a question on gilt

Catharine C. Kennedy · Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:19 am

I've recently sold a carved and gilded sign, double sided and it has been in place for about a month. It is mounted on a post with a bracket, about 6 feet from the side of the road. Went over to do more work yest. and to my shock, the gold is flaking off of the side facicg the traffic.
The background was three coats of latex over two coats of primer- the one-shot is not affected nor is the gilding on the back side.
????
I will regild but is this road wear? or ...?

Thanks for any advice on this!

Doug Fielder · Post by **Doug Fielder** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 9:07 am

I am assuming that the gold wasn't cleared.......

Was the size old?

Doug Bernhardt · Post by **Doug Bernhardt** » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:37 pm

Well without being there it is REAL hard to tell whats going on....although I have a guess or three.....the surface was contaminated before size....the surface wasn't preped properly....one of the layers of paint is coming off with the gold attached....or just one of those idiot darn things that happens to make life miserable!

Tony Segale · Post by **Tony Segale** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:17 am

I have two questions...
what is the material used to carve?
did you clearcoat the letters?

I recently removed twelve letters I produced a year ago where the 23K began to peel off. I don't know what I was thinking when I rushed through the job (apparently I wasn't,being in a hurry), but I cleared the gilded leeters and it was the clear that peeled pulling the gold along with it.
It is not necessary to clear gilded letters as gold is an inert metal.
So my guess is, if you clearcoated, that's the villain.