- Joined
- Jun 29, 2014
- Messages
- 4,059
I was talking to my boss the other day and he was showing me some barb cutting jigs and fixtures he was interested in making. As I queried him about his fly-tying hobby, he mentioned that the fly hooks are then "Japanned" afterwards. He was surprised I hadn't heard of it in the metalworking world...
I looked it up and its primarily referred to as a lacquering technique/product used in finishing Japanese wood products. As I dug a little deeper into Google...there was also a Youtuber restoring wood planes with a beat up finish that he referred to as japanned...(except he was using a paint marker to touch it up) It seems to me that American machine and tool makers would have just used something less exotic than the Japan lacquer that the term "Japanning" is referring to.
So, here is my question. Is this something that was used back in the day of machine and tool building? Is it just lacquer? And is it the same base materials as that used in Japan? Out of curiosity, is it called japanning in the metalworking world, or something else?
I looked it up and its primarily referred to as a lacquering technique/product used in finishing Japanese wood products. As I dug a little deeper into Google...there was also a Youtuber restoring wood planes with a beat up finish that he referred to as japanned...(except he was using a paint marker to touch it up) It seems to me that American machine and tool makers would have just used something less exotic than the Japan lacquer that the term "Japanning" is referring to.
So, here is my question. Is this something that was used back in the day of machine and tool building? Is it just lacquer? And is it the same base materials as that used in Japan? Out of curiosity, is it called japanning in the metalworking world, or something else?