Urushi Coating

[mke]

Is there really an advantage having an Urushi-coated pen? What would that advantage be?

 

Man-made coatings are not so bad and I guess many/most people wouldn't be able to distinguish between a normal resin-coated and an Urushi-coated pen.

Would you?

 

Now, before you start hacking me to death because of my ignorance, I out me as a coating material chemist, knowing a little bit the topic.

Edited August 21, 2019 by mke

[bogiesan]

Topic is easily researched in Japanese cultural crafts, assuming you’ve done that.

 

ON a fountain pen, or any other everyday tool that is handled extensively, urushi leaves a completely waterproof, highly durable finish. Even the fundamental craft of simple unadorned application requires highly refined skill and much time so there is the element of luxury, especially if the repeated application of coats are interspersed with scratched resists, paintings, drawings, powdered precious metals or stones, and inlays.

 

So, advantages for a fountain pen are basic, as far as I can tell, durability, waterproofness, and the potential for art.

[samasry]

Is there really an advantage having an Urushi-coated pen? What would that advantage be?

 

Man-made coatings are not so bad and I guess many/most people wouldn't be able to distinguish between a normal resin-coated and an Urushi-coated pen.

Would you?

 

 

Let us take the example of the Urushi coatings on Pens with Ebonite body.

 

Are there counter examples of pens with Ebonite body coated with Resin? It would be great if u can provide some examples that we can examine.

 

 

I have one point of data, which is the Pilot custom Urushi: Sites selling the pen, have gone all over the place, describing it as Urushi over resin, resin over resin, ...etc

 

Pilot says it is Urushi over Ebonite

 

When you examine it beside a resin body pen, you can not see the difference.

 

So we know, at least in this case, which by Pilot claims, has 3 layer coating of Urushi, that it is as good as useless, in terms of ability to distinguish from resin, VISUALLY.

 

I have not seen, in person, the more fancy pens with 12+ layers of Urushi, so i can not judge these

Edited August 21, 2019 by salmasry

[eciton]

There's a definite textural difference between polished resin/plastic/celluloid and polished urushi. I have done side-by-side comparisons and while both feel smooth, when I ran my finger over the surfaces with pressure, my finger squeaked over the plastics and was silent performing the same motion over the urushi. And funnily enough it was the Pilot 845 urushi rather than anything fancier.

[Lloyd]

There are many types of urushi finishes. I have a matte, a tame-nuri, and a highly polished (Rioro) and I doubt any other coating could yield the same characteristics.

[OMASsimo]

I don't think there is an utilitarian advantage of urushi over other surfaces. But there might be aesthetic differences and it's certainly a sign of ambition to put excellent craftsmanship to an object. I don't have any urushi pens but I know it from Japanese food bowls and other wooden objects. I think it's a quite unique finish in terms of optical depth and feel to the touch. Maybe you can obtain similar effects with other varnishes. I any case, the urushi tradition with several centuries of experience certainly works.

[samasry]

Figboot or Bigfoot or something like that, has one of the few reviewes of/on the Pilot custom Urushi on youtube.

 

He made the following claim wrt the Pilot custom Urushi and showed a picture of his pen to confirm the claim

 

- He claimed, that the Roiro method used by Pilot would leave the pen with visible brush strokes visible on the Urushi surface

 

- He put an image within the video, with what looks like brown lines spaced in such a way to show the brush strokes.

 

- He then claimed that he feels that this is a clear demonstration that this was not done by machine, but manual labor

 

- It was not clear what magnification he was using.

 

 

 

Now, my questions to all the experts who are in this thread: Is this the expected look of the Urushi Roiro?

 

 

The reason I am asking, is that I have the exact model pen, and I put it under my Daughter's microcsope @ 40x and illuminate the heck outta of the pen, but I can not see these brush lines he is talking about and showing in his picture !!

 

Could it be that his pen is real and mine is fake?

 

Could it be that his Urushi artist did not do the polishing step well?

 

Could it be that these brush strokes are captured with a Camera sensor but not visible to my eyes ( me be wearing glasses and such)?

 

Does any of the experts around here, know what should be the behavior of the Roiro under 40x magnification ?

 

One of the posts here, indicate that Roiro is very highly polished !!

 

Another post, albeit about the 845 (little bro of the custom), indicated that u can feel the texture which should be something visible under 40x mag for sure !!

 

This is really confusing

Edited August 22, 2019 by salmasry

[Mech-for-i]

well well, from a pure material science / engineering POV , no Urushi is no better than modern day finishes using artificial or natural coating .. do know they are lacquered ware and they were there when technology limits and that was the best they can do ( well sort of ). for the fact even back in those days Urushi or similar lacquered finishes , even though well developed , was not even the best finishes as far as hard wearing goes, Finishes like Tung Oil finishing is used on architecture as well as pens ( brush pens ), & as well as umbrella as far back as single digit centuries, and proven even more durable. Urushi of the sort had always been for aesthetic, craftsmanship, and the associated prestige / exclusiveness value rather than for real working / engineering value.

 

Today we had multitude of finishing we can out onto a pen body and multitude of method doing so and plenty would be , from a usage point of view , way better than the like of Urushi ( and without the hazard of skin rash )

[mke]

Reading through the few answers yet, I see that many make a big mistake. There is no "Urushi", there are many Urushi mixtures containing more or less natural Urushi.

