Annndd we're back. Thanks to whoever reset the site after yesterday's outage.
My next big project will involve lots of Gothic tracery, carving, and for the first time, gold leaf. At least, I'm gonna try gold leaf. I've never used it before, don't know how touchy it will be or how hard it will be to get good results, nor how durable it will be after use, nor how easy it will be to repair when scratched. So the only thing to do is to try it out.
I started by gluing some blocks out of scrap walnut, ash, and some unknown tropical hardwood (deck cutoff scraps). I turned several ornaments, finishing up by cutting some shallow grooves with a bowl gouge:
I got a gold leaf kit from a local craft store. Besides the leaf (composition, not real gold), it had little bottles labeled base coat, sealer, adhesive, and antique glaze. Unfortunately, somebody got the box off the table while I was at work and had fun with it:
No serious harm, but in the cleanup, I must have thrown the instructions out.
Anyway, I used some sanding sealer (not from the kit) to seal the areas I intended to gild, and then sanded them down with some 220 grit paper. I then started with the adhesive size, which I think is just dilute white glue. You're supposed to paint it on, wait for it to get tacky, and then lay on the gold leaf. I found that it took a while to get tacky, and then the window of tackiness was pretty short before it actually dried. Results were OK, but there is definitely a learning curve to this:
The ground in the grooves could have been smoother, but the main issue was getting the leaf to the location and once there to lay down flat. I definitely need to watch some youtube videos to pick up some technique. I did put sealer on the gold after things had dried and excess gold pieces were trimmed or flaked away.
Next was to try on a flat piece. My friend Belanna like fleur-de-lis, and I had a scrap piece of walnut, so I traced the outline of a fleur and cut it out on the scroll saw:
I then bevel the cutout with my overarm router and with hand tools:
I also cut it out as a circle and beveled the outside. With a little bit of sanding, I was ready to try the gold leaf again. This time, I heated up some dilute hide glue so I would have a longer tack time. This worked better, but I had to reheat the hide glue pan on a regular basis. I've got to get a setup where I can have the pan sitting on the table being heated by a candle or something so I can keep working. Anyway, after gilding, sealing, and then putting finish on the remaining wood, this is what I had:
A little ragged and lumpy, but not too bad overall. I need to be a little more liberal in use of the leaf so that the upper edges get an even coating. But she liked it when I gave it to her yesterday.
The next practice piece will be this triskele, which I'd cut out as a test piece last winter when I was getting ready to build my bed:
Kirk