Thread: Advice on Japanning

I've never tried it, but this is a very thorough video on japanning with different recipes. He's does a block plane in the vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBqgpdBNrt8

The main ingredients of tool black japanning is turpentine and asphaltum. Cooking it at the right tempreature is also important in the process. A friend of mine has spent a lot of time refining a recipe and process. Check his web site, A Plane Life - Hand Planes, Antique Tools, Woodworking Tools. He japanned this plane for me.

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It looks like what's being done here is that asphaltum is serving both as a colorant and as a resin in a varnish.

I've made varnish before, but thanks to a few people here in the states kind of studying it closer, I'm looking to do more of it. Almost across the board, a varnish is turpentine, an oil (almost always linseed oil) and a resin.

Japanning has a very wide meaning, being a varnish process done in asia several hundred years ago with high durability and very high gloss (good finish leveling).

But when I tracked down Japanning with asphaltum, the instructions are almost identical to making a varnish, and having made varnish now, the way good japanning levels sets off the "it's varnish" light bulb.

Varnish is usually cooked after the initial ingredients are "run" if need, or in the case of oil, until the oil is heated past its break, making it better for combining with resins.

That japanning has to be run through the oven suggests that it's just being cooked as a varnish after it's already applied.

(I could be totally wrong, but if I'm not, the take away here is unless you make a varnish, you're not going to get the same adhesion, clarity and leveling of a varnish and short-cut japanning recipes are never going to measure up or be nearly as durable as a long-oil varnish)

Yes, the black tool japanning is a specific recipe, the technique encompasses a lot more. Since you're going down that rabbit hole with Steve, this can help:

A treatise of japaning [sic] and varnishing : being a compleat discovery of those arts, with the best way of making all sorts of varnish ... : together with above an hundred distinct patterns for japan-work ... engraven on 24 large copper-plates : Stalker, John : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

knowing now that asphaltum is a resin (it's even soluble to make spirit varnishes, though that would be no good for a plane body), and that this is "just a varnish" makes me wonder if a more typical gloss varnish that's UV cured (as natural varnishes are) with lamp black or some other micronized black pigment would be applicable.

Many of the older texts not aimed at plane japanning list an asphaltum/copal varnish that is either brownish or intentionally brown, and that can be applied to anything.

Japanning to us on planes means black, but the asphaltum is brownish from some places in the world and black from others.

Thinking out loud because I don't love the idea of ever trying to get away with baking a large plane in the kitchen oven, but given that it's a varnish, some reasonable temperature control would be needed to ensure it gets hot enough but not too hot. Not to mention, I don't know what oven toasting turpentine smells like.

There's a US govt summary from 1937 that talks about varnish types and how to test if the varnish is fit for use - just standard tests that you'd do if you were making varnish (testing for string vs. oily feeling instead of sticky). It mentions that the specialty baked varnishes - this japanning being one - often are superior to applied varnishes for situations where they're used. It doesn't define this further, but I take this to mean that the finish is fully durable right away because of the baking whereas it would be dry to the touch with UV cure if you made a copal/asphaltum varnish, but it would take another half a year or so for the varnish to be completely cured.

A copal turpentine varnish would actually smell nice, too (like pine cleaner). by that, i mean african copal (harder resin) - not the yellow stuff that's burned as incense (softer).

Originally Posted by pat.hawkins

I just used some 78s dissolved in metho. and baked for one hour at 200C

It came out with blistery lumps and a greyish matt finish.

Wait a minute, I was re-reading your OP. 78s as in 78 RPM records?! Those discs were made of shellac!

You could have just painted the plane with the dissolved discs and air dried them.

Japanning was made of dissolved Gilsonite (aka Asphaltum or Bitumen).

--

What your experiment reveals is that there is potentially a new source of shellac.

Can this shellac be re-used?

would it make a decent finish?

Is it ok to destroy a musical performance, potentially something of significance?
I would never ever ever dissolve a good tango recording, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RfmqI4X8BM&feature=youtu.be or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIw5IHkw8tE&feature=youtu.be

Rafael

I know there are those here who will cry 'heretic!', and 'shun him! Burn Him!!!', but here's my approach for users:

Etch primer and quick drying hammer finish from Bunnings.

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Takes about 30 seconds - mask off the sides and base, and go at it after removing rust etc.
Results on a very battered No6 with chipped paint and rust everywhere that cost me $50:

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Would I do it on a collectable heirloom? probably not, but I buy tools to use, and don't want to become an expert in arcane recipes... This was literally 30 minutes from start to finish to get it back to looking like a nice tool (to my eyes, anyway), and get back to woodworking. A Hock blade from my stash, and it's capable of great work.

There's no challenge in spray painting. To me, it's similar to spray painting an old car to "restore" it.

