gilding a mirror in leaf

[Jeff Lang]

Bruce,
I finally dug up this photo from 2003. I was visiting Peter McCullen in Dublin & he took me down to Kilkenny to have a look at some of the work he had done with Eoin Quigly. This is from a pub called Langtons & the owner ordered hand gilded mirrors & they did the entire bar back in a similar fashion you had shown (at least the leaves were hand laid if memory serves...). I think I recall Peter mentioning the sized used was stale beer? Maybe he can chime in here to add details.
This was an interesting thing to me, as I had never noticed anything similar in the US, & was surprised at the number of leaves that must have needed to be laid.
Thanks for sharing your tips and steps along the way.
Jeff

[peter mccullen]

Hi Jeff - Langtons was an architect request for glass panels with a foggy silver appearance and each leaf to be clearly visible. As part of the testing process we posted a query on this website c.2002 ish, and stale beer was suggested by Kent Smith I believe. Glass was placed over a grid, gilded once using budweiser which had been left open for 24 hours, burnished and then coated with shellac. The inevitable gaps were then sized with wunda size, gilded, more shellac and when dry sheeted with vinyl. After a job of that size we would normally go for an occasional beer.....this time - it was cups of tea all round.

[BruceJackson]

Using beer certainly gave the pattern of laid leaves more definition. It shows clearly each sheet, and has some nice variation in the reflectivity from the edge of a sheet to the middle. You got the "fogginess" right.

I'd love to see it now after 8 years. Any change in appearance? I'd like to think the silver might have mellowed nicely.

I was pretty surprised to see that you put vinyl over the back. I'd give it great protection while handling and installing, but I'd be worried the vinyl would pull the silver off the glass, not just while applying it, but that it may also shrink over time.

[peter mccullen]

Bruce...
Sheeting the glass with vinyl was a bit tricky - and the odd panel ( usually the biggest ) went back to the start. As to shrinkage, we gambled on the owners short attention span and history of entirely refitting every few years. I revisited after about three years and the tone had indeed mellowed but with no apparent shrink damage - I believe the entire interior was redone soon after that.

Peter.