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It is too obvious what you’re trying to do.
Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
71–80 of 86 posts
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certified food grade epoxies are used in industry all the time; in fact, some wine is aged in epoxy-coated concrete tanks, and the inside of soda cans these days includes a thin layer of food-grade epoxy. I will not fault anyone for not believing the certification, but I would personally want to see a more authoritative source than an undated ceramics FAQ. But this is just personal style! Being suspicious of regulato…
Completely agree. Was looking for citations too and this was the first I hit, wish they pointed forward.
No worries, with Claude's assistance I came across the FDA's Title 21 chapter 1 subchapter B, specifically 21CFR175.300. You're welcome to see what the US government has to say versus some random ceramic site.(edit:tl;dr safety-tested food safe epoxies exist)
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#73This is really great results for an early project, none of my first few came out anywhere near so good. I've been doing traditional kintsugi for about twelve years, a couple hundred successful repairs. Though when I started there was very little instruction or english-language resources available. It's become pretty popular for obvious reasons which is great for people getting into it now. It remains probably the mos…
Thank you for the kind words! I've not even scratched the surface of kintsugi of course, but the little I've learned agrees very much with what you say. It's a true test of patience. Are you entirely self-taught then, or did you find a mentor?
Almost entirely self taught. I've got a few other practitioners I've asked for advice over the years but no one who really had guidance over my learning the way a mentor would.
Early on I got most of my info from the newberry library. It had a collection of illustrations and manuals donated from a defunct lacquerworks museum in japan, for some reason. They had someone around who even helped with a lot of translation for free which was a major help. All this stuff is available and better explained on youtube now though.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#74This is once again a perfect use case for cyanoacrylate. There's FDA approved, food-safe brands that will simply allow you to rebuild every fragment into the cup. It will also cure into ceramic in under a minute. I say this because I've done it. You're wasting time and energy using any other method.
Honestly, using CA is what I and many other folks would use, in this situation. I’m a huge fan of J-B Weld’s Superweld light-activated glue. In the right lighting, you can see the steam puff from the glue when you activate it.
But OP’s process brings to mind the way we remember things: by reliving them in such a way that can (and usually does) produce a unique and slightly different product from the original. It’s the investment of time, thought, and love that makes this process more desirable.
I’m reminded of a recent comment thread on Jaloponik, where some great heads were talking about just _why_ the fact that anyone can go 0-60 in less than 4 seconds isn’t actually a great as it seemed to be. I’m a nutshell it came down to the fact that this used to be the product of untold hours spent learning and iterating to eke out tenths of a second, over time, to finally reach that level.
Admittedly it smacks of gatekeeping, but there is a fine line between gatekeeping and rewarding true mastery of an art.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#75This is really great results for an early project, none of my first few came out anywhere near so good. I've been doing traditional kintsugi for about twelve years, a couple hundred successful repairs. Though when I started there was very little instruction or english-language resources available. It's become pretty popular for obvious reasons which is great for people getting into it now. It remains probably the mos…
I’m working on a shattered teapot and am finding the scaffolding part very difficult. Any tips on holding pieces in place that you’d be willing to share?
Sure thing. For shatters the main thing is just accept that it'll take a while and plan on doing it one or two pieces at a time, ideally starting with the biggest and working down in size. I've seen videos where someone is fitting a whole shatter together in one go and holding it with rubber bands but this almost never works right in my experience.
A pair of good articulating arm clamps is my starting point for almost everything. I like to put the "main" piece directly under the shard that is being joined. You want the pieces as tight as you can get of course but you don't need a ton of pressure on there. The flour in the medium will draw it together some as it dries. If you get a good bond but it cures with gaps or holes in the join, you can fill in later with lacquer mixed with a fine clay. Tonoko or jinoko are the key words if you don't have it on hand.
Usually there's at least one join where you need to set multiple pieces at the same time. Sometimes I'll use a single string tied across the outermost shard to keep pressure on, usually across the rim of a bowl or cup. More than one string is too much to keep track of for me though. And the lacquer fumes are extremely detrimental to rubber and elastic, they will harden and break with a few hours of exposure so I don't use them at all.
