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Kintsugi – Art of Repair
- asguy 5y agoI don't know about "better". Anyone who has repaired a mug with kintsugi and then put a hot cup of coffee in it, knows what I'm talking about. You're living a perpetual gamble with the quality of your patchwork.
- xwdv 5y agoIf it breaks you do more kintsugi.
- eric__cartman 5y agocan I do kintsugi on my crotch after spilling hot liquid over it when the mug breaks?
- thehappypm 5y agoThen you sue Japan for millions.
- piyh 5y agoThis is why I recently had to replace my glass trackpad
- lupire 5y agoThat's why it's important that the repair work is highly visible.
- Gigachad 5y agoEspecially when a mug costs about $1 and lasts just about forever. On the rare occasion you drop it, just chuck it. There are much more important things which could be fixed.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoBetter in what sense? It seems unlikely that a cup repaired with lacquer and gold dust would be suitable for hot liquids!
- shellfishgene 5y agoI've done this with epoxy (sold as "food safe") and mica powder, and the results have gone through the dishwasher dozens of times just fine. Haven't poured boiling water in so far though.
- foo_barrio 5y agoI have tea cups repaired this way and have attempted to repair a few cups with lacquer. The cups work fine after 5+ years.
- ofrzeta 5y agoThe first time I read your comment I understood it as "it took the cup five years to reach a state that it could be used (again)" because the lacquer takes so long to dry. That would have added another fine twist (patience) to Kintsugi :-)
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoAs the other commenters have pointed out, "better" is kind of a weird take. I don't think the linked story uses the word "better" at all, and kintsugi isn't really about making something better - but rather about embracing imperfections and finding beauty in something that was broken and could have been discarded, but was instead restored to use.
- elif 5y agoan object of history and with a story has necessarily more types of value. it is precisely through its salvage that it attains these qualities.
- bigmattystyles 5y agoIf you like this and want a serving of 'the feels', check out 'Repair Shop' - it's from the BBC and you can't stream whole episodes, but check them out here https://www.youtube.com/c/TheRepairShop https://www.youtube.com/c/TheRepairShop
- userbinator 5y agoRelatedly, in a different country, 'Mustie1' on YouTube may also be to your liking.
- marshray 5y ago'Repair Shop' is on Netflix (in the US at least). Highly recommended.
- pkaye 5y agoI prefer something similar from Japan. Its so soothing to watch. https://www.youtube.com/c/ShuuriMisemasuFansub/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/ShuuriMisemasuFansub/videos
- mensetmanusman 5y agoI have been thinking about this but for new things. It’s interesting to consider that almost everything we purchase can be improved immediately. Usually there are cost savings that result in sub-par properties. Some random examples: -Injection molded kitchen ware can’t easily have through holes to drain water during dishwashing. This can easily be fixed :) -New windows don’t always have high quality silicone sealant at the interface between the window and the wood.One can add this to prevent condensation in the gaps (use blue tape to mask everywhere you don’t want the silicone) -New clothes don’t have extra anti-stain materials near the collars, which is where they wear out firstly
- Cerium 5y agoA couple of my favorite new item todos: First thing I do with a trash can is drill some holes a few inches from the bottom. When the bag is full the holes will let in some air and make bag removal much easier. Keep the holes away from the bottom to reduce the risk of a broken bag leaking any spilled liquids. The containers of salt I buy have the classic flip top aluminum pour spout. The tip of the spout can be bent away from the lid to aid in opening and reduce the risk of fingernail injury.
- dylanz 5y agoThose are both great tips! I bought a trash can (a Nordic brand) recently and it did have holes in the bottom. I actually noticed how easy it was to pull the bag out. No suction. In regard to salt, I recommend getting a salt pig! I just got one recently. If you cook a lot the ease of access is great.
- micromacrofoot 5y agothere is something beautiful in the variety of ways a simple trashcan can be drilled and cut up; custom drain-holes must have so much variation; what’s the average volume of liquid garbage people are willing to tolerate before it overflows
- Dylan16807 5y ago
- zacharynewton 5y agoCloud/SaaS providers could learn a lot from this practice
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoOkay, I'm interested but not quite following. How so? Are we talking software, or do you mean to get more mileage out of hardware by fixing failed machines?
