May 28, 2012

  • Gold-Leafing my Lamp

    Before, it’s ugly. Shape is nice, only needs gold.

     

    Tools, gold,silver, copper leaf, knife, brushes, sizing (or glue) and pad. Don’t get composition gold leaf, ‘composition’ means ‘fake.’

     

    I experimented with several different techniques. I thought it would take me a weekend, but it ended up taking two months. Gold-leafing is actually harder than you’d expect.

     

    Put the glue (and clay) down, pick the gold up with a brush, and stick it on. The gold is so delicate, if you pick it up with your hand, it will fall apart and you will lose $2 just like that.

     

    I silver-leafed other parts. Use the knife to cut the gold into pieces that are more manageable.

     

    Final product. I don’t know why the picture is sideways. Surprisingly, washing the glass helped a lot to make it look better, too.

     

    After this, I gold-leafed my cell phone. Great! I have a cheap phone, but it’s gold! You have to be careful, because the leafing will wear off after a while if it gets rubbed. Secondly, it’s really hard to leaf small little things with cracks, because you need to put the sizing (glue) on evenly, and it tends to get pooled up in the cracks.

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