 

 

This is the content of a better Urushi, still containing 10% of synthetic resins. The cheaper you buy, the more synthetic resins you will find in it.

Of course, if you have connections you might get 100% Urushi.

 

So, e.g., Pilot is using what kind of Urushi, other companies use which Urushi? Without knowing the Urushi used, the number of coatings, you cannot compare anything.

 

With synthetic resins, I am sure, you could mimic Urushi coatings so that most people wouldn't know the difference.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Comes down to if your pen was made by a Japanese National Treasure or not.....I guess.

As mentioned the more coats the better, but it's the decoration applications and there are more than I know.....as soon as I hit the lottery, on my list.

Those too impatient to wait for a lottery win, can get by with 3-4 layers............be more patient, save religiously for 5-6 years and get the Jewel of the Rising Sun.

Sigh cubed........they don't make Alaska sized milk bottles.....

 

Wear and Tear is not something you put your expensive to very expensive Urushi pen through just like you don't do that to a MB Virginia Woolf.

For wear and tear, go stainless steel. Plastic of any type, be it 'precious resin', plain plastic or Urushi can't hold a candle to it, to rough world wide survival practices. (If it got that rough I'd be using a Jotter. )

You can bang up a plastic fountain pen, under destruction level.....to a sudden abuse user pen, same goes for Urushi.....but with a nice.....abused urushi those who know will cry.

 

Pretty is done for pretty's sake.

In the 'real world', most people are lost at you paid for a ball point in the first place, much less you paid one-two hundred dollars!!!!! For a leaky fountain pen.!!!!

....the first bit of bad news rumor is ingrained as truth .; never to be causally erased ......much less lots more for plastic's ancestor.

That there was an urushi if it was pointed out to me in some sort of wood covering when I was in japan for 3 months in 1970, it passed right over my head. Knowledge urushi came to me here on the com. The only urushi I've seen was at a 'foreign to Europe' flea market....some one sold expensive hand made Panama hats, some German married to a Japanese woman made and coated wooden bowls, vases, or other wooden items with urushi. It was nice, but I was looking at it as a primitive 'plastic' covering...that would last generations

An Urushi fountain pen decorated by a known urushi artist as the pictures I've seen here..........................was on the mountain peak to that bowl maker's valley.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Bo Bo Olson

[Honeybadgers]

well well, from a pure material science / engineering POV , no Urushi is no better than modern day finishes using artificial or natural coating .. do know they are lacquered ware and they were there when technology limits and that was the best they can do ( well sort of ). for the fact even back in those days Urushi or similar lacquered finishes , even though well developed , was not even the best finishes as far as hard wearing goes, Finishes like Tung Oil finishing is used on architecture as well as pens ( brush pens ), & as well as umbrella as far back as single digit centuries, and proven even more durable. Urushi of the sort had always been for aesthetic, craftsmanship, and the associated prestige / exclusiveness value rather than for real working / engineering value.

 

Today we had multitude of finishing we can out onto a pen body and multitude of method doing so and plenty would be , from a usage point of view , way better than the like of Urushi ( and without the hazard of skin rash )

 

In terms of "better" you're missing one factor. Depth. Yes, there are urethane polishes that can get damn close to a french polish, but if you want an absolutely MIRROR shine, glassy, deep finish, you still better be ready to get out the denatured alcohol, shellac and oil, and put down those 2-5000 coats.

 

Urushi is similar. Mike is right, in that 95% of people might not notice the difference between a high synthetic component urushi or non-urushi lacquer, but the real stuff has a depth and consistency (a big part of it comes from the time and skill of the person putting on the lacquer.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Honeybadgers

[Mech-for-i]

 

In terms of "better" you're missing one factor. Depth. Yes, there are urethane polishes that can get damn close to a french polish, but if you want an absolutely MIRROR shine, glassy, deep finish, you still better be ready to get out the denatured alcohol, shellac and oil, and put down those 2-5000 coats.

 

Urushi is similar. Mike is right, in that 95% of people might not notice the difference between a high synthetic component urushi or non-urushi lacquer, but the real stuff has a depth and consistency (a big part of it comes from the time and skill of the person putting on the lacquer.

 

True, but what I mean to say is as previously mentioned from pure technical, usage, and engineering point of view, and Depth is not one of those, its of Aesthetic and craftsmanship ... even regarding that I had to say there are also other finishes that can give like value ( but not the same ) ; depth in Urushi is actually more a by product of its application , and that application can be utilized with modern day material too ( both artificial and natural ) ; even in old days lacquered ware are often seen finishes with combined material choices. And the term Urushi can be confusing as that dictate a large variety of material and really not all of them are fit for the need nor give the dictated result. In Asia the term is more referring to the Craft instead of the material

[Tseg]

I have a Waterman Carene: lacquer on brass. I have a Namiki Yukari Royale: lacquer on brass.

 

Hold them and observe them side by side and one starts to understand that Urushi is just not any lacquer, especially when using better Urushi and better artisans.

 

Urushi has a depth, shine and hardness in my Namiki #20 that is absolutely obvious vs. the Waterman... @ 10X the price.

 

With that said, Urushi is not shear perfection. With the pocket clip on my Namiki it mean the cap is always resting on exactly one of two spots when sitting on my leather blotter. In not too many months I noticed the finish is developing a slight, dull wear line where the cap rests. It is very minor, but is like getting a rock chip in the hood of your brand new dream car... only it likely would or could never be “touched up”.