Finished Sign

rookie432 · Post by **rookie432** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:29 am

For those who may not have seen my recent finished sign on SB forum, here is a project I almost exclusively used Vectric products on.

Vee Wizard used to carve "Capital Mortgage" letters, the phone number and all border effects and cutout. PhotoVee Carve Wizard used to carve the very dirty bitmap supplied by customer into an effective logo of the Capital Building. Materials are Exterra MDF painted and guilded, faux granite finish backround. The sign is 4'x6'. Paints were Sherwin Williams Latex enamels in multiple satins and high gloss for effect.
Capital building engraved in 1/4" white corian, painted black then sanded raised area clean.
A neat unexpected effect was that the Capital Letters seem to be floating off the backround. It's an eyetrick that is a result of vee carving the letters then applying them the substrate. The brightness of the gold and flat dark backround causes the illusion.

P.S. Vee Carve Wizards preview capabilities enabled me to sell this job at a decent profit.

Post by **dighsx** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:18 pm

Looks good. What did you use to for the gold? It almost looks to shiny to be gold paint.

rookie432 · Post by **rookie432** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:23 pm

Thanks,

Gold is actually 23k Monarch gold leaf. Real gold.

Post by **dighsx** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:25 pm

How's that stuff to work with. I've thought about trying it but always chickened out. Do you seal it after you put it on?

hbhbbb · Post by **hbhbbb** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:37 pm

Well as far as the finished look nothing beats it (IMHO). I had thought I found a pretty good gold paint match but after comparing it to real gold there was still a huge difference. As long as the gold is 23K or above you wont want to coat it with anything. Coatings will 1) dull the finish and 2) are unneccesary with 23K+ real gold. Most Precious metals wont rust or tarnish if exposed to weather.
Working with it is somewhat tricky but once you get the hang of it no problem. I highly suggest a few test runs on small projects. I thought it would be no sweat after reading how to do it and attempted it on a very large project on my first run. It failed miserably. I ended up using more gold than I needed and the "size"(varnish) had overdryed and I didn't get a good adhesion. I reccomend getting the right tools for this ...guilders brushes...etc and follow instructions implicitly.
Once you try this a couple of times and get decent at it your projects will stand out like no other. If I could I would use gold on every project. It is just so beatiful.
The toughest part of guilding for me now is getting my substrate as smooth as glass. Especially with dimensional letters.
The smoother the substrate the brighter and better the gold finish.
I have been buying my gold from misterart.com. Decent quality and about $10 per book cheaper than what I have found elsewhere. Would like to try Manetti Italian gold sometime though.
Take my advice with a grain of salt. There are far better guilders and signmakers out there than me. I just like to take my best shot and poke around in the dark until I find my way through.

Post by **Wemme** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:49 pm

Gidday.
I've never tried Gold leaf before how does it adhear to the sign?
Nice job on the sign
How were the coloums cut?
Cheers

ROOKIE432 · Post by **ROOKIE432** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:26 pm

Gold leaf will adhere to your substrate by using gold size...which is actually just a specially formulated varnish. The trick is timing. They make 12 hour and 24 hour size. All this means is that is how long before the varnish sets up and is ready for the gold leaf to be applied. There is debate about the quality difference between the two and most guilders from what I have read prefer 24 hour size for smoother brighter gold finish. Sometime you just don't have that long. I have even read that the old guilders used gelatin and eggwhites to guild on glass. The trick is to apply the leaf right before the varnish is fully dry or still just slightly tacky. Apply a thin layer and wait until substrat is ready then apply the leaf.

The culumns were laminated 3/4" mdf. I just cut a couple of bevels to knock the corners off in my table saw then worked them by hand with a couple of sanders and grinder. Would have done them on my CNC but for such a simple shape it seemed quicker to just shape them out by hand. Only took about an hour or so for 4 of them. I did cut the caps on the top and bottom with the CNC

Thanks for the compliment

Bill