I tried to be really careful once restoring an old egg beater drill. Followed the YT gurus. Cleaned it really well, the prescribed number of primer coats, the prescribed number of enamel coats. Then a few days later it chipped. I supposed I didn't do something right, but I was annoyed.

It doesn't really matter really, we're intent on using hand planes instead of modern jointers and planers. How can there be fault in trying to use old style varnishes?

No fault at all, and none implied mate - I was merely offering a 'quick and dirty' way that works for me. Anything will chip given 'the right abuse' - that's why we need to re-japan or spray the old tools.

Yes - I did mean old 78 records. I found that suggestion elsewhere on this forum. In that debate it was stated that Scottish bagpipe 78s were fair game. I looked high and low but the closest I found was a Scottish accordion dance band so I figured that was close enough!

But seriously - the record was a complete mess and totally unplayable.

I'm now torn between going deeper into this bottomless Japanning rabbit hole and going with the enamel spray.

I don't want tools in a glass cabinet. I do intend to use them but would like them to look nice.

I did clean up some spokeshaves and finished them with spray primer and black top coat. I was surprised how well they came out and of course they function really well.

What to do..... what to do..................

PS. I have a Turner 4 1/2 that I'm too frightened to touch so not a complete heretic

The records for black shellac is actually not a terrible idea if the shellac is clean enough.

there are still a lot of damaged or undesirable old records here that aren't worth anything. The biggest hindrance that I can see is that you can buy junk records for really cheap, but if they aren't local, the shipping screws up the proposition.

It's possible that oxidation of the shellac (or something of the sort) would prevent it from dissolving properly, though. There may be some remedy in old texts that would deal with that in a way that wouldn't burn a house down, but they're probably not healthful, either.

I restored a Stanley #51/52 plane and chute board in 2007, and used a japanning recipe given to me by the late Stephen Shepherd: half asphaltum and half marine varnish. I have since used this on several occasions to good effect.

"I use roofing tar, but first let the volitiles evaporate, then mix it up with the McCloskey's Marine Spar Varnish (Gloss).

I put the stuff on both wood and metal and it seems to be very durable. It is important to prepare the surfaces, I use alcohol on metal to clean the surface of any grease or oil. I may wash them with soap and water first, surface prep is important. As far as baking the stuff, I of course don't bake the wood, but I will set the piece in direct sunlight, it helps cure the finish. On metal I do occasionally bake it but not at a very high temperature, 220 degrees F. I have done this for Ferro-type or tintype plates for a friend that does historic photography. If you don't bake it it is a bit soft for a while but in a few weeks it hardens up. I am sure Stanley and the other makers of metal planes used Japan Driers in their recipes, which I believe mine is close. As for the look, it is spot on, deep black with tinges of brown showing through on edges, this is the real look, which can not be achieved with any kind of modern paint or powder coating. It also works well for inpainting missing japanning on metal objects. I restore a lot of tin ware, which is where my experience is, as I do not own any modern metal planes."

Stephen confirmed: “Here in the US roofing tar is asphaltum. Asphaltum is available from a variety of sources and can be spendy, roofing tar is cheap, I have actually never bought any as when you tell someone that is tarring a roof, they will usually give you some.”

It was exactly what I was looking for. Having used it now, I can confirm it looks the Real McCoy. One word of advice - it is self levelling if used on a flat surface. If may leave runs if used on a vertical surface. So do one surface at a time.






Regards from Perth

Derek

baked japanning doesn't use driers - it's a varnish that's cured by heat, not by oxidation or UV. Raffo pointed me to a ford document (did he link it on here, too?) because Ford did a lot of japanning of metal parts early on and then had to come up with something close to a match for the wooden parts where a 400-450 degree bake would be an obvious problem. The recipe provided was lamp black, pine rosin (interesting choice) and that had driers, but because it wasn't baked.

Mixing asphaltum with varnish would be closer in look than any enamel paint, though - since the asphaltum japanning is just a varnish and will fill and level like one, a spar varnish could looks similar with lamp black or anything in it

the (baked) japanning itself is fusing on the metal, so cleaning wouldn't be as important as it is for applying varnish. Probably still a good idea.

It would be possible to cook a varnish and do the same as you're doing with spar varnish (I'm not aware of any alkyd varnish without driers - they would probably dry with UV, but UV isn't guaranteed), but without driers - it would just necessitate leaving the plane body out in the sun for a couple of days to get the initial drying done.

In general, I think we're missing something by having lost the art of varnishing about 80 years ago. And I don't mean missing it so use a can of alkyd varnish, but to have a shot at using copal varnish or other varnishes that impart much more depth even on a thin film than anything that we use now. there is nothing sold at this point that adheres like good varnish does and has the same finish toughness or long term stability.