A few days ago I have received a nice birthday present from my wife: a
Chinese bamboo tea tray. It is a very special one (at least for me) that I
have picked out already this summer while visiting a Chinese tea house and
shop in Budapest, wherupon my wife has bought it in secret for my birthday.

Using it for the first time, I have just discovered that the tray leaks on a
certain point on the bottom at one of the joints, dripping very slowly but
surely. My first thought has been of course to return it to the shop for an
exchange, but there are several major obstacles to that: I live one thousand
kilometers away from Budapest, and according to my wife this tray was the
last one of its kind. So I have decided to keep it and try to repair it
myself.

For this I need some help from the more experienced members of this group.
Should I use some special waterproof lacque, or perhaps just an ordinary
nail polish to sealing the leak? I want to be sure not to damage the surface
of the bamboo. By the way, are these tray varnished with some kind of
lacque? Its surface is quite smooth and shiny, but I am not sure whether
there is lacque on it or it is just polished very finely. - Another thing is
that the hole or crack is so small that I can not even see it, so I do not
know whether I should seal it from the outside, from the inside, or both.

I would thank for any helpful suggestions.

Gyorgy