is more sparkly. This is what I envision the end product to look like.

 

[BonsaiPoppie]

A month later, the lacquer in the pot is now cured to the point I can add the gold dusting finish.

Painted the red urushi on the joined site.
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Other side of the pot with a more dynamic break.
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Applying the gold dust by "pushing" the dust onto the site vs applying it directly.
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Finished product.
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What was learned at the last step? The joinery site could have been buffed a bit more. Apparently if you look close enough the gold looks grainy when it can look smoother. Even though the finger can feel a smooth joint, it's still very rough. I will probably have to build multiple layers of sabi-urushi and sand it back and reapply multiple times and then sand with possible a piece of 600+, probably 1000 grit sand paper. This was a good practice run, going to put this piece away back into the muro for another month before taking it out and displaying it.

My wife does pottery and this is how she repairs her work and my bonsai pots. Nice work.