repairing an old water gild

[Steven Vigeant]

I just searched this topic and I'll tell you what. It was like being beamed up by a gold plated spaceship. The knowledge is overwhelming, but I didn't quite find the answer to my question. What is the best way to patch an old goldleafed window? Replacing whole letters would never match the previous, rather strange matte centers. There is also a lot of black outline fuzzies. I'd like to patch, repaint the black and reclear ( the clear is way haggard) There is also a kind of hallow in the middle of the black outline that concerns me, that's quite consistant and almost as bad looking as one of those tacky vinyl layer windows. So, how much can you push into the black to clean it up? Thank you in advance, yee gold plated folks.

[Brian the Brush UK]

Hi Steven,
I would prefer to re-do the entire job from your discription of the work. It seems the varnish and outline has broken down, if the varnished centers of the letters are also damages I think patching will be noticed, so do the job right and start again.
Brian.