Looking for a gift for the tool user who has everything—and I mean everything—how about an Urushi Ratchet Handle? For a mere $2,000-$4,000 you can get one of the handful of these things made each year.
Urushi is obtained from the sap of the lacquer tree and is so central to the art of Japanese lacquer work that the term Urushi is used to refer to both the material and the art. Applied in multiple thin layers, Urushi produces a semi-transparent finish with incredible depth and radiance.
Somehow or another someone decided it would be a good idea to apply this kind of finish to ratchet handles.
If you’re going to put that much effort into ornamentation than you’d better darn well start with a superior tool. And they did, by using the award winning NBR390 from Nepros, a Japanese manufacturer of high-end hand tools.
Yanagi
Genji Guruma
Old Turtle
I have no idea who buys Urushi ratchets. Odds are they’re collectors with more money than they know what to do with.
Part of me is annoyed by the idea of taking a perfectly good tool and turning it into something so valuable it can’t possibly be used for its intended purpose.
But then I console myself with the thought that perhaps some of these might become retirement gifts for mechanics who spent their careers using ratchets. If that happens, I hope they resist the urge to try them out.
Taki
Ruffled arabesque
Zuiyun Cloud
http://www.core77.com/posts/67710/Urushi-Ratchet-Handles