- akouri 5y agoI have a slight obsession with fixing things. I think it's just in my engineering blood. Beyond software and other little trinkets, I've also taken a penchant for old houses. I just bought an old home and the amount of simple things that can be "kintsugi'ed" is astronomical. The house is chock full of broken old stuff that can be made better with some love. One cool example of the period charm is a "butler bell" in the dining room. I had never seen or heard of this concept before, but basically it's a rope/pulley system that rings a bell in the kitchen to notify your butler that you need him. That way, the butler can stay in the kitchen while the bourgeoisie feast in peace.
- themodelplumber 5y agoDid you fix the bell? And have you seen a residential dumbwaiter yet?
- techbio 5y ago"Why it will be years before robot butlers take over your household chores" https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/23/future-robots-home-jetsons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/23/future-...
- binarysolo 5y agoThe title on the article, "Kintsugi – Art of Repair" is different than the title in the submission. Came in to (also) say that kintsugi isn't about making things better, but more about the acceptance of the damage as part of the item's history which is sorta beautiful and poetic in its own way.
- dang 5y agoYes. Submitted title was "Kintsugi – The art of repair to make broken things better than before", which broke the site guideline against editorializing: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." We've reverted it now. Thanks! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. Notice how many comments in this thread are making objections to the distracting and extraneous word 'better' (which was, in the submitted title, but nowhere in the original article) that's a good example of (one reason) why we have this rule.
- sysOpOpPERAND 5y agothat is very cool, i didnt know there was a word for it. i remember when i was a boy i would take apart random electronics that my dad gave to me. it was so fun, i tell you what, if someone created a store like how they have make and paint your own pottery stores but for taking apart, rebuilding, or freshly assembling electronics like my dad coached me with, i think it would be very popular and also help peak interest in electronics. kinda like build a bear but build a bot/radio/computer/basic tv or whatever
- bigiain 5y agoI think you just independently invented HackerSpaces...
- scollet 5y agoThe love child of offbits, kiwico, and adafruit is the STEAM dream.
- wingerlang 5y agoThere's this https://therestartproject.org/parties/ https://therestartproject.org/parties/
- Zababa 5y agoI practice "シアノアクリレート継ぎ", which is the same thing but using cyanoacrylate adhesives instead of gold. I'm not sure how food safe it is though.
- renewiltord 5y agoWould you kindly share a photograph of something you have made with this technique?
- washadjeffmad 5y agoTo non-kana readers, "shianoakurireeto tsugi", more literally cyanoacrylate "patch". 継 is used in ideas like inheritance, succession, relief (pitcher), and relays (the thing that provides continuity between things).
- Zababa 5y agoTo expand a bit on that for the curious, kintsugi is written as 金継ぎ. 金 is "gold" (the "kin" in kintsugi), so I replaced the "gold" part with the "cyanoacrylate" part, and glued it to the 継ぎ ending. Katakana (the symbols used for シアノアクリレート) is often used for foreign words. 金 and 継 are kanjis, characters that comes from China. They usually have different pronunciations depending on if they are alone or part of a word. ぎ is an hiragana, the hiragana for "gi". Hiragana and katakana are syllabaries that are mostly equivalent. ぎ in katakana would be ギ, and シアノアクリレート in hiragana would be しあのあくりれっと.
- pezezin 5y agoTo expand on your comment, the ぎ after 継 is an okurigana, a suffix used to specify the pronunciation of the preceding kanji. Anyway, your comment really made me laugh, so please take your upvote :D
- colechristensen 5y agoThey do use CA glue directly on your body to do some bio patch work so the bulk ingredient is at least somewhat safe, though the medical grade stuff is crazy expensive and who knows what’s in the $1 tube as additives. (Like plastic, often but not always the chemicals of concern aren’t the main polymer but things added to it to improve its engineering qualities.)
- renewiltord 5y agoSee also: Wabi Sabi.
- ofrzeta 5y agoThat's mentioned in the article as well. It also mentions something called "mushin": the "Japanese philosophy of “no mind” (mushin), which encompasses the concepts of non-attachment, acceptance of change and fate as aspects of human life" although the Wikipedia article on that topic unfortunately focuses on mushin related to martial arts.
- almog 5y agoQuite in the same spirit but for clothing: https://www.reddit.com/r/Visiblemending/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Visiblemending/
- ofrzeta 5y agoAlso available in Japanese under the term of Sashiko :-)
- thecrumb 5y agoThe other thing think about is if to repair it so it is 'good enough' vs a 'perfect' repair.
- 1cvmask 5y agoESG before it became a buzzword and fashionable. I know see ESG in so many pitch decks even. I first learnt of Kintsugi from a ceramics artist. Truly fascinating.
