Reborn Treasure Appraiser: I Really Didn’t Want to Be an Expert

Chapter 70 Why are your hands so steady?
What is curing porcelain?

To put it simply: drill holes in the porcelain, and then use metals such as gold, silver, copper, and iron to make staple-like rivets to rivet the broken pieces together.

It sounds simple, but it’s really hard to do.

First of all, it is difficult to drill: the surface is too slippery, the porcelain is too hard, and the strength is extremely difficult to control.

If you use too much force, you will drill through the porcelain, which will add to the damage. If you use too little force, the glaze will crack. Don't fix it, just pay the other party for compensation.

Secondly, it is difficult to mend: they use metal nails, which have to be hammered in. Porcelain is fragile, and since it is a broken piece, a little pressure from the hammer will make a "clattering" sound.

Therefore, in ancient times, those who dared to mend porcelain were all skilled craftsmen, otherwise there would not be the proverb "If you don't have the skills, don't take on porcelain work" passed down.

And this is just rough work. After it is fixed, it will probably look like this:
The so-called fine work is what Lin Sicheng is going to do: after fixing it with rivets, he will use chiseling techniques to carve the gold foil into floral decorations and stick them on the surface of the porcelain, making it blend in with the cracks and rivets, leaving basically no trace of breakage or repair.

It is also a delicate job among delicate jobs. In ancient times, it was called "gilding on porcelain", commonly known as gilding.

Similarly, it is easier said than done, and even harder to do well.

The most important point is that engraving belongs to metal craft and has nothing to do with ceramics at all.

Therefore, Shang Yan's graduate students really don't know how to do it. That's why Shang Yan was so shocked when she heard Lin Sicheng asked for gold foil and chisels.

Repairing porcelain in the bronze laboratory was indeed a bit of a bully, but when it came to mending gold, she was speechless...

Too lazy to argue with Wang Qizhi anymore, she whispered to the graduate student: "Talk less, watch more, learn more..."

The eleven graduate students nodded in unison and scattered around the desk.

Lin Sicheng put his hands in his pockets and explained carefully:
"Senior Sister Li, mix the paint: First, 60% lacquer, 30% glutinous rice flour, 10% flour, mix well and set aside... Second, 50% lacquer, 20% egg white, 30% white porcelain powder, make a paste and set aside..."

"Drill bit, 1mm diameter, 3mm length... Crimp bit, 0.8cm length, 1mm diameter..."

"Assistant Professor Feng: Prepare gold foil, 0.5mm thickness, length and width to be determined... Heat the furnace, temperature 1200..."

His voice was soft, his tone was calm, and his expression was relaxed, but one could always feel that Lin Sicheng, wearing a white coat, exuded an invisible majesty.

The two nodded silently, each doing their job.

Lin Sicheng turned around and sorted the pile of porcelain pieces.

The glaze is very white, not very shiny, but very smooth, giving people a frosted texture. The mark is a flower seal: a lotus is printed on it, which shows that it is a product of a folk kiln.

There were about twenty pieces of various sizes. Lin Sicheng cleaned and fiddled with them at the same time. Soon, the clay model was covered with porcelain pieces.

The shape of the vessel can already be roughly identified: it should be a white-glazed plum vase from a folk kiln in the mid-Qing Dynasty.

The advantage is that the fragments are basically complete, with few gaps to be filled. The disadvantage is that the vessel is too large and there are too many fragments.

If it was just brazing, most of the graduate students present could do it, so they watched it very carefully.

After all, the instructor was praising Lin Sicheng to the heavens, saying how good his blue dots were and how exquisite his filigree was.

It is true that I have never learned enamel restoration, and even fewer people have actually seen cloisonné artifacts. There is no doubt that my skills are inferior to others.

But when it comes to areas that I am good at, I will instinctively think about comparisons:
Although Lin Sicheng was taught personally by Professor Lin, we were also carefully trained by Professor Shang, so we are not bad, okay?
Looking at the appearance of these students, Wang Qizhi subconsciously thought of Ye Anning the day before yesterday: Haha, I’m afraid that many people will not be able to eat tonight?

