gilded bird..........

[vance galliher]

I'm preparing to gild a fairly large bird carved from Port Orford Cedar. I plan to prime/paint/size/gild. My questions are: What should I thin the slow size with to make it sprayable......... What primer- water or solvent........Should I shellac the wood before priming, I think the cedar is somewhat oily. thanks for replies

[Kelly Thorson]

Hi Vance,
Rodger MacMunn of T.R. MacMunn and Sons in Sharbot Lake, ON may be able to offer some good advice. He works with different types of cedar and almost all his signs have gold incorporated. Give him a call, I know he'd be glad to help.

[vance galliher]

thanks Kelley just spoke with Rodger,but he's never worked with Port Orford Cedar.....he also said latex primer would be fine, ....and I'm just not certain about that. I called a close friend of mine ,Gary Rhodes, who carves a lot of wood, and he says don't use latex primer.......? I wish there was a definative for everthing.......I

[vance galliher]

Mike/Doug, do you guys have any suggestons? Mike, I spoke with Bill Blumberg yesterday,and he mentioned your eagle on the attorney's sign....had to tone it down with asphaltum. That may be a possibility on this piece

[Kelly Thorson]

Vance,
Can you access any scrap material to do tests on?
Zinsser makes a primer that seems to work well on stopping tannin leach from Cedar. They have both a waterbase - Bullseye 123 and an oilbase - Cover Stain. Both of them are supposed to act as a sealer/blocker as well as a stain killer. You can add tint to them to colour them. I had trouble with the cedar I was using bleeding out and this seemed to do the trick.
Benjamin Moore Fresh Start (latex) is currently my favourite primer and it says it can be used on Redwood and Cedar as well.
If I was doing the project I'd do a test first on some scrap with both products. After a couple of days I'd try squeegeing a piece of good masking tape down really well and quickly ripping it off. It will be a pretty good indication of the integrity of your bond. In addition you can do some testing like soaking it, placing it in a freezer and in a warm oven (which might theoretically activate oil migration). I have no idea if this will answer or solve your concerns, but I find I'm always a little more comfortable if I do some testing first. It can eliminate a whole lot of grief.
I think that you will find that you will always have both schools of thought on whether to go oil or water.....kind of like the PC/Mac issue. I've always wondered if the Cedar oils would actually react with and chemically soften the oil paints, so I went with the latex blocker primer, but that is just something I dreamed up myself. I have had oil base paints peel off cedar, my forays with latex seem good so far. I think I would try a sample sizing right over the tinted primer...one less bond to fail.

[joe cieslowski]

Just some thoughts that might be helpfull....

My Ben Moore dealer says that no laytex primer will stop tannin bleed....he sells me the Ben Moore Fresh Start Alkyd. (dries in 4 hrs)

I've always been told that I shouldn't use an oil topcaot over a laytex primer. Since I use 1Shot this primer makes sense on both levels.

Another consideration on adheason to any wood is that if I sand, I never use anything finer than 120 grit paper. Using a finer grit will actually polish the wood and could hinder adheason. I work to get a good polish on the primer and paint....not the wood.

Hope this is ofsome help.

Joe

[Doug Bernhardt]

Hi Vance.....am guessing this is interior and you could use shellac mixtures for that....exterior however I also would opt for the oil primer and course steel wool between coats, sanding I agree with Joe and leave some tooth with the courser grits. Next I would give a coat or 2 of one shot (scotch bright pad in between) and in each case reduce the paints with a bit of penetrol which would naturally be at hand so I can airbrush on the size (personally I still go with a brush as any sags at this point are such a drag). Penetrol say 30% with thinner will keep the integrity of the paint/size films when extensively reduced. It might also be worth using those water based sepp sizes although I have almost no experience with 'em. You can handle it without damaging the leaf though. Make sure you send us a photo to peek at right?

[vance galliher]

this is such a great place !! thank you all for your replies. The piece will be exterior, in Lake Tahoe, Ca. Lot of snow in winter ....I use Fresh Start 100% Acrylic as my standard primer but I'll use the oil base for this. ..... several coats of thinned primer so it would have deeper penatration . Gary suggested several coats of thinned satin varnish rather than one-shot. Any opinions on that ? Doug, are you saying that by using water based size one can handle, as in touch, the gild without damage?

[Doug Bernhardt]

yes Vance....you can handle the gold but it is a brighter gild. Rick "The Boss" used it from time-to-time I believe. I'd do some experiments there for sure. As for thinned primer...just the first coat right? After that full strength is what ya want. The Zinsser and stain blockers mentioned by Kelly are also pretty terrific although they sometimes have shellacs etc in them so I lean to a slow drying time. Para is what I have as it dries overnight.

[vance galliher]

the cabinet shop that's the bird is giving it two thin coats of an epoxy sealer....then I will prime/paint/size/23k gild. I was told today that the architects in SF want it to look a bit aged /patinaed, rather than brand new shinny. My thought is after gilding, to spray or brush a thinned asphaltum coat and wipe most of it off.........anyother options ?

[Mike Jackson]

We did that job for Gerry Spence a long time ago. I carved the two eagles out of redwood, followed by three coats of block out white and a coat or two of industrial enamel. When ready to gild, I coated it with a misture of imitation gold lettering enamel and some 12 heur LeFranc size. When the sign went up, the eagles were almost blinding, especially on the sunny side. I knew they would soften some, but they wanted them toned down. I got up on the sign and coated it with a mixture of burnt umber oil paint and turps, then wiped off all the high regions and leaving some remnants of the umber in the deeper areas. The application dulled the eagles quite a bit and they looked fine. Gerry changed partners somewhere along the way and the people that bought our shop changed the names and did some retouching on the main sign, but didn't have to touch the eagle. Upon my suggestion, they did go ahead and change the eagle's head to white gold. The sign has since been redone completely, but they used the original eagles. I don't believe they regilded it at any point.

The sign was originally done in about 1988 or so. The clear all-heart redwood seems to have been a good choice!

Mike Jackson

[Doug Bernhardt]

I like that choice as well....umber oil colour with a vehicle of some sort. I have used asphaltum mixed with a spar varnish and it just doesn't hold up outdoors. Inside I too think you have lots of options. Good luck on this one Vance!