decorative surfaces

Gold Leaf at Groopshop 2015

Several months ago a thread discussion on Groopmail revolved around the question, “What can be used as a substitute for gold leaf?”  My answer was short.  “Nothing.”

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In response to much of the discussion I presented a brief demo about gold leaf at this year’s Groopshop, showing real gold leaf, which was the first time many of the attendees had ever seen it in the flesh; my preparations for the ground beneath the gold leaf, and finally the manipulation of the leaf and its laying onto the substrate.  It was, in short, a more brief version of my talk at Woodworking in America last year.

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The actual demo was less successful than I would have liked, mostly due to the atmosphere in the room, but it did give a good idea about the process.

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Gold leafing brings into focus the importance of the first of the Six Rules for Perfect Finishing — if the substrate is not well prepared, nothing else is going to work out well.

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I moved through the preparation of the glue base for traditional gesso using a dilute solution of hide glue (I started out with a 10% solution of 444 gws glue granules in distilled water)

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then the mixing and application of gesso itself,

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smoothing the gesso and applying the bole.  I’ve found that a polissoir does a terrific job a working the surface after I use abrasives of scrapers to get it ready for the next step.

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Then I moved on to the handling of the leaf itself on the gilder’s pad, readying it for the application over oil size or by water gilding.  Like I said, the room was a bit iffy for the process, but at least they got the idea of how it is done.

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One of the things I did ex poste that was a lot of fun was to apply a layer of Finish Up to a panel and lay gold leaf into it immediately.  Definitely something worth exploring further.