Old Korean bowls

[squirrel]

Hi,

I read a book written by Yanagi 'The Unknown Craftsman' and in his book a certain moment he is writing about Korean woodwork which he considers to be the best woodwork he knows (1900 - 19..).
They turned the pine completely green and left it aside. Of course it cracked and ... Yanagi asked the woodturner 'How can you use the bowl when it leaks?'.
'Just mend it', was the answer.
Yanagi says they mend it so beautifully that the result is better then the original bowl.

Then I tried to find on internet some pictures of Korean woodworking and I found some other people looking for it as well .... and nobody found.

I wander whether one of you have ever seen such an old Korean bowl and if one of you know how they mend it and with what meterial they mend it.

Thanks!
Squirrel

 

[dkulze]

I don't know about Korean but you might look up the old Hawaian poi bowls. They are often made of Koa and some are hundreds of years old with many patches.

dietrich

 

[Paul Engle]

My first guess on mending would be taken from ship wrights using a " dutchman " patch to repair holes this goes back oh many hundreds of years . as the patch is used to template the repair.They cut the patch first then open the hole to match the patch, you see oval ( football shape ) style dutchmans on plywood all the time ( well CDX mostly and cab plys to fill voids) the work does not require any tool but a knife and a good shipwright can match a patch perfectly, I have seen it done. they are traditionally ( sorta ) butterfly shape as this aids in strength and rigidity and gives the patch the most surface area to mate to the hole with ( ie glueing) adhesive. A lot of the early glue was hide glue.Once the wood got wet, say a hull patch it would swell up and really seal the joint well. Lot a wood boats like Chris Craft , Owens etc out there and some of die hards still fix em the same way when they get a hole.There was a calabash bowl on Antiques Roadshow last season that had a dutchman in it ( Hawaiian) , the appraiser figured it had been done over 100 years ago and the bowl, if I remember right was from the 18 century.Good luck on your search and let us know if you find something.!

 

[squirrel]

I think the 'Dutchman' solution could be close to the truth ... I'll e-mail somebody else on the subject and will come back to it later.
Thanks!
Squirrel

 

[Ed_McDonnell]

Here's a link to an antique korean bowl on ebay. The pictures of the interior look like it was patched. I'll withold comment on the quality of the turning and patching..........


http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-fine-HU...65281355QQihZ006QQcategoryZ2194QQcmdZViewItem

Ed

 

[squirrel]

Korean bowls, boiled wood finishes

Here is the answer I received from Robin Wood.
He has written a great book on the history of bowls and makes replicas of old bowls and platters for daily use himself. A great guy. He lives in the UK Have a look at his website! I apologise he used palm and not paraffin ... but ... with beeswax. That paraffin oil is in a bottle which says ' oil especially for food containers' ... I did not solve this problem yet.


answer of Robin Wood:
Hello,

Glad you enjoyed the book, i will try to answer some questions. First
I have since changed my bowl treatment, I now use a cold pressed
linseed oil. I always liked this finish but for years did not use it
because english people tend not to like the smell for food. Anyway at
the moment I think it is the best so if I loose a few sales because
of the smell I don't mind. I used to use walnut oil...like linseed it
is a drying (curing) oil that is to say it sets of goes hard unlike
most oils like olive which stay liquid and can go rancid. The walnut
had a very nice smell and people liked it but I stopped using it
because of the few people who have nut allergy.

I did use the palm oil and beeswax mix. The organic palm oil was not
too expensive and very easy to use..one coat of hot oil but at room
temperature it is not so hard so I mixed it with the beeswax to make
it harder. Beeswax melts at 64C (147F) which is hotter than most
people eat soup. Heating the oil makes it thin and penetrates the
wood very well I still do that with linseed, some people and most
commercial finishes add thinners e.g. turpentine or white spirit to
have the same effect but I prefer just to heat the oil.

All these finishes I use are very good for eating from and very
durable. I try all finishes for a long time in my own home before
making any change. We eat from wooden plates and bowls and wash them
in hot water every day.

The Koreans and Soetsu Yanagi...I love his writings and yes I know
the bit about the cracked bowls well. Here is what I think, I believe
the koreans used green wood for bowls and that most of them would not
crack, just as I do and most traditional turners around the world
did. The 20th C japanese turners used dried wood so Yanagi could not
understand...the implication of his writing is that lots cracked and
were mended. Old mends are beautiful and were normally done by
drilling either side of the crack and stitching see pick on p 114
staples p 93 bottom and p69 or metal plates p69 top and p108 all
methods take longer than making a new bowl and would never have been
done by the turner which from memory Yanagi implied.

Its a shame he did not put pictures in the book but all the old
turnings in the book are clearly wet turned eg p 37 high footed tray
pl 40 rice bowl laquer on wood. No abrasives either just a tool
finish quite unlike modern Japanese laquerware. I wonder if there are
any of his Korean wood bowls in the mingei museum in japan it would
be good to see them.

Robin

 

[squirrel]

and this is the second answer of Robin Wood...

> I know in your book old reparations are made with iron or metal ...
> but thus
> this implicate they did it the same way in Korea or did they have
> another
> method?
> My instinct says they used another method ... . But what is it worth
> my instinct??? A lot I think but now and then it fails . Are you
> sure they
> mend things in Korea the same way as they mend in UK?

I don't know how the Koreans repaired bowls but I have seen bowls
from many countries across Europe, from Novgorod in Russia from
India and Afghanistan with the sort of repairs I talked about. The
stitching does not have to be metal I have also seen with natural
fibre. I have also seen stitching with spruce root. I don't know what
other method there could be for fixing can you think of any other way
that would stand up to use?