Bakafish
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2022
- Location
- Tokyo Japan
With the demise of Canode I know there's been a lot of consternation about what to replace it with. I've seen some good recommendations of alternates in various threads here in the reconditioning section, and ongoing research on a water based substitute that is similar to Canode. But I think it may be helpful to throw the Japanese pigments into the mix as there is a good chance many of you would otherwise not be exposed to them.
The main distributor over here is TRUSCO, but I believe the OEM is a manufacturer in Osaka with the name Monami which is confusing as there is a large unrelated Korean brand of art supplies by that name. The pigments come in two colors, Red and Blue, and more cryptically two flavors organic and inorganic for a total of 4 different types. For a long time I've searched to try and understand what the practical difference was, and today located some old documentation from the OEM that gave a little more insight between the two types.
According to the Japanese document, for the blue pigments the Inorganic (E Type) is easier to remove and can be wiped off a surface, whereas the Organic (H Type) is much more tenacious and requires solvent to remove from the surface. The E type tends to be less stable over time and is more susceptible to clumping. With the red pigments, the E type is primarily made of Vermilion pigment but does contain some lead and chromium, the H type is free of all heavy metals.
This information isn't super satisfying, but it's more than I had a day ago. I do not (yet?) have any of the red pigments, but I had both of the blue pigments as I wanted to have something on hand while I waited for my Canode to arrive from the US (I eventually had to bring it back myself because I couldn't convince anyone it was safe to ship.) The only one I have used for scraping has been the Organic H type, which I chose to try first over the E type because 'organic'
My experience with it was good, it was messy and required careful handling, but cheap disposable plastic gloves and a few paper towels made it easy enough to deal with and the feel and spreadability seemed quite manageable. It also didn't dry out at all, I left it on my little plate for a few months and it still seemed workable and didn't induce any corrosion or other negative effects.
The three pigments had some differences in what I'll call 'workability' with the Canode feeling like it was the hardest to spread and get a consistent film layer. I didn't dilute these with anything, and I have seen Richard King mention mixing the Canode with Windex and other thinning agents, so I may not be doing it justice, but as many of you will never get your hands on this stuff, for this comparison I'm just using it straight from the bottle.
The H type really felt the most pliable and I could get a good layer and even pigmentation coverage with ease. The E type wasn't bad, it was better than the Canode. As far as the transfer (print) to another surface, they all seemed to do a good job, with a clear transfer of color to the workpiece. The Canode and E type could both be easily wiped off the metal surfaces with a paper towel, and as indicated in the document, the H type was a lot more tenacious although basic solvents took it off with ease.
I intentionally exposed one finger to each of these pigments, really rubbing them in to see the extent of the staining and how difficult (or possible) they were to remove. The Canode literally jumped off my finger when exposed to water, I can understand why people like the easy cleanup. But the two oil based pigments didn't noticeably stain my fingers and came off with soap and water without much effort. I didn't notice a real difference between the two (although on the metal surface they were quite different) so I don't think anyone should really be afraid of these. I've never used Dychem High Spot, I've seen that it may be more aggressive in that respect. I'm going to try and work with the Canode as I made a lot of effort to get it, and the cleanup was really quite easy, but I suspect I'll keep using the H type as it was the easiest to spread and seemed consistent across several days of usage.
As far as getting your hands on these pigments, I don't have any good advice, but my guess is they are more obtainable than Canode at this point and a 100ml tube feels like it would last a long time. I've attached the two MSDS sheets that show the basic constituent components as it might be helpful when comparing them.
TRUSCO Blue Paste H (ブリューペーストＨ) UPC: 4989999445305
TRUSCO Blue Paste E (ブリューペーストE) UPC: 4989999445299
You can find the red variants and modern 'Red Lead' substitutes listed here. A lot of the traditional hand scrapers over here use the red stuff, not sure if it is real red lead or these safer replacements (although as I mentioned before they still seem to use heavy metals in some of these red products.)
The main distributor over here is TRUSCO, but I believe the OEM is a manufacturer in Osaka with the name Monami which is confusing as there is a large unrelated Korean brand of art supplies by that name. The pigments come in two colors, Red and Blue, and more cryptically two flavors organic and inorganic for a total of 4 different types. For a long time I've searched to try and understand what the practical difference was, and today located some old documentation from the OEM that gave a little more insight between the two types.
According to the Japanese document, for the blue pigments the Inorganic (E Type) is easier to remove and can be wiped off a surface, whereas the Organic (H Type) is much more tenacious and requires solvent to remove from the surface. The E type tends to be less stable over time and is more susceptible to clumping. With the red pigments, the E type is primarily made of Vermilion pigment but does contain some lead and chromium, the H type is free of all heavy metals.
This information isn't super satisfying, but it's more than I had a day ago. I do not (yet?) have any of the red pigments, but I had both of the blue pigments as I wanted to have something on hand while I waited for my Canode to arrive from the US (I eventually had to bring it back myself because I couldn't convince anyone it was safe to ship.) The only one I have used for scraping has been the Organic H type, which I chose to try first over the E type because 'organic'
My experience with it was good, it was messy and required careful handling, but cheap disposable plastic gloves and a few paper towels made it easy enough to deal with and the feel and spreadability seemed quite manageable. It also didn't dry out at all, I left it on my little plate for a few months and it still seemed workable and didn't induce any corrosion or other negative effects.The three pigments had some differences in what I'll call 'workability' with the Canode feeling like it was the hardest to spread and get a consistent film layer. I didn't dilute these with anything, and I have seen Richard King mention mixing the Canode with Windex and other thinning agents, so I may not be doing it justice, but as many of you will never get your hands on this stuff, for this comparison I'm just using it straight from the bottle.
The H type really felt the most pliable and I could get a good layer and even pigmentation coverage with ease. The E type wasn't bad, it was better than the Canode. As far as the transfer (print) to another surface, they all seemed to do a good job, with a clear transfer of color to the workpiece. The Canode and E type could both be easily wiped off the metal surfaces with a paper towel, and as indicated in the document, the H type was a lot more tenacious although basic solvents took it off with ease.
I intentionally exposed one finger to each of these pigments, really rubbing them in to see the extent of the staining and how difficult (or possible) they were to remove. The Canode literally jumped off my finger when exposed to water, I can understand why people like the easy cleanup. But the two oil based pigments didn't noticeably stain my fingers and came off with soap and water without much effort. I didn't notice a real difference between the two (although on the metal surface they were quite different) so I don't think anyone should really be afraid of these. I've never used Dychem High Spot, I've seen that it may be more aggressive in that respect. I'm going to try and work with the Canode as I made a lot of effort to get it, and the cleanup was really quite easy, but I suspect I'll keep using the H type as it was the easiest to spread and seemed consistent across several days of usage.
As far as getting your hands on these pigments, I don't have any good advice, but my guess is they are more obtainable than Canode at this point and a 100ml tube feels like it would last a long time. I've attached the two MSDS sheets that show the basic constituent components as it might be helpful when comparing them.
TRUSCO Blue Paste H (ブリューペーストＨ) UPC: 4989999445305
TRUSCO Blue Paste E (ブリューペーストE) UPC: 4989999445299
You can find the red variants and modern 'Red Lead' substitutes listed here. A lot of the traditional hand scrapers over here use the red stuff, not sure if it is real red lead or these safer replacements (although as I mentioned before they still seem to use heavy metals in some of these red products.)
