Damaged Inkstone Repair?

[Heather]

Hi,

I was given an ink stone apparently made in Japan that was badly treated. It’s not a high end stone, but it has a chipped area that will interfere with proper ink stick grinding and it would certainly be good enough otherwise.  I keep a few inexpensive stones to share with my students if they don’t have one. See photos.

I have read that it is possible to polish the chip smooth using high grit sandpaper and water. I’d like some advice on this please.

With gratitude,

Heather

 

[multapaakku]

Yes, this can be done, but how easily depends on how hard or not the stone is. Yours is claiming to be an Amehata 雨畑 stone and I don’t have any experience working on those, but I’ll share what I can.

Get a couple waterproof silicon carbide papers of different grits (I won’t be giving any numbers because standards can differ on your end) and a grinding block to wrap the paper around. The paper will last longer when you moisten it properly. Start with a medium grit and smooth out the entire surface until the pit is gone. If this seems to take forever then you either need a more robust abrasive or more patience. Then move towards the higher grits.

The final surface will probably feel slippery and not good to grind ink on. To finish off the job, you may want to use something like the mud block from Inkston, Universal Stone, or even kitchen scrub with calcium carbonate such as Cif Cream (see this Japanese hobbyist’s experiment). Here’s another Japanese article on “opening” the inkstone.

[hanayama]

Thank you very much for this useful info!

[Author]

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