#Product Trends
Natural Urushi Lacquer to Enrich Your Life
Some adventurous way to use urushi lacquer for the decoration of your home interior
Natural Urushi Lacquer
Natural urushi lacquer is the sap of urushi tree, oozed out as a defense action when the bark is cut or slashed. It can be collected by only a tiny amount, one drop at a time.
Its color is milky white when fresh from the tree, but gradually browning with air contact. In the long years, the transparency is increased and the color is changed into amber.
In Japan it was used in the daily life as long as 9000 years, first for the foodware, and then for furniture, fixture, building material and so on. It is said to be the most excellent coating and adhesive agent that man found.
The demand for urushi is now drastically falling. As we have some more convenient chemical staff, ready to use, who would choose the more energy-consuming and costing agent? But who can beat that excellent luster, rich in nature? If the demand is getting less in modern life, why don’t we find the way to utilize it?
Urushi lacquer can be coated almost any surface, and actually it has been and still now mainly coated on wooden materials. But wooden material has tendency to warp or crack in the long use, and this is where our journey started to look for the base coating more stable and more solid.
Titanium
The metal, titanium was our first choice. With the development of primer fit for the work by hand, we succeeded in coating urushi lacquer on titanium, thus lead the way to “urushi coated titanium”, and “titanium panel”. The first in this field. The edge-braking titanium panel has the decoration of maki-e by sprinkling titanium powder, more economical than silver/gold powder, yet powerful and beautiful. We succeeded in bringing out the color of ancient hue by anodizing, to make the titanium product artistic.
Natural Pattern
The next step was the transparent base material. We found that urushi lacquer, when it meets light, gives us unique reflection while it absorbs UV. The lacquer, along with thin silver foil, is applied on the back surface of glass or acrylic panel.
On the surface, urushi moves during the process of drying, and makes unique pattern according to each drying condition. These patterns are called Natural Pattern, and they are sorted out and named respectively. Now 8 patterns are counted, and they are introduced as “urushi-coated tempered glass”.
When it is coated on glass and acrylic, some cubic effect can be enjoyed with the merit of transparency. They are good for wall or window decoration, or assembled into furniture. Big one will be nice for the entrance space of the building or public space. Small one can be framed to hung on the wall. As they are all made by hand, we are ready to take orders.
Acrylic Natural Pattern
Acrylic Natural Pattern panel is more adventurous. Now it can be cut by CO2 laser machine. Any curving lines and minute design can be cut, after urushi lacquer and silver foil are coated on the back side of surface and dried. Moreover, it can be curved, rolled or twisted into various shapes. As it is lighter than the glass, it can be hung or suspended, sometimes combined with illumination.
Glass Maki-e
We would not like to forget “glass maki-e”, glass or optical lens decorated with traditional maki-e, most often used for table lamp. Maki-e by gold/silver powder on the cubic surfaces brings good perspective effect.
The principle
We respect the natural material and work by hand. Through it, we pursue the way to make a nice living space to fulfill the rich life.
