There's an interesting article on Japanning in the ISMACS NEWS. They even give a recipe for Japanning, which requires baking. I think that I like Glenn's method a lot better...much easier, no baking required. My asphaltum paint hasn't shown up yet, but I'll let y'all know about it when it arrives.

~ Cindy

I haven't seen Glenn's recipe but the baking is necessary to harden the Japan, as well as drying it and I can't imagine it will be very hard unless you do this. The Singer engineers weren't stupid and the machines are still around today because of the attention to detail.
From memory, Singer baked machine heads for eight hours three times, loading giant ovens and running them overnight. I baked mine for a couple of hours in the kitchen oven then turned it off when I couldn't stand the smell any longer (OK, also scared that SWMBO would castrate me).
Incidentally, pre-1930 78 records are mostly asphaltum. A really cheap way to make Japan is to dissolve one in alcohol then filter it. I tried it (being a really cheap guy) and it worked, although it took a while (a few days) to melt the record then filter it.
EDIT: Just looked at the ISMACS article. This will keep me busy for a while now...
"The plant or equipment of a japannery consists principally of the baking ovens, of which there must be at least two, the japan oven and the varnish oven, the sizes of which are regulated by the class of articles to be operated on and the quantity to be done at a time. A brick oven 8 x 10 feet and 7 feet high will take in about 500 sewing-machine frames at once."

Wow...I never knew that old records were made out of asphaltum too. Very interesting.

Well, I'm not going to put any sewing machines in my sweet, little O'keefe & Merritt stove...nope...not gonna do it. It would never be the same afterwards. The asphaltum paint that I ordered gave instructions to NOT bake. It's taken forever to arrive. I still haven't seen it yet and I think that I ordered it over a month ago. I'd better give them a call and see what's up.
~ Cindy