What is under that urushi (lacquer)

[estcrh]

Here is a few examples of what Japanese lacquer can hide. Anyone else have any?

 

This dou is pretending to be hon iyozane, which is large individual scales, but with the lacquer missing you can see that it is really kiritsuke hon iyozane or false iyozane. This is a much cheaper method of construction, instead of having to make hundreds of individual scales the armor maker just lacquered strips of plate to look like real scales.

 

This kabuto is another example of how Japanese armor is not always what it appears to be. What looks like a unique zunari kabuto with a seam on top is revealed to be just an ordinary zunari kabuto with a seam built up from lacquer and possibly a metal strip. Looking at the inside shows the armor plates have no seam on the inside. I have seen several examples of kabuto that looked like much more expensive multi plate kabuto that in reality were much more simple kabuto with a lacquer build up making them look like complicated kabuto with many more plates.

 

I have found that a magnet is very helpful when purchasing Japanese armor, once covered with lacquer sometimes only a magnet can tell you if an armor item is actually made from leather/rawhide or built up with lacquer instead of being all metal.

[Ruben]

Dear Eric,

 

as far as I know the groundin of some laquer work is made from "Jinoko" and urushi.

The reason is, it will become less sensetiv to temperatur.

But in wich case and why exactly it is used, Iam not shure. In saya making it is common I think.

 

Greetings

 

Ruben

[Luc T]

I have an original ubu muromachi akodanari, inside 12 plates, outside 22 plates... they use these tricks longtimes.

[DaveT]

Raw lacquer as the base. I think they cut corners with urushi layers for most katchu compared to art objects like wooden Tupperware.

I've seen leather and hemp glued at different levels too, no rules. The main pog layer is made from a mixture of raw lacquer and dried clay. Its fun to work with.

 

Here are two photos of a Momoyama Hotoke-Do I'm restoring, as you can see it's made up from lames that were pre-drilled for another armour in Kebiki style, probably intended for a gessan? I've removed the outer layer in one pull, very nasty. The base seems to have no urushi layer as a primer, a leather of paper layer has been glued there and as separated through movement as I can see any water damage.

 

Trust nothing, if it's got pog or tatashi-nuri slapped on it's probably there to hide something. I've bee amazed at how many items have really awful flaws hidden beneath the surface.

 

The wearer of this Do would have come out real bad at Nagashima lol.