Easy gold and silver

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David McCormack
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Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

I want to bling up a small obeche slip with gold or silver and don't want the easy option buying a pre-finished one :evil: so what's the no fuss way of doing this? Any thoughts on these little pots of shiny paint?

Thanks as always :D
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prospero
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

The easy way is a finished one. :D

To get a decent bling you would need to fill the grain, build up the surface with primer, then
apply a coloured basecoat, polish it up and then apply the gilt.
Never tried that particular stuff, but being water-based you might have trouble if you get it on too thick
or get a little niggly bit.
You can't remove it when it's dry and leave all your other work intact.


Use a finished one if you can. :wink:

In fact it's nearly as easy to strip the gilt off a finished one and then do you own gilding thing.
Wipe over with acetone and you can take the gold off in seconds leaving a nice base.
Sounds daft, but not quite as daft as it may seem.

btw. If you put the liquid metal straight onto raw obeche it will look like sh*t. :lol:
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David McCormack
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

Had a feeling I was going to get that answer :lol: Think I'll go down the easy road. These are the sort of things I'm after.
Have only ordered bare wood from Rose & Hollis... do they do finished stuff? :oops:
A041.jpg
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A046.jpg
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

Just phoned R&H, two to three weeks before they launch their website :dance:
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

I haven't got their finished moulding catalogue, but i would think they would do them. :roll:


The plain Obeche is OK for painted finishes where a bit of grain is nice.

I've just done 24 little frames with a gilded Obeche fillet. They used to be based on Ramin, but I have
used up all my ancient stockpile. Ramin is much nicer. Less work.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Framemaker Richard »

R&H do a few finished gilt slips, can't they email you their finished mouldings catalogue?
Jamesnkr

Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Jamesnkr »

I don't think I believe this photo...
Gilded.JPG
Gilded.JPG (35.69 KiB) Viewed 10030 times
Have they painted it with (multiple coats of) shellac to get a smooth surface? Helps of course that the paint is wet in the photograph.

David, I suggest you try polyfilla, a couple of coats of ripple paint and sandpaper, and then Liberon gilt varnish. Just try it on a small sample. Then you will know what you're playing with.

If you follow Prospero's suggestion of stripping a finished one, then join it and fill the corners.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

Yeah. Nice photo. :?

The key with any type of gilding is what's underneath the gold. 95% of it is the prep. Get a nice smooth
base and it will look good. There is no such thing as a concoction that you can slap straight onto the wood
and get a good finish. That photo illustrates this perfectly. Very grainy and matt. :cry:

I did have a chap in one day asking for some stuff to do gilding with. I tried to explain that gilding is a process.
It doesn't come out of a bottle as such. :lol:
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

James, when you say try polyfilla, how would you do this on such a small slip/fillet such as R&H A247 or A239? Do you water it down and brush it on? And the reason for doing this is to fill in the grain? Thanks.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Jamesnkr »

I use an old toothbrush and slightly runny polyfilla. An old decorator's trick is to mix the polyfilla with paint, not water and then it dries rock hard, you can try that. NYAF would tell you that polyfilla has an odd effect on paint and that you shouldn't do it.

Anyway, yes, this is to fill the grain, and then a couple of coats of

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Colour-@ ... L/p/122446

(it's on 3 for the price of 2; that would be a lot of frames...)
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

This is how I does it. :)

I have a few knackered stiff brushes that I've trimmed down a bit. Drip the brush in water and then
in the pot of filler. Stir it round until you get a brushful of a creamy consistency. Scrub it over the
wood and work it in well. Be fairly generous. Then get a cloth - I use the big Jiffy-type rolls you can
get on fleebay. Wipe over with the cloth vigorously to take off the excess filler. If you time it right
the filler on the cloth gets worked back into the grain. Change the cloth until the surface is all but dry.
It's worth taking trouble at this stage as it saves sanding off a lot of surplus filler. When it's dry you need
just a minimal sanding and it's ready for paint.

I use 'No Nonsense' fine surface filler from Screwfix FWIW. It's cheap and it does the job. :yes:
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Not your average framer »

Jamesnkr wrote:NYAF would tell you that polyfilla has an odd effect on paint and that you shouldn't do it...)
I'm guessing that you are referring to comments that I made to mixing polyfiller into paint.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

Thanks James and prospero, all makes sense now :D
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Jamesnkr

Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Jamesnkr »

prospero wrote:This is how I does it. :)
The apprentice sitting at the master's feet has learned from him. :D
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

The thing I've found with small finished slips/fillets is that there are more than a few niggly bits.
Missing leaf and general minor flaws. But being small these flaws stick out like a sore thumb.
Therefore you are going to waste a lot.
I pulled loads of fillety strips out of a load of bargain surplus moulding I bought. Mostly on
the niggly side. But get a rag and some acetone and wipe that sucker. The gold comes off
very easily leaving a nice red gesso base that you can re-gild with gilt varnish.
No filling or painting. And it looks better.
The relative cost of bare wood and finished fillets/slips makes it more sensible to buy finished
and strip back v. arsing about prepping the bare wood. If you are doing gold/silver that is....
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm not a particularly big fan of many of the bare wood slips for hand finishing, simply because too many of them don't look anything special. If you are going to produce a handfinished slip then, I don't think that it's worth the effort unless it going to be something stunning!

If you are going for just a single flat moulding as a slip, then why not something that looks a bit different and classy, like Rose and Hollis's A196 and please finish it after you have mitred and joined the corners. I'm not looking to do much sandpapering, in fact, I generally do very little, but you do need to lose the woodgrain to get a nice smooth finish.

To do this, I like to prime the bare wood with a mixture of Craig and Rose Chalky Emulsion and B & Q Exterior Emulsion. The Chalky Emusion self levels well and provides and nice smooth surface, but it lacks durability. Adding the B & Q Exterior Emulsion adds the missing durability. By it's self the B & Q Exterior Emulsion looks too plastic like and needs the toning down provided by the Chalky Emulsion. This combination works best as a stippled finish and any unwanted nibs of the surface are best removed by a quick rub with some steel wood.

Are these slips going to be used inside of frames, or inside of mounts? After all it's easy to offer better focused comments, if we no more about the intended application.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by prospero »

It looks quite classy if you are doing a special finish away from the run-of-the-mill blingy-gold.

I'm about to do some charcoal drawings which will have a sort of dusty black frame so I intend to finish a fillet
to echo the frame.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

I wanted a gold sight edge on Wessex PW93 oak and have plenty of unfinished obeche slips/fillets in my workshop so was reluctant to order some finished gold slips/fillets as I don't order that often being a small home based framer. I also had some Lion liquid metal paint and 'rub & buff' gold wax knocking about somewhere which I have never used.

I know it's preferable to fill in the grain but in the end I went for a quick and easy method :oops: of two coats of Plaka red paint and then rubbed on the 'rub & buff' wax which does buff up well when fully dry.

Prospero, is the waxing gibbous keeping you awake?? :giggle:
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by vintage frames »

I like that. It's simple and unpretentious. As Prospero said, gilding is a process and there are many ways of achieving the "gilded effect". Trouble is the more complex methods invite all sorts of problems and more things to go wrong. Every method, if done well can be effective and a rub 'n buff on a thin bead like that just fits the bill.
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Re: Easy gold and silver

Post by David McCormack »

Cheers VF :D
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