A more traditional move is to bury the main body of the repair in a dish of sand, with the part to be joined exposed. Then arm clamps or whatever to hold the pieces together. Just make sure any joins that touch sand are fully cured. The cleaner you work the less sanding you'll have later. But there will always be some so do what's necessary to get it together then clean afterwards. I've even used masking tape to hold some many-pieced shatters together. It's a mess but it works, provided the piece doesn't have any texture or decorative elements that could be damaged by the sanding.
Good luck! It's the most tricky and frustrating part, and where most of the failures happen. You should probably expect some failures and setbacks, it's just part of it.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weirdly enough, the food safety of urushiol was the topic of this recent and heavily discussed HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40399224 I can't say I have any desire to try it myself.
I'm not a doctor/chemist, but as far as I understand, the polymerization of urushiol renders it hard and inert. Your thread discusses contact with raw urushiol as found in poison ivy, cashew sap (and apparently mangos) which is indeed known to cause allergic rashes in most humans. I'm not saying that kintsugi is definitely food-safe, but it's an important distinction. Side-note: I did get some raw urushi on my finger…
A lot of people seem immune the first time. My mom thought she was immune to poison ivy, but after years of contact she became increasingly sensitized. Now she gets a rash of the cat has been walking through it.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#77> These days, some hobbyists opt for modern epoxy instead of the traditional and expensive Urushi lacquer. Epoxy probably yields a more robust bond and certainly allows for quicker repairs, but I question its safety for food-related use, especially at the temperatures found in a steaming cup of coffee. People opt for epoxy because Urushi lacquer is traditionally made from poison oak sap and is a potent skin irritant…
I’m always worried about food-safety and Amazon. They don’t have very good control over their inventory, right?
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#78> These days, some hobbyists opt for modern epoxy instead of the traditional and expensive Urushi lacquer. Epoxy probably yields a more robust bond and certainly allows for quicker repairs, but I question its safety for food-related use, especially at the temperatures found in a steaming cup of coffee. People opt for epoxy because Urushi lacquer is traditionally made from poison oak sap and is a potent skin irritant…
I've never trusted that food safe epoxy actually is. I'm afraid that lobbyists have interfered, or its a situation where "there's no evidence that it's dangerous but there's not really evidence that it's safe", or the studies are funded by manufacturers, or there's something like manufactures pulled with BPA where they just switch to something functionally equivalent to a potentially dangerous chemical. Is there any…
I’m with you. I assume all plastics to be unsafe for human use by default.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#79This is once again a perfect use case for cyanoacrylate. There's FDA approved, food-safe brands that will simply allow you to rebuild every fragment into the cup. It will also cure into ceramic in under a minute. I say this because I've done it. You're wasting time and energy using any other method.
Does it look nice? The aesthetic is part of the whole thing, I think.
Re: Repairing my mug with Kintsugi
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weirdly enough, the food safety of urushiol was the topic of this recent and heavily discussed HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40399224 I can't say I have any desire to try it myself.
I'm not a doctor/chemist, but as far as I understand, the polymerization of urushiol renders it hard and inert. Your thread discusses contact with raw urushiol as found in poison ivy, cashew sap (and apparently mangos) which is indeed known to cause allergic rashes in most humans. I'm not saying that kintsugi is definitely food-safe, but it's an important distinction. Side-note: I did get some raw urushi on my finger…
> Side-note: I did get some raw urushi on my fingers while working on this project, but nothing happened. Perhaps I'm immune.
Somewhat the opposite. To be immune to it, your immune system would likely have to tolerate the authentication failure this substance causes after binding to a cell…which could be Bad in many other ways.
A likely explanation is that you removed the substance before an immune response could be mounted.
Molecules of the contaminant bind to skin cells around 15 minutes after contact. The affected cells are disrupted only in that they can no longer provide the appropriate response when challenged by an immune cell. When a cell cannot be identified as a member of the host, a chemical signal is released which tells killer immune cells to congregate and kill everything in the area.
This attack mounted by the immune system is the source of the irritation. It can be mitigated by antihistamine (somewhat), lower temperatures (somewhat, espeically on the verge of shivering), steroid injection (strongly).
Note that recontamination is the most common cause of "spread". Only a single molecule is enough to cause a reaction. Contaminated clothing and surfaces can still bear the oil after multiple washings.