Part of the Nakaya Ka-cho-fu-getsu series, the Long Cigar Kingfisher pen depicts a scene of beauty and detail. Behind a reed field the sun is shining brightly on the water surface. At the same time a kingfisher flies by silently to hunt a small fish. This one moment is captured magnificently with the technique of ""Taka Maki-e"" (embossed maki-e).

Similar to Tame-Sukashi and often used in conjuction with it, Yakou Maki-e involves creating a painted motif under layers of clear smooth Urushi lacquer. In Yakou Maki-e, however, the motif itself is painted in black Urushi over a Tame-Nuri base.

Undercoating is done with ""Kin-hirame"" (rough gold powder), standard gold powder, and seashell powder. The bird and reed are painted with gold powder and colored urushi lacquer.

Nakaya craftsmen have given us a rare glimpse into the process of their work by providing a detailed, step by step description of the sequence of creating this pen:
1: Togi-tate (smoothen)
Smoothen the urushi lacquer surface. If the surface is bumpy Togi-dashi (polishing) cannot be finished smoothly. Flat part is easy to do, however, it is very difficult when it comes to the round surface.
2: Ji-nuri (base painting)
Apply urushi lacquer evenly on the total surface.
3: Kona-maki (powdering)
Sprinkle gold powder and seashell powder.
4: Kona-gatame (fix powder)
After the powder has stiffened, apply urushi lacquer thinly on the total surface and fix the powder and seashell together.
5: Nuri-komi (apply urushi lacquer)
Apply urushi lacquer on whole surface. (As the sizes of gold power and seashell powder are different the surface can easily be uneven. So this and the next step (Togi=grinding) is the most sensitive part of the process to make it perfectly smooth.
6: Togi (grind)
Gold powder is to be ground to half of its thickness. As seashell powder is bigger than gold powder they come out first, so they must be ground until the gold powder is half ground. In such case, i.e. the sizes of the materials differ. The grinding process is very difficult and in addition, as the surface of barrel is curved this process is even more difficult.
7: Tsuke-gaki Urushi-e (Kawasemi and reed)
To the part where gold powder is to be sprinkled, picture is painted with thick urushi lacquer and gold powder is sprinkled. After hardening, colored urushi lacquer is applied and gold powder is ground out. After that painting is done and gold powder is sprinkled again and fixed. Urushi painting part is done with black urushi so that it looks like shadow. These two techniques are repeated for finishing.
8: Ro-iro
Suri-urushi is performed on the whole surface and after stiffening, it is polished with palm and finger cushion. This is repeated three times. Suri-urushi is a process which first applies raw urushi lacquer and wipes off immediately after the finishing of uwanuri. This is necessary because in the process of uwanuri the surface is polished with fine sand paper which then results in making very small scratches on the surface, and the luster is gone at this point. To fill these small scratches and make the surface glossy again, urushi lacquer thin is put on and wiped off immediately. However, the urushi must be wiped completely to avoid the surface of becoming blackish.

We provide a complimentary Platinum-brand converter used to fill this pen with bottled ink.

The Nakaya nib, imprinted Nakata, the family name of the manufacturer, is made of solid 14K gold. Each of these nibs is suitable for our customization to extra flexible. The medium and broad tips can be customized by us into cursive italic, stub, or oblique points.

The heavy decorative rice paper, simple solid softwood shipping box, and fabric pen pouch make a lovely presentation for these Nakaya Urushi pens. Sensible and elegant packaging has long been a hallmark of the Nakaya brand.