The All You Need To Know Gold Leaf Page

[Doug Fielder]

I have been Gilding (the act of Gold Leafing) for 9 years, have learned from Frank Sparendera (20+ years gilding), Brendon Brandon (45 years gilding), Glen Weisgerber (35 years gilding) and worked for this place www.newbohemiasigns.com in SF. Yes, I still make mistakes and am still learning, so here is all I have learned so far.

Glen is a friend of mine and he is one of THE TOP letterers, gilders and decorative pinstripers (for Joey Madden) in the world and he came up with the method of clearing over gold that he has yet to see fail in 15 years...

Gold is very unforgiving, nothing sticks to gold. HOWEVER gold sticks to size. He figured that if you re-size over the gold (process: layout, size, gild, burnish, size again, clear, outline, clear again.) The gold size will stick to the gold. Then you use Sikkens Cetol Gloss marine varnish over top.

So here is the whole how to...

1. Layout your design or lettering. (draw, pounce, mask, whatever)

2. Use an oil size, 1-Shot gold size, or Luco, Sepp or Rolco 3hr sizes and size your lettering or design. The 1-shot size sets up in an hour or less, but has a long window. The others are 3 hour sizes, and there are 12 hour sizes too, for big jobs and for signs etc and it produces the most brilliant gilds. Don't worry about water base size, it is for decorative gilding on architecture, picture frames and pottery crafty crap. TINT WITH A UNIVERSAL TINT, NOT PAINT the tint is more like a dye that doesn't effect the drying time of the size, paint has dryers in it that lead to inconsistent gilding.

3. When you first start laying in your size, brush a stroke in another spot at the beginning, another when you are half way through (lettering or long stripes) and at the end. These are your test spots to feel if the size is ready to gild, since you don't want to put your fingers in your good size. You do it along the way so you can feel how it is drying in different parts of the line or lettering.

4. Wait for the proper tackiness for the leaf you are using. (aluminum leaf is thick like variegated leaf, actual golds are really thin and take a weaker tack for a better burnish, platinum and palladium leaf are kind of like gold)

5. Lay down your leaf.

6. Tamp with a make-up brush (one of the big fluffy ones) or cotton or your finger.

7. With a soft brush (the make-up brush is great too) brush away your excess leaf.

8. Rub down (term is burnish) with cotton. (how you rub the gold effects how the light shines on it; Side to side if the light is mostly coming from overhead, up and down if the light is coming from the side)

9. Here is where you would turn the gold with a spinnit or you can do designs in it too (advanced gilding for a whole other how to).

10. Re-Size your design (preferably with 1-Shot size for the speed in which it dries).

11. After the size dries, lay on a coat of the Sikkens Cetol Gloss Marine varnish from any boat supply house... This stuff is potent, BUT IT WORKS!

12. Wait for it to dry.

13. Outline your design.

14. Brush on another coat of Cetol Gloss.

15. Wait to dry then add another for your most bullet proof design.

That whole process was if you were not to urethane (spraying automotive clear) clear the whole tank or piece, but if you lettered a piece and then gilded it and just want to protect the gold.

Gold and only gold or platinum or palladium are durable enough to not clear coat IF HANDS WILL NOT TOUCH THEM! Time will erode the leaf, but not for a looong time. (Clear breaks down and cracks, pulling leaf off.)
Other leafs such as variegated, dutch metal (faux gold), aluminum, copper, bronze leaf all need a protective coating such as described above. Silver leaf and white gold (12k) and lemon gold (18K) are best ONLY used on glass.

If you are spraying clear over the piece, you should just gild then re-size and outline and then spray the clear after everything is dry! When clearing over 1-shot, spray 2-4 dust coats of clear over the surface before putting on normal coats, this protects the oil based paint from the urethane attack.

A lot of guys use straight automotive clear over the gold, but they have to flow the clear over the edge of the leaf enough that it will be covered up with the outline. This will not consistently stick to the gold! It is mostly holding on by the amount overlapping the gold onto the paint, so they break down quicker. Some clear does stick to the leaf, but for the most part, it doesn't.

Practice Practice! At $650+ an ounce, gold is getting quite pricey to practice with, but it is worth it.
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Doug F.
FALLOUT Grafix
now in DENVER, CO

myspace.com/FALLOUTGrafix
pinheadlounge.com/FALLOUT

Formerly from NJ, formerly from VT, formerly from SF, CA formerly from Raleigh NC, now in Colorado! I need to settle here!

[deathmobile]

thanks a bunch Doug thats super helpful!
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transformers are like rubix cubes with guns- Seann MF Glaspy

[Ryanlash]

look what i spawned lol, thanks doug

[Doug Fielder]

I had some free time today, so I thought I would share 90% of what I know about gilding. The rest slipped my mind.

Enjoy!
_________________
Doug F.
FALLOUT Grafix
now in DENVER, CO

myspace.com/FALLOUTGrafix
pinheadlounge.com/FALLOUT

Formerly from NJ, formerly from VT, formerly from SF, CA formerly from Raleigh NC, now in Colorado! I need to settle here!

[TheBug]

This should be put in the Newbie section for safe keepin'
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Thom Downs
DOWNS CUSTOM STUDIO
http://www.downscustom.com/
http://www.pinheadlounge.com/thom

"Buy the ticket, Take the ride."- H.S.T.

[TBonez]

Thanx Doug great post. One question though , why resize after the leaf is down then clear? I usually just brush on marine spar varnish on top of the leaf when done.
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[rockyjr]

I've been putting off trying this until I get my next paint box ready for lettering and stripes...this post will help a bunch.

thanks for sharing doug..

I wondered the same thing TBonez asked?
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[Ryanlash]

can you use 1shot tint to tint any size or just the 1shot size?

[Doug Fielder]

Ryan, there is a universal tint that you can get, I don't remember the manufacturer of it. Use it for any size.

TBonez, the reason for resizing the gold is in the third paragraph...

"Gold is very unforgiving, nothing sticks to gold. HOWEVER gold sticks to size. He figured that if you re-size over the gold (process: layout, size, gild, burnish, size again, clear, outline, clear again.) The gold size will stick to the gold. Then you use Sikkens Cetol Gloss marine varnish over top."

Pretty much nothing sticks to gold, test some clear over gold by putting some tape on it and pull it off, you will most likely pull off all of your clear. It is amazing that gold sticks to size and all kinds of other stuff (you don't want it to). BUT when you put a varnish over it, 9 times out of 10 it doesn't want to stick. Re-sizing over the gold as soon as you are done laying the leaf and burnishing it, allows the size under the gold accept the size on top of the gold (gold is porous) thus forming like a gold sandwich.

Hope that makes sense.

[TBonez]

Great info Doug. Thanx much.
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[ToenTheLine]

Thanks for the great info!
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