Really, this pot is cracked! In this post I will show how I repaired simple cracks on this Chinese Antique pot. The repair isn’t permanent but will last for many years. I will also talk about how to distinguish the difference between a crack made during the life of the pot and surface cracks that occurred during the firing process. Perhaps you have some cracked pots in your own collection that you can try fixing or perhaps it turns out they weren’t really cracks at all.
How do you know a pot is cracked?
There are several ways to find out if a pot is cracked. The first thing I always do is hold the pot with one hand and tap it on several points with the knuckle of my other hand. The sound that you get should be a somewhat high pitch resonating sound. The harder the clay, the higher the pitch of the resonating sound. If the sound is a dud sound with no resonance, then there is a crack somewhere. The second thing I do is a thorough visual inspection of the pot. With a good visual inspection, you can find small chips or even repairs to the pot that the sound check will not detect. Once a cracked pot is repaired, the pot will produce a resonating sound when tapped.
The best way to train your eyes and ears is to go through your own collection and practice. Get use to what the resonating sound sounds like because it’s slightly different from pot to pot. Then thoroughly inspect the pots and try to find all the small imperfections on them. You may be surprised at what you find. With enough practice, the chances that you buy a pot that is cracked or have unknown imperfections will drop dramatically. It’s always a bummer when you take a pot home and find out it’s cracked.
Why are cracks important to identify?
1. Value – The value of a pot will always go down if it’s cracked, damaged or have been repaired. Depending on what kind of pot it is, the value may drop slightly or sometimes become worthless. Mr. Tanaka says the great thing about a pot is that even if it is cracked or have been repaired, it can still be used in Bonsai. Sometimes good pots that have cracks on them can still retain a very high value.
2. Prevent further damage – if the pot is somewhat valuable, knowing that there is a crack is important because you don’t want the crack to grow bigger. Once there is a crack on a pot, any subtle impact or even putting a tree into the pot may cause further damage. Once cracks are found you have a chance to get the cracked fixed.
Difference between a regular crack and a surface crack from the kiln
Let’s get to the fixing!
Caution!
This simple way of fixing cracks are not permanent. After long term exposure to moisture, the glue will start to deteriorate and the pot can potentially continue to crack again. Having said that, this is a quick way to temporarily hold a crack together. A real fix done by a professional can be very costly depending on the type of pot and it involves adding pins or staples to hold everything together. If the pot isn’t worth very much, it may not be cost effective to get it professionally fixed. The nice thing about the professional fix though is that the repaired area will actually become stronger then the rest of the pot so a break will never occur there again. Sometimes the professional work is so good that you can’t tell the pot had ever been repaired. It takes advance techniques and knowledge of pottery to spot out the almost perfect repairs.
More to come
In the future, I will post more about pots themselves and some of the repairs I come across. There are so many tricks out there to fix cracks, small imperfections and even filling chips with gold. As always, I will post as I learn more.
If you have your own stories about repairing pots, please share them with us in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading