Surface Gilding on Glass Question

[Site Man]

OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Marco on September 18, 2003

Boy, am I in a bind. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm adding a surface gilded name on a glass door to match the existing 1.5" roman serif that was hand painted 20 years ago. Fortunately, its so good, that a mask made by computer matches quite well.

It looks like he/she used black 1Shot as size (its black on the inside). So I painted the mask (with a brown quill), stripped it, and gilded the glass when it tacked up. When I buffed off the skewings with cotton, it was blotched around the letters where gold stuck to the glass for no apparent reason. I stripped the job off and have to do it again on Monday.

I taped my little finger so I know I didn't leave oil residue when I stripped the mask. I cleaned the glass well with denatured alcohol first.

1) Could the mask have left a sticky residue? But why only in a few spots?

2) I think I will use Bon Ami next time.

3) Can I dust whiting powder or egg white first? Then the mask wouldn't stick well I think.

Thanks for any help.

Mike Jackson

Marco,
Gold will stick to ANYTHING with a tack of any kind. Yes, the stencil can leave a slight residue, just as you have seen. You probably pressed harder in some areas.

If you are going to do this job over, gild while the stencil is still on the window, then peel after you have removed the excess skewings. You have to be careful when weeding, but not really any more than what you did with the paint only.

If you didn't scrape off what you did the other day, you can probably still use it. The gold on the other parts of the window are probably only being held by the slightest bit of adhesive. You can probably just wipe it down with a wrag and/or q-tip. Water might even do it.

As always, I suggest doing a test piece in the shop when doing something you have never done.

Mike Jackson

Kent Smith

I also suspect that the original size was black venice japan which has a better tack for gilding and will hold the gold better. It does tend to set up rapidly so it is not suitable for large areas. 1Shot tends to let go of the gold in spots. You can also tint gold size with black oil color enough so that it appears black from the inside. Clean the glass with BonAmi, then mask, then size, then weed, then gild. The gold will stick quite well to the size especially after an hour or two and a damp chamois will remove gold from adhesive residue. If not, splash or rapid tac will.

[Doug Fielder]

Another technique I discovered is when making the paintmask add a fine outline .1" around your letters and the when you paint/size the area you then weed the fine outline so the paint/size can lay down and you still have the rest of the area protected against renegade gold flecks and from pulling up your gold when you remove the mask. I also use this trick when I am clearing my gold. That .1" outline is where the clear goes to and then after you clear it, weed out the rest of the outline/border/shade and paint away.

Hope this helps

[Keith Pettit]

I can with recent experience say Mikes original tip is correct I find gilding through a mask works really well, the only thing I have found is you do need to put on the size quite heavy, gild and then weed.
(wow I have just posted a tip!!)