Gilding on limestone

[Site Man]

OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Christopher Maylone on July 19, 2003

I've been asked to gild an inscription incised on
an old limestone lintle - any good ideas about a
pre sealer/filler prior to sizing? The surface has
a lot of texture.

Kent Smith

Shellac is a good sealer and I have had good luck using the OneShot fast size for both sealing and sizing. Most limestone is not smooth enough to use a cuttle bone but it won't hurt to try. I have used a Scotchbrite pad lightly on limestone to remove overlaps with moderate success.

Lee Littlewood

I've done some work on mausoleum inscriptions, always fairly small (say 1"-2" high) letters. The stone wasn't real rough, so I never tried filling any voids. I suppose Bondo or spackle – the problem would be in getting the surface smooth. Then you'd have to seal it, but you'd probably need to seal the stone anyway. As Danny says, shellac is just fine, and fast, even with a couple of coats. Also any kind of primer, tinted so you can see where you've been. If you can burnish the sides of the letters ( maybe a piece of wood cut to fit in the grooves) so much the better - you certainly can't use sandpaper in such tight quarters.
The best tip is of course from LeBlanc - if the stone surface is smooth or polished, you can be sloppy with sealer and size and gold and clean off at the end with a cuttlebone (buy it at pet stores for parakeets). The other big help I found is to use a gilder's pad - you can make your own with some chamois or rough leather over felt or plywood. Done right it will hold a leaf of loose gold but not so tight you can't remove it with the tip. The big help here is to lay 2 leaves on top of each other and then cut (dull razor blade or gilder's knife - I have a sharpened butter knife) them into appropriate size strips. Now when you pick them up with the tip or another, slightly stiffer brush (flat synthetic bristle artist brushes are good but expensive at 1") you will have 2 layers of leaf going down at once, so you usually get away with only one lay per side of the v-cut. And then you stomp it into the size and down to the bottom of the vee.
On limestone (light color, right?) you're not going to get great contrast, so trying for a perfect gild and crisp clean edges isn't really worth it. Just try for a good gild and watch your time, the gilding is very slow and quicksize can get away from you.

Danny Busselle

Yep. Here I come To Save The Day..Boy I've done a lot of gold at Forrest Lawn On Stone . Different types of stone always back to the Basics "SHELLAC"
BULLS EYE will work but I make shellac. So I give it 3 lite Coats started to say Light P**s coat then La Franc Size with some 1 SHOT Wow ..

Gild Surface with loose leaf doubel thick for WINDOWS
Maybe tape some card board up to Block the Breeze.

NEXT Burinsh with GrandMa's Powder Puff Until your arm wears out. Then use the other ARM
OK. There's No short Cut. Just ELBOW GREASE