Our fountain pens are mostly made of Ebonite, they become covered in urushi lacquer during a two to three months lasting process, where each step is done with lovingly care by hand. 

A lot of different steps have to be done until an urushi lacquered pen is finished. Afte taking apart the pen the threads are covered with a masking tape, and the whole pen is cleaned with soap and alcohol. After sanding all parts of the pen with #1000 grid sandpaper the first base coats in black urushi are applied. All parts have to be cured in controlled conditions, with constant moisture and temperature, to ensure a complete polymerization of the urushi (Usually lacquers are cured when a volatile solvent, in which resins are dissolved, evaporates. However urushi is polymerized by an enzyme - laccase - to give a cross-linked polymerized film, it is polymerized without any volatile solvent that is evaporating, this process works only under the right conditions, in very thin layers).

After each lacquer layer is cured, the surface is wet sanded an the next layers is applied. The lacquer layers can be decorated by sprinkling metal poweders into them, or by pigment colored urushi can be used. We use high quality japanese urushi in black, red and clear as well as kijo-mi-urushi (special refined and cleared), which is very expensive. For decorations we use powdergold and hologram glitter.

If you want to read moe about how each item was done, the creation process and the used materials are detailed at each subpage.