- humanistbot 5y agoESG? Can't find anything on the Wikipedia disambig that makes sense in relation to kintsugi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESG
- 1cvmask 5y agoESG is primarily an acronym for sustainability and not throwing away things: Environmental, social and corporate governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corporate_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social_and_corp...
- gregoire 5y agoI'm slightly doubtful that this is an authentic thing (by which I mean: "actually practiced in the 15th/16th centuries"). Most of the content around this technique on the web is not in Japanese, and even the Japanese Wikipedia entry about it [0] is quite terse. Or maybe it's just that non-Japanese people have more interest in it than Japanese do? If anyone has more knowledge about kintsugi, I would love some historical references which confirm that this technique was actually used in the past. [0]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%91%E7%B6%99%E3%81%8E https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%91%E7%B6%99%E3%81%8E
- aonsager 5y agoFor what it's worth, I was familiar with this technique before seeing this or other non-Japanese articles. It doesn't have much relevance for daily life now which can explain why very few people seem to have heard of it, but I would imagine that people who study tea ceremony for example would be more likely to know about it.
- modernpink 5y agoAre the pictures of bowls from that period repaired with this technique on the Wikipedia pages enough as historical references or are you looking for something else?
- gregoire 5y agoMost of the kintsugi photos on Wikipedia do not state the date nor the origin of the object they depict, except for one, so I'm looking for something a bit more substantial.
- monocasa 5y agoHere's a historical collection. https://noma.org/kintsugi-reflects-beauty-in-flaws-strength-in-healing/ https://noma.org/kintsugi-reflects-beauty-in-flaws-strength-...
- gregoire 5y agoThank you!
- johnklos 5y agoI feel this. As someone who owns a forty-plus year old car that has more than 770,000 miles on it, I care much more about function than appearance. I don't want original - I want better. When something goes wrong, I see what, I see why, and I try to fix it so it's better and stronger than before. Likewise, I don't strive for authentic and original when fixing up old VAXen, Amigas, or Macs. I want functional, and I want new caps that're better than original. It's nice to know there's an appreciation for not original, but better.
- techbio 5y agoThat is impressive mileage. I've heard mention that classic car owners are especially excited to keep their show vehicles running indefinitely with new 3D printed parts.
- walrus01 5y agoWhat is it? Old Mercedes diesel?
- johnklos 5y agoDiesel Chevette with Isuzu 4FB1 engine and five speed. It's an engine meant for generators, forklifts and other industrial applications. It's incredibly robust. The rest of the car is another matter ;)
- jonpurdy 5y agoSpeaking of old Macs, I use a 1993 Apple M1242 Adjustable Keyboard (via USB Wombat) as my daily driver※. When I first learned of Kintsugi a few years ago, my keyboard was the first thing I thought of. The original keyboard had about half of the keys non-functional or working incorrectly (double/triple letters). So I got a second keyboard and ended up testing all keys on both, keeping the working ones on the original, and desoldering/resoldering the working ones from the donor to the original. This took a few months on and off since I'd keep discovering new keys that were slightly broken or intermittent. I also modified the keyboard to remove a couple of plastic tabs, to make the top covers easier to remove (since I had to do it so many times). The ribbon cable connecting both halves is also prone to failure, so I sanded down some of the plastic around it to ensure it wouldn't get snagged or compressed (and ordered a spare cable from a parts keyboard as well). I also did a bit of Retrobrite to restore it to its original colour. Anyway, you really have to love something a lot to put that much effort into it (and probably wouldn't have bothered/had time if I had a baby when I got it a few years ago). ※ - Photo here: https://flic.kr/p/2myqXVR https://flic.kr/p/2myqXVR
- anthk 5y agoThis may be related to Wabi-Sabi.
- greggman3 5y agoI love the way this looks and in Japan they sell kits hobby/DIY stores with everything you need. They have them on Amazon too. I thought this was an art form but, living in Japan I couldn't find any ... I found a couple of schools and the schools had student and teacher projects on display but I didn't find places selling much as "art" or "crafts". I'm not saying I found zero. Rather I'm saying I found so little that my conclusion is this is mostly (a) a fun hobby and (b) a service where you can hire someone to fix a cherished item.
- alanh 5y agoI've said it before and will say it again: There needs to be a good, cheap, easy, aesthetic way to fix cracked brittle plastics, kintsugi-style. My go-to example is my plastic laundry basket, whose structural integrity is severely compromised by one crack right in the top-middle of a long side.
