Joining a broken stick of ink

A while ago, I got some sticks of ink and brushes from a relative. I didn't have time to go through them until recently. That was when I found this.

At first, I thought I hit jackpot. The box had a price tag of 25,000 yen, but the ink inside is actually something else.😅 It was also cracked into three pieces.

 

So I tried to find a way to repair this broken stick of ink. On YouTube, I found a video that talked about how to join two sticks of ink. I thought the same method should work for trying to repair a broken stick of ink. I mean, the concept is the same, right?

 

The process is actually very simple. Ink is made of soot and gelatin. The concept is to melt the gelatin, and then let it harden again, using it as an adhesive. Use the stick of ink to make very, very thick ink, almost like paste. I did this by using a very small amount of water (about 2cm diameter) on an ink stone, then softly grinding the stick of ink to make ink that is very thick.

 

Then, using a small brush, I coated the areas to be joined with this thick ink. I then pressed them together by hand, and then used rubber bands to keep them in place while the stick of ink dries.

 

Once the ink has dried, the stick of ink was actually restored!

Guess this is another small piece of useful knowledge that I picked up, and I thought I would share it for anyone who might be wondering how to fix a broken stick of ink.