Chapter 284: First Meeting

At 1:30, the group arrived at the southeast corner of the Wangfu.

The Museum's Collection Research Department was located here.

Zhang Jindong said as he walked, "I've mentioned it a few times before; several colleagues in the Research Department have an impression of Teacher Lin. Knowing you were going to restore porcelain in the museum today, they all said they wanted to come and take a look."

This was to be expected.

There were seven or eight hundred pieces of damaged ware in the Wangfu warehouse; it was impossible to let these precious Cultural Relics just pile up inside and gather dust. The relevant restoration plan had been made long ago, but they had never been able to find a partner with sufficient craftsmanship.

Hearing this, they naturally wanted to come and observe the quite formidable restoration expert that Department Head Zhang had invited.

As they spoke, the two entered the gray building.

It was not tall, just two stories, and there were not many departments. Although there was no dedicated Porcelain Research Laboratory, there was a laboratory for material ware (glass-type Cultural Relics, such as Snuff Bottles). Most of the equipment needed for porcelain restoration was available here.

Li Zhen and Xiao Yuzhu handled Information Detachment, the Person in Charge of the equipment department led Zhao Boheng and Zhao Zhong'an to calibrate the equipment, and Lin Sicheng designed the restoration plan.

To the side, several staff members from the Education and Communication Department turned on their cameras, preparing to record the process simultaneously.

After about ten minutes, there was movement outside the door. Then, with a rustle, a large group of people entered.

There were men and women, middle-aged and young.

Zhang Jindong introduced them one by one, and Lin Sicheng shook hands with each of them.

After another ten minutes or so, the preparations were complete.

Li Zhen turned the notebook, which contained the organized specimen Information. For example, body and glaze composition, damaged areas, missing volume, glaze color Spectrum, and body density.

After a quick scan, Lin Sicheng began to give instructions: "Except-Ladder Purification: One, Ultrasound to remove organic contamination, solvent: acetone + tetrahydrofuran, time: ten minutes."

"Two, 5% EDTA Disodium Salt solution, pH value 0, plus or minus 5. Three, Plasma Flow to remove microbial film, power 100W..."

He did not say who was to do what, but the four Assistants were calm and unhurried, their movements skillful and their coordination fluid.

The group of museum staff was exceptionally curious.

Department Head Zhang had said he had invited a master of ancient ceramics, so they had assumed he would be at least sixty or seventy, or at the very least forty or fifty.

Since it was ancient ceramic restoration, they were sure he would use the most traditional methods.

They hadn't expected the person to be so young, and to be so adept at using machines.

To say nothing of anything else, just take the Laser Cleaning Machine and the Plasma Cleaning Machine; although both were domestically developed equipment, they had only been introduced to the field of Cultural Relic Restoration in recent years.

Especially the Plasma Cleaning Machine; the Forbidden City had only tentatively introduced it the year before last, and after a year of debugging and improvement, the manufacturer had only achieved custom production last year.

The one in the material ware room had only been equipped around May Day, and the manufacturer and Technician had just finished training and left last month.

Yet that female Assistant was more proficient than the technicians in the museum?

While they were secretly pondering, the cleaning work was finished, and Lin Sicheng gave further instructions:

"Prepare, one, Blue Glaze Covered Jar, materials: Willow Leaf Bow-Shaped Nail, Square Shoulder Horse-Shaped Nail, Water Chestnut Flower Invisible Nail, all nail feet filed with fish-scale patterns."

"Prepare coolant: Tea Oil, Turpentine, ratio 1:3. Sturgeon Bladder Glue, 70% ratio. Longquan Bone Powder, 5%. Drill bit diameter 6mm..."

"Two, Bean Green Glaze Bowl Lid, materials: Varnish Powder, Daoguang Porcelain Body Powder, Donkey Skin Glue melted over a gentle fire. Glue-to-varnish ratio, 5:3:2. Glaze-to-varnish ratio: Raw Lacquer 48% + Silica Sol 30% + Chromium Oxide Green 15% + Bone Powder 7%. Gold Foil: 2mm wide long strips, 8mm square pieces."

"Three, Xianfeng Famille Rose Plate, glue solution: Sturgeon Bladder Glue melted over a gentle fire, 1% Ice Flake, 2% Dragon's Blood Powder, filtered through 200 mesh. Color material: Copper Flower 3% + Quartz Sand 97%. Ivory Micro-Tenon: 5×3mm."

