Mid-day through 1st project

[u/woshka]

Edit: gah typo in the title. Mid-way!

Hi there! I'm two steps into my first Kintsugi project, and have a couple questions:

Silly, but: the kit I received has lots of warnings about skin reactions to Urushi - it has made me terrified of touching anything when I'm working on this. Two questions: once it's dried, and is being sanded off, is it still toxic? Or is that a "safer" step in the project. How worried should I be about having my cat around for, example. And how bad is it actually if you do touch raw Urushi?

For a future piece where I'm fixing a broken mug handle, I was thinking of doing it in two steps, because the pieces all need to stick together so well and if one moves they all move. Good practice, or bound to fail?

Finally - I'm seeing seeing lots of suggestions to dilute the Urushi with acetone or other solvents - is that common practice and what proportions do people use? I attached a picture of the tools in the kit I've received. I've seen other people using some cool brushes/flattening tools. Any recommendations?

Thank you! Pics of progress so far.

[u/benjamin-crowell]

Urushi can be diluted with a variety of substances, and what people use seems to depend somewhat on what is commonly available in their country. People in Japan seem to use kerosene a lot. Here in the US, most people seem to use turpentine, but I've been using white gas (=Coleman fuel) because I just had some around.

You don't necessarily need to dilute urushi. It's just a question of what works best for you. Some urushis, especially colored urushis, can be very thick and therefore difficult to work with, especially if you're trying to get a thin coat. Looking at your photo of the page describing the contents of the kit, it looks like what you have is raw urushi (ki). That is usually not particularly thick, and I wouldn't normally dilute it for kintsugi work, except that if you're trying to prepare a raw pottery surface to make things adhere to it better, you may want to brush it with ki diluted to 50%. The dilution makes it penetrate the pottery better. They gave you some bengara red that you're supposed to mix with the raw urushi if you're going to apply gold at the end. I've always used pre-mixed bengara urushi, but it tends to be quite thick, almost like toothpaste. If you find that adding the bengara to the ki makes it very thick, you may want to dilute it a little.

Urushi is also soluble in vegetable oil, so that's what I use to clean my tools, and after I'm done working with raw urushi I scrub my hands with vegetable oil a couple of times and then wash them. The vegetable oil is a lot nicer to use for this purpose than organic solvents, because you can just throw it in the trash. I have a little silicone salad oil squeeze bottle that's meant for picnics, and I just keep it handy while I work. I also work with a garbage can right next to me, which makes it easier to make sure that that's where any waste urushi ends up.

I've gotten a bad rash once from urushi, and it was from skin contact that I didn't realize had happened. It lasted for a couple of weeks. For me it was about the same severity as a bad case of poison oak. I live in California, where poison oak is the state flower. The irritating substance in poison oak is the same as the one in urushi.

Yesterday, I got some urushi on a finger. I immediately grabbed the squeeze bottle of oil and washed my finger a few times with oil to get it off my skin and repeatedly dilute it as much as possible. After that I washed my hands with soap and water. That seems to have worked, no skin irritation on the finger 24 hours later. Usually people get exposed to poison oak when they're outside and can't easily do a thorough washing, but from what I've heard, usually if you wash within 20 minutes or so, you don't get a rash. There is various folk wisdom, but AFAIK just prompt washing is the key.

[u/woshka → u/benjamin-crowell]

Thank you so much!! Super helpful information and tips.

[u/Aezandris]

Uruhsu is safe to touch once dried. Effects of urushiol seem to vary quite a lot. Usually, it's rashes and lasts like a week or tow I believe. I believe it can get worse and you could go to the hospital and say it comes from urushiol, they should have a cure.

But for me it seems to have absolutely no effect. I work gloveless and touch it quite often. I just make sure to remove it with turpentine.

Regarding the gluing part of it, it is always recommended to glue it all at once. It can be quite daunting when there are a lot of pieces, but with the right texture of mugi urushi and some rubbers bands as well as coming back to the piece after a few hours of curing to reset any gaps you can usually fix mistakes fine. The hardest part is fixing mistakes perfectly to me.

Usually you dilute urushi with turpentine. I didn't quite fully catch when or what ratio, but it's to help with the flowing of urushi form the paintbrush. Adjust the ratio by adding a drop of turpentine at a time until you're satisfied.

There's usually a brush to apply gold powder which I'm not seeing in your image but maybe it's there. It's called kebo. I've heard from a mber here that makeup brushes can do the work just fine. I don't know about any flattening tool though. When you say flattening to you mean sanding?

[u/woshka → u/Aezandris]

Hadn't thought about rubber bands and coming back to it after a bit too finish things up, that's super helpful, thank you! In regards to the flattening tool I was thinking of a trowel (finally remembered the name) for like painting to smooth out lines.