{"id":1818,"date":"2010-05-12T10:47:27","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T15:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2010-12-25T14:32:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-25T19:32:58","slug":"how-did-they-do-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/?p=1818","title":{"rendered":"“How did they do that?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am frequently asked this question from people who see an object with staple repairs for the first time. I have spent many years gathering research to illustrate this fascinating topic and will try to demystify the skill and\u00a0art of staple repair. Below are just a couple of examples but please know that I will be posting more photos and diagrams in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

This illustration, from “If These Pots Could Talk” by Ivor Noel Hume, shows a “nineteenth-century itinerant Chinese repairer using a bow drill and flanked by the work boxes he carried slung on a pole”.<\/p>\n

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Stills from the Chinese film “The Road Home” (1999) directed by acclaimed director Yimou Zhang (2008 Bejing Olympics, “House of Flying Daggers”, “Hero”) showing an itinerant pottery mender repairing a broken pot with staples. I highly recommend this film, as it clearly shows the entire repair procedure in a compelling 4 minute scene. If you view the DVD, the scene starts at 51:44 (chapter 15)<\/p>\n

An itinerant mender, walking from town to town carrying his tools and supplies, shouts “Pottery repairs!”<\/p>\n

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Broken pieces of bowl are fitted together…<\/p>\n

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and held in place tightly with twine.<\/p>\n

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A wooden bow, with a diamond-tipped drill looped around a string, is pulled back and forth until a tiny hole is made in the bowl.<\/p>\n

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Drill close up<\/p>\n

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A small length of rigid brass wire is cut and hammered in to shape on the end of an iron mold<\/p>\n

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Staple close up<\/p>\n

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Finished staple is gently tapped in to the holes on the side of the bowl<\/p>\n

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Film stills courtesy of Sony Pictures<\/a>, with Zhongxi Zhang as the “Crockery Repairman”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am frequently asked this question from people who see an object with staple repairs for the first time. I have spent many years gathering research to illustrate this fascinating topic and will try to demystify the skill and\u00a0art of staple repair. Below are just a couple of examples but please know that I will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdotal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6017,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/6017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.andrewbaseman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}