Started the day trying to write, well partly succeeding, a story for the Cheshire Prize. I'm out of practice.
The gold and oil arrived before lunch, so I decided to gild after. I ordered 250ml of oil. I have in the past ordered more, 500ml or even a litre, but it's one of those products which thickens or sets in the bottle, and the old tin was poorly packaged and a nightmare to pour from. I only used 50ml or so before the rest spoiled, so I elected for a smaller batch. I made a plastic funnel from lighting gel, and poured into 4x30ml solvent-tight amber bottles from Baldwins. This should keep the precious stuff in good order. The rest I left in the tin and sealed it, plus much clingfilm.
Then, gilding, which was also nightmarish when I first tried it many years ago. For my first ever attempt, in 2008 or so, I applied the oil too thickly and didn't wait for it to grow tacky. I applied the gold, which broke and let through some oil. This stained the surface and make my fingers sticky, making everything worse. The oil never set, making all of the gold break, ruining it with yellowy oil, and creating a disaster.
For my second attempt, and the first reliquary, I decided to use epoxy resin as my size, knowing that this sets chemically not by exposure to air. In many ways this was much more successful, though of course, epoxy can yellow, so shouldn't be permitted on the top of the gold. I used a casting resin designed to be more stable. Applying it thinly was very difficult, and of course it grew thicker by the minute, even though it was 12-hour resin. Being a resin glue it had the power to stick everything, such as the work to the floor permanently.
Other problems include the opposite to the first attempt, waiting so long that the oil dried and the gold would not stick. So, I learned that there is an element of exact timing involved. Another problem was the gold itself. The loose leaf took huge skill to handle and manipulate. I was determined to learn, and made my own little bed, and obtained the correct gilder's knife and soft brush for lifting the gold (a gilder's tip). I managed it in the end, but once I had I started to use transfer leaf, which is a joy to use by comparison. One downside to transfer is that it can't as easily cope with lumpy textures and pits, which loose gold be be prodded into. Apart from this, transfer is always better.
I've also tried using PVA, which can be simply called water-based oil size. This works, but isn't brilliant because it dries so quickly. For this, one must apply a little glue, then gold, then glue etc.
So now, I use oil size. The first trick is to make sure the surface is non-absorbent, or else the oil will sink in, so I may apply a sealer first (like acrylic medium or paint). I mix a little oil paint with the size, to more easily see where the transparent oil is applied, and to aid drying, then paint it on the area to gild. I paint it very thinly, as thinly as possible, almost scrubbed in. In no time, a 15 mins, it will be sticky, like the tack on Sellotape, then it's ready to apply gold.
I cut the gold with a rotary blade of the sort used for fabric. This is easier than using a gilder's knife. For transfer leaf, it's a simply matter of picking up the leaves on their backing and applying. For real gold, tools are needed to pick it up. I seem to have better luck with metal tools than the gilder's tip, on which the hairs need some slight grease, traditionally rubbed on from one's forearm. Once set down, real leaf is tamped with something like cotton wool, but the wool strands can glue onto tiny holes where the glue remains and white hairs start to appear, so this is a pain compared to the joy of transfer leaf.
Today I used transfer leaf (23.5kt) and Handover 3-Hour Size, which seems very good. Prior to this I used Robersons Fast Size, and also LeFranc; all equally good.
Now, another lesson (or trick) is to leave it all, complete with flappy bits of gold on the top. Everything should be left for a day or two to fully dry and only then can the bits of gold be brushed off, and perhaps little holes (these are inevitable, and sometimes even part of the aesthetic, allowing organic fragments of undercolour to show through) gilded yet more.
