Thread: Lacquering hone to preserve label

I've got a few Escher stones now that have old labels attached, and so I was looking into preserving the labels by coating the back of the stone plus label with some very nice, clear Japanese urushi lacquer that I bought for another project.

Does anyone have any experience doing this or know of a good reason not to to try it at all? I don't want to hurt the resale value of my hones, but I want to USE them too!! And those delicate, old labels just seem to get more frayed and faded and wet every time I pull the stones out.

(Also, I'd love to know how people have managed the task of restoring or repairing the torn and disintegrating boxes that some of these hones come in. In fact, I'd love to just soak the labels off the boxes in one piece, throw the moldy cardboard away and lacquer the labels to a nice, new hardwood boxes that could be opened, closed and USED instead of just rotting away like the cardboard ones, but I don't know if this would really end up hurting the value of what I have.)

Thanks!

Don't do that i need that Japanese urushi lacquer. i just got my Japanese stone and need it very badly.i will buy nail polisher and ship to you.

you can use any lacquer , even on Jnats

On escher end labels I've used nail polish. On the large labels on the back of the stone I've used an archival preservative called Krylon Preserve it seen here. So far so good.

Hey Sham,

I've got some leftover lacquer from OLD_SCHOOL that
I could send you, it certainly worked well on my Nakayama.

- Scott

Urushi? are you sure? where'd ya get it. whattaya were going to use it for?

One problem, to be honest I have only used two kinds of urushi. One was raw/pure urushi. It is black. The other is called "clear". It's not really clear in our contemporary understanding of clear.

That is not to say there are not some more highly refined Japanese types that could be more clear, less amber-esque. But ..... urushi aint that clear.

other project? was?

Thank you very much. will make my life a lot easier. Stone is great stone and i really don't want to mess around with this stone.

Originally Posted by sebell

Hey Sham,

I've got some leftover lacquer from OLD_SCHOOL that
I could send you, it certainly worked well on my Nakayama.

- Scott

Oh? I hope you brought enough for everyone!

330mate sells urushi on his website, it cost ~$25 with shipping from Japan to Us

I sure wish that I had preserved the label on my NOS "Deep Rock Belgian" coticule combination stone. The problem was that it was on the BBW side and I wanted to use it...........you are correct to preserve the original label, Jeff.