Urushi – Don’t touch it.

I do not do my own urushi finishes anymore and have no plans to do so in the future.  Thanks.

——————————

I’m going to start offering urushi finish for some of my pens.  Ebonite for sure.  I still have a denim pen around here that’s been through hell.  I’m going to put some urushi on that just to see how it looks.

Hopefully the photos will show that the finish on the cap is a bit, um, rougher than that on the barrel.  A guy in Japan did the pen finish for a customer, and when I got it back I scratched it.  Funny thing is, the next day a little birdy delivered a tube of urushi in the mail.  🙂  So I was able to ‘fix’ the scratch.

It’s a different finish from the barrel, but still looks pretty cool in my opinion.  I really really hope the customer agrees.  I really like the texture of it.

But yeah, you shouldn’t touch the urushi oil when you’re putting it on the pen.  It will cause you to break out into a monster rash.  Urushiol is the oil in poison ivy and other nasty plants.