What Experiences have y'all Encountered with Angel Gilding?

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OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Robert Beverly on November 12, 2002

I have been playing with this process and as I have been told, many have had crazy experiences with it and I was curious what others have found to be overlooked or non obvious factors that effected it's final outcome!

D. Bernhardt

Hi all...I too have had great results but just when you think you've got it down, for some reason...(some mentioned below)it just won't work well. As mentioned the folk's at Fine Gold were alot of help especially at the beginning!

Mike Jackson

Hi Robert,
We bought our first kit in the summer and I immediately did a few tests which worked fine. Then, in the fall or early winter when we really started making the glass pieces, we couldn't get the same results. The temperature and the humidity were probably factors, and it is possible that some of the chemicals were not as fresh as they need to be. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get things working. Over the period of about a year and a hundred or two hundred pieces, we did get some great results, however we seemed to always be tweaking it. Rick was always a great help on the phone.

I always found it to be a fine balance between starting the pouring ASAP after putting the glue dam around the edges and waiting too long-letting airborn contaminants settle back on the glass. If we poured too soon, the heat from the glue would cause the edges to take the gold heavier than the center of the glass. I think the solution we found was to apply the glue dam and then immediately pour a layer of distilled water over the glass. That kept the contamination down and cooled the glue, making the surface temperature more even. On small pieces, the edge to edge gilding was actually easier.

Good luck,
Mike Jackson

Kent Smith

I found too that pouring the silver immediately is critical to clarity and I like at least two coatings of silver over the gold. Similar to Mike's problem, we have slightly heated the entire sheet of glass and put it on a pad to keep the warmth. Our shop has blower furnaces so it is difficult to maintian an even temp and they circulate contamination as well. Good idea on the water Mike.