In all likelihood, Professor Shang must also be included...

Just as they were laughing, someone exclaimed, "He's so fast!"

Wang Qizhi looked carefully and saw that Lin Sicheng had already put the plum vase together and was marking the positions of the rivets with a marker.

Roughly speaking, it only took about ten minutes. But judging by Shang Yan's expression, she didn't seem too surprised. She even took the time to glare at the student who was making a fuss.

It seems there's a limit to how fast you can go. Pondering this, Lin Sicheng dropped his pen and picked up the electric drill.

There was finally some light in Shang Yan's eyes, and a group of graduate students stared at her intently.

Just heard a "whoosh" and there was a pit.

Then the second, the third... I felt my hand was incredibly steady and incredibly fast. With a buzz, the moment it touched, a small dent, slightly larger than a pinhole, appeared on the porcelain.

In less than half an hour, the drill kept buzzing. Lin Sicheng put down the drill and looked at the plum vase again. It was covered with dense holes, at least a hundred of them.

He picked up the tweezers and the prepared rivets, and Li Zhen followed behind him with a wooden hammer in his hand.

Bend the clip a little, then a little, and it became a small copper staple. He aligned the two tips of the staple with the small hole, pressed it down, and then took the hammer from Li Zhen's hand. With a "dong," the staple was driven in.

Then the second, the third... Each one was nailed in place once, never twice. Looking closely, each one was nailed securely.

As more and more porcelain pieces were mended, Shang Yan's expression became increasingly solemn.

A dozen or so graduate students looked at each other.

They had just had an argument, so it was not convenient to ask. Wang Qizhi was about to ask Hao Jun, but before he opened his mouth, he was stunned for a moment.

Hao Jun squinted his eyes and looked like he had a toothache.

He came closer and asked, "Secretary Hao, what's wrong?"

Hao Jun grinned, not knowing what to say.

Rongbaozhai also repairs porcelain, such as porcelain pen holders, pen washers, pen holders, and pen stands, and also uses the porcelain mending technique.

But someone as careless as Lin Sicheng... Oh no, it should be casual... Sigh, that doesn't seem right either?

Anyway, no one is as efficient as him.

It would be fine if the copying and marking were done quickly, but for someone like Lin Sicheng, drilling more than a hundred holes would take at least two days for the most skilled craftsman.

The reason is very simple, because people are afraid of slipping their hands: with a slip, a deep groove will appear on the surface.

What the hell is that?

But looking at Lin Sicheng, it seems that what he is holding in his hand is not a drill, but a pen: if he clicks the wrong button, he can just erase it and click again.

Then, "Woo" one, "Woo" another. The strange thing is, not only did his hand not slip, but he drilled very accurately, where he clicked, there was the pit?

Then when it comes to rivet fixing, the master is definitely more careful than when drilling: because there is only 2 mm of porcelain body left behind the pit at most, and in places where the glaze or body is uneven, there may be only 1, which is equivalent to only a layer of skin left.

A little more force would have pierced it. If it was just a hole, that would have been easy to deal with, but the worry was that it would cause an expansion reaction. "Snap", and it would be a flower.

There was no other way, so I had to work slowly and carefully: I aligned the nail with the eye, aligned the eye with the nail, and then gently hammered it in. If anything went wrong, I stopped immediately, checked, and corrected it repeatedly.

Therefore, it would take four to five days for even a master craftsman to fix more than a hundred eyelets.

Looking at Lin Sicheng again, he hammered one by one, and hammered one by one... In ten minutes or so, he had nailed nearly half of them.

Of course it wasn't pierced, and it didn't explode, otherwise Lin Sicheng would have stopped long ago.

Hao Jun couldn't quite wrap his head around it: even if this plum vase was from a folk kiln, it was still a highly prized piece from the Kangxi era's "Xinglin Chuntang." Just this pile of porcelain fragments alone had cost Lin Sicheng over 60,000 yuan.

How come his hands are so steady?

Sorry, it's a bit late. I searched for pictures for half a day, but couldn't find any suitable ones!

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(End of this chapter)