"Four, Guangxu Blue and White Cup... forget it, I'll do this one!"

The few people worked in an orderly manner, and the museum staff watched quietly.

As the saying goes, one can infer other things from one. Since they worked in this line of business, even though they didn't study porcelain, they understood the basics.

For example, the nails and drill bits Lin Sicheng had the Assistants prepare showed that he intended to use the Stapling technique to restore that Blue Glaze Covered Jar.

He had also mixed raw lacquer and cut Gold Foil, so he was definitely using Gold Repair to restore that Bean Green Glaze Bowl Lid.

They knew Donkey Skin Glue, and they knew Sturgeon Bladder Glue; both were common glue solutions used in the Imperial Household Department Zaozuochang for porcelain restoration during the Qing Dynasty.

Including the use of broken Imperial Porcelain from the Daoguang reign; they knew this too: the body quality of porcelain from the same period was basically the same, which could reduce expansion stress.

But as the saying also goes, different trades are like different mountains, so they couldn't quite understand the things that followed.

For example: adding traditional Chinese medicine to the glue solution, or one of the female Assistants taking a thin, small white stick and filing it incessantly, then cutting it into short little segments.

After about half an hour, the materials were fully prepared, and the restoration officially began.

The first piece, the Tongzhi Changchun Tongqing Mark Blue Glaze Covered Jar.

This piece had a relatively large shape and a relatively thick porcelain body, so Lin Sicheng adopted a relatively simple Stapling technique.

The process was also very simple: drilling, bonding, sealing the nails, baking, and Foil Application.

With a series of "woo-woo-woo" and "ding-ding-dang-dang" sounds, after about an hour, the covered jar was sent into the Electric Kiln for baking.

Lin Sicheng began to repair the second piece: the Shedetang Mark Bean Green Glaze Bowl Lid.

This piece was small in shape and not as shattered as the previous blue glaze jar; it had only cracked into four pieces, but two chunks were missing in the middle. One was about the size of a thumbprint, and one was about the size of a pinky print.

Lin Sicheng prepared to use the Gold Repair technique, that is, filling the missing parts with raw lacquer, and applying Gold Foil to most of the glazed surface, with minor glaze touch-ups.

This time the bonding was faster; in less than half an hour, the main structure was restored. But the glaze touch-up took an hour: fearing a color difference, Lin Sicheng painted it twice and baked it twice.

The third piece was the Guangxu Famille Rose Sunflower-Mouth Plate; this one had only cracked into two halves. But the shape was too wide and the decoration too complex, so neither Stapling nor Gold Repair was suitable, making the restoration difficulty higher than the previous two.

Lin Sicheng prepared to adopt the "Stapling Gold and Mortise and Tenon" restoration technique.

This hadn't been discussed much before, and the Assistants couldn't help much, so Lin Sicheng had to do it himself.

The three people stood to the side watching quietly, leaving only Li Zhen to pass tools, glue solutions, and the like.

At first, they all thought it would be like the previous restoration process, and the museum staff didn't pay much attention.

But when they saw Lin Sicheng holding a Needle-Type Drill and drilling holes in the middle of the cross-section of the broken foot, someone realized something was wrong.

With the hole drilled to this point, how did he intend to proceed with the repair?

Subsequently, Lin Sicheng applied the glue and inserted several pieces of Ivory no thicker than a strand of hair into the small holes, and the museum staff realized belatedly: Mortise and Tenon connection?

They studied Qing history, and the museum staff present basically all knew that during the Qing Dynasty, there indeed existed such a restoration technique:

"Imperial Household Department Workshop Records": Method for bonding porcelain plate mortise holes, take Ivory and Fish Bladder Glue, chisel a rectangular hole three li deep...

There were also those that used Nanmu Wood Wood Wood.

In the sixth year of the Tongzhi reign of the Qing dynasty, the "Archives of Works of the Imperial Household Department" recorded: A pink porcelain plate had two chipped edges; Liu San'er of the Zaozuochang was ordered to use Nanmu Wood Wood Wood to create tenons, bond them with fish glue, fill the exterior with Guan-style Glaze, at a cost of twelve taels of silver...

But I had only ever seen it in historical records; this is the first time I have seen such a repair in reality...