Nakaya Urushi Deterioration / Bubbling On Pen Section ?

[MartinPauli]

Take into consideration, that Nakaya is not doing any lacquering work itself. They have suppliers specialized for maybe each lacquer technique. Lacquer studios have their own, sometime secret techniques and receipts, which they do not share with third parties. We shall not blame Nakaya company.

However, the bubble problem is still a rare event. Maybe it is sweat or perfume, or the rubbing the section while writing or what ever that just produces the lacquer respectively small weak portions in the lacquer to  bubbles

[mke]

On 5/11/2022 at 8:53 PM, Al-Bajaa said:

I will call it wabi-sabi and leave it as is.

I wouldn't do that.

 

It is not wabi-sabi, it is a defective product. They charged you a lot for their pen, didn't they?

Latest if you want to sell the pen for any reason, people will reduce their offers a lot, being the pen from Nakaya or not.

Everybody will assume that the same problems will occur everywhere on the pen.

 

Japanese customers would return the pen immediately, nobody would ever even consider it as wabi-sabi.

I was told that famous watchmakers even recheck their watches a second time for minute defects before offering them to Japanese customers. 

[MartinPauli]

You are right Mike. Japanese customers have an eextremely high Quality requirement

[Karmachanic]

3 hours ago, mke said:

It is not wabi-sabi, it is a defective product.

 

Agreed.  Neither is it yô no bi.

[Al-Bajaa]

Thanks for the advice. Off it goes for repair. 

[Intensity]

On 5/11/2022 at 9:16 PM, Globalnomad said:

My one other Nakaya is 7 years old and has no issues with bubbling.

 

I'm not sure if it was caused by the presence of impurity, improper curing, or other factors but the bubbles seemed to appear once the pen was used as others and myself noticed that they were not there originally. 

 

Either way it does seem to be rare but can still occur.  As Al-Bajaa mentioned, the bubbling doesn't seem to interfere with use and can be considered wabi-sabi. 

 

However, since this was a new pen, I wanted everything the be as clean as possible.

 

Now for a purely academic discussion and as a former chemist, I found this website to be interesting as it talked about the effects of UV radiation on urushi  (https://majikkunotecho.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/urushi-漆/)

 

"The flat surface of Urushi changed into a rough surface upon UV irradiation. This change is based on the degradation mechanism of the Urushi coating film with UV irradiation. According to this mechanism, pores occur because the Urushi film of the outermost surface disappears first, and the gum in the Urushi then disappears."

 

 

 

Very detailed post, but I was amused by its applicability to OP's question.  The section is the least exposed part of the pen, covered with a light-proof cap in this case and fingers otherwise much of the time.  If the rest of the pen didn't 'bubble' but the section did, it's probably not UV deterioration on a relatively new pen.  Other photos in this thread also show bubbles on the section.

[Globalnomad]

Hi Intensity,

 

My reference to the article was as I stated, "for a purely academic discussion and as a former chemist, I found this website to be interesting as it talked about the effects of UV radiation on urushi ...."

 

It was never an attempt to speculate on the cause of the bubbling ... rather my guess was mentioned as "I'm not sure if it was caused by the presence of impurity, improper curing, or other factors but the bubbles seemed to appear once the pen was used as others and myself noticed that they were not there originally. "

 

Thanks.

[dms525]

None of my urushi-coated pens, all but one of which are Nakayas, have shown this problem. The development of the bubbles only on the section suggests to me some chemical interaction between the lacquer and the user's perspiration or oils in their skin.

 

While I have not had this problem with pens, I do have a violin that developed a very similar but more severe bubbling of its lacquer where it came in contact with skin.

 

I have no clue regarding the details of the chemical reaction.

 

David

[awa54]

I have no insights on or deep knowledge of how urushi is supposed to age, but it seems to me that with a normal writing hold, the portion of the barrel that's adjacent to the section would likely show as much, or more deterioration than the section if this was caused by perspiration...

palms sweat much more than fingertips, after all and very few people write by gripping the section exclusively.

I'm inclined to think that the preparation or exact ebonite formula of the section differs from the cap and barrel and is the cause of the poor adhesion/delamination.

 

[Number99]

Occurrence of cracks → Permeation and residue of water in the lower layer → Repeated expansion and contraction of water (or freezing) → Separation of base and coating film → Vaporization of water (water vapor) → Bubbling.

 

 If the base is wood, the base slowly absorbs and releases water, but in the case of a fountain pen, it is ebonite, so this phenomenon will be noticeable.

 

 Invisible cracks are usually caused by dropping or deterioration.

 

 This is my personal opinion. I don't know if this happened with these fountain pens.