- jareklupinski 5y agomix some gold glitter / powder into the two-part epoxy used to set the pieces together :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7hQQHEJWAc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7hQQHEJWAc (extreme example and not necessarily for repairs but gets a lot of colors in)
- fho 5y agoLaundry baskets are the worst ... I had oh so many break, mostly the handle rips right out which screws up the structural integrity as you say.
- chemmail 5y agoThis sounds like a good idea for fixing iPhone backs. There is simply no easy way to fix them without taking over an hour even with a $1500 laser machine.
- lwouis 5y agoThe spirit of this, caring for objects that have helped people for a long time so they can be used for years to come, is something I try to develop in regards to software. I try to point out to people who use words like "legacy" as an insult that the system having reached that status and still being maintained is a sign that it has served a lot in the past and probably can if maintained with care. I think the "my dream would be to rewrite it from scratch using [FOTM language]" is a bad mindset. I think we should be curious about old software like we are about many physical old objects. You wouldn't visit a windmill and call it a terrible relic of the past; you would marvel at how ingenuous people had been with so little back then). By cherishing and caring for what we have been handed over, we have a great opportunity to maintain and improve it, and hand it over to the next generation/team. I live in Japan where the care for other people work is everywhere, and i can witness how it then motivate people to do their best, and cultivate a culture of respect and care.
- fho 5y agoWhile I generally agree with your sentiment, I find the windmill example a bit lacking. Two thoughts: (a) Wind mills _are_ relics from the past. They were replaced with [FOTM mills] as soon as better alternatives became available (probably during the industrial revolution?). (b) Wind mills themselves are only the pinnacle of what was possible at that time and as [FOTM mills], they have replaced other types of mills (ox- or hand-driven) that came before them. Still, your point stands, software can be build to last the test of time. I "maintain" two (tiny) Haskell libraries [0] that each do one very specific thing. And those have been basically unchanged since I wrote them five years ago. [0] 18 stars on Github is worth something, right? ... right? :-)
- lwouis 5y ago> They were replaced with [FOTM mills] as soon as better alternatives became available (probably during the industrial revolution?). This is not true. The definition of "better" doesn't exist as it's subjective. Windmills of all types exist today, and co-existed back then. Some people like certain trade-offs, and other people like other trade-offs. Saying for example that a metal tool is better than a wood tool is simply wrong. Some people to this day use very old technology, very much on purpose, because they deem it superior. People still marvel at stone buildings even though modern buildings use cement. There are different types or cement actually and all have pros and cons. Like Roman cement may last longer at the cost of needing more time/money whereas modern cement can be mass produced. You can find analogies in software where old C tools are to this day cherished by many. Another example is people collecting retro hardware, or recreating old software like SerenityOS. Some "improvements" may not be seem as such by some users, the same way an old master cheese maker does not see an industrial steel milk mixer as an improvement for what they are trying to do, as well the lifestyle they are trying to promote.
- q-base 5y agoVery interesting website. Any other recommendations of sites about Japanese culture?
- npteljes 5y agoHere[0] a Japanese carpenter does something similar to old wood, because they are moving an old house to a new location. The whole process is filmed, and he also shows how he does different traditional Japanese joineries. I think it's as authentic as it gets. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z9YfgU-WzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z9YfgU-WzQ
- q-base 5y agoThanks a lot. Love watching things like that to relax.
- fho 5y agoDoes anyone have a recommendation for a "how to" instructional on this? Sometime ago one of my SOs grandmothers bowls broke and since then I thought about trying this. Reading the article I apparently had the wrong impression on how this is done. They talk about lacquer mixed with gold dust ... I somehow got the impression that they use gold and capillary suction to get the gold to flow into the fracture.
- glanzwulf 5y agoThere are a lot of kits out there but you have to be careful. I didn't really read up much on this and bought a kit and I think it was your basic epoxy with gold dust mixed in. In my case and the tiny letters confirm it, it meant the finished product is not really food safe and it's also not heat safe. To display the bowls it works quite well... but that's about it. But there are a lot of kits out there, and I still have some other items I might give another go with a better kit.
- fho 5y agoHow smooth are fractures of porcelain? Probably too smooth for gold to hold it together like solder does metals?
- nxpnsv 5y agoMuch like my code, starts out ok. Then breaks, and I fill it with gold so it is beautiful. Except that part about gold and beauty...
- topologie 5y agoI remember watching the following video on Kintsugi a while ago and liking it quite a bit: "Kintsugi: The Art of Embracing Damage" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT55_u8URU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT55_u8URU0