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Back Up for Gold Leaf?

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

Moderators: Ron Percell, Mike Jackson, Danny Baronian

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Mike Jackson
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Back Up for Gold Leaf?

Post by Mike Jackson »

Old Forum Posts: From Oct. 17, 2001:

Moderator:
Topic: Back up paint for reverse gold. Dekor Black used to work great, but is hard to find now. What are you using?


Mike Jackson:
I talked with Rick Glawson for a few minutes today. He says he still has some of the Dekor black in tubes and still has a lot of ochre, which is great for gold leaf back up. Along with those items, he had manufactured his Fine Gold Back Up Paint which seems to work well, too.

The old timers used to love King Cole black. I've seen the tubes a couple times but never got a chance to try any of it.

When I first tried doing reverse glass, I was reading the LeBlanc book and he was suggesting Stazon Black. That was paint made for painting neon tubes to block the light in certain areas, and sometimes on the back side of the tubes. It was LOUSY for hand lettering fine letters. Doing your first gold leaf jobs was tough enough, but having to use that "n" for back up was terrible. It dried out in the brush or cup in a short period, leaving you constantly adding the super slick thinner. It wasn't until if finally heard about Dekor that I was comfortable doing any sort of reverse glass. Of course Dekor started out as a screen ink, so it worked fairly well for that application. You just had to keep the screen flooded and work fast.

Rick says finely ground asphaltum works, too. I never tried it. Maybe he will expain more on the subject.

Mike Jackson
Raymond Chapman:
When I first started doing gold leaf, on my very first job I used the neon block out black like Mike mentioned. It was terrible but I didn't have enough sense to know it. I just thought that that was the way it was supposed to act. And the letters were 1" - on a medical clinic window with all the various hours of the different doctors and dentists. What was really fun was that the glass was a side window to the left (looking from inside) of the entrance door - next to a brick wall, so I couldn't get my mahl stick in the correct position without hitting the wall. And this was my very first glass gold job. What a baptism of fire!

Later, I discovered King Cole Black. One of the local sign guys died (his name also happened to be Raymond) and his widow sold me a bunch of his supplies, which contained these tubes of King Cole. I still have one that is about half used. They are probably more than 50 years old. Also, I still have some silver leaf, and various half used books of different golds.
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

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