Whatever
the design, it will be enhanced by a certain amount of gilding.
Gilding
is a delicate business which calls for a great deal of patience, but
the results amply repay the pains taken. It is a very ancient craft
which originated as far back as 4000 BC and it has remained fundamentally
the same ever since.
The
gold leaves used for gilding are extremely thin (one 250,000ths of
an inch) and the final task of beating the gold to this thickness
is all the hand work of skilled craftsmen who manage to beat the precious
metal free from cracks, small holes and other blemishes or faults.
Gold leaf is sold in "books" of 25 leaves, termed loose
leaf, or transfer. The former, as the name indicates, is free between
leaves of tissue paper. The transfer is the same gold as the loose
(25 sheets) except that each leaf is attached to the tissue paper
by a film of wax for easy handling.
Loose
leaf is difficult to handle and if your wife opens the door of the
workshop to say that you are wanted on the telephone, the draught
will make the gold leaf airborne to vanish instantly ...
Transfer
gold leaf is a bit more expensive but more manageable for amateur
gilders, while the tools used in gilding are neither numerous nor
expensive. Two methods are used: water gilding and oil gilding. Water
gilding may be burnished with an agate burnisher and made extremely
bright, while oil gilding is smoothed down with a pad of silk cloth
24 hours after the application of the gold leaf and then given a coat
of colourless lacquer, the final result being quite satisfactory.
