Practical House, Wagon and Automobile Painter / including sign painting, and valuable hints and recipes

by W. F. White

TO CLEAN TARNISHED ZINC.

Mix 1 part sulphuric acid with 12 parts water and rub the zinc with it with a rag, then rinse with clear water.

TO GILD ON WOOD.

First get a good body and a smooth surface. The work should be flat with three coats at least on wood, and not less than two on iron or tin. The best size for outside work is oil gold size (fat oil), mixed with a little medium chrome yellow toned down with white lead; put in a very little japan gold size, and thin to workable consistency with turps; let it stand until tacky. It must be hard enough to prevent rubbing up or sweating. The method with the tip, gold knife and cushion requires considerable dexterity as well as practice to do good and rapid work. The tip, or lifter, is only a few camel hairs glued between two pieces of paste board, or other material. The knife is a long narrow flexible blade, and the cushion is made on a block, 6 by 8 inches, first covered with a thickness or two of woolen cloth, and finished by stretching a piece of chamois skin over it. Hold the gold book in the left hand, and turn back a leaf of the book, leaving the gold exposed on the next leaf; press the leaf of gold against the cushion and it will remain. Then straighten out wrinkles by a slight puff of the breath from above, cut the leaf into the required size with the gold-knife, and lift the leaf to its place with the tip. The tip will lift the gold better if occasionally drawn over the hair of your head.

Another way to prepare the leaf: Cut the book through at the binding with a sharp knife, which will leave all the leaves free and separate. Now take up the top paper or cover, which will leave the gold leaf on the book; lay the paper on a board and rub it over with a piece of wax, paraffine candle, or a piece of hard soap; either will do. Place the waxed side on to the gold, and smooth the paper down gently; repeat until you have as many leaves prepared as you need. Then, with good sharp shears cut them in such shape and size as will best cover your work, and not waste the gold. Lay the pieces on your board, gold side up. When ready, lay the pieces on the work, rub down with the fingers, or a ball of cotton, take off the paper and the gold will stay on the size. In this way the gold adheres quite firmly to the waxed paper, and the size must have a strong tack to take the gold off the paper. Experts lay the leaf directly from the book, and you had best learn to do it that way for general work, if you spoil half a dozen books while catching on to the knack of it. Try it this way: Now, here is a stripe half an inch wide, and the size is ready for the gold. Now hold the book flat in your left hand with your thumb on top, hold the top paper firm with your thumb. (If you let it slip, the leaf under it will be spoiled.) If the stripe is one-half inch wide, turn back enough of the paper to ex-pose three-fourths of an inch of the gold leaf, crease the turned back cover down with the fingers of the right hand, and hold it with the thumb on the back. Now cut the leaf with the finger-nail, first rubbing it dry on your pants; then turn the book carefully and quickly over on to the stripe, and press the gold down gently by pressing the book. Then turn down more of the paper, and repeat until that leaf is gone; then take another and so on. If the book gets too limber towards the last to handle well, have a square of cardboard to lay under the book next to the hand; you will find this is a help even with a full book. You will, perhaps, waste more gold in this way than by the transfer method, but you will more than make it up in time, if you become expert.

1st. Be sure of a good foundation.

2d. Have your gold size right, and study to know when the tackiness is just right. If your surface is not perfectly free from tackiness, pounce with a bag of gilder’s whiting before putting on the size, to keep the gold from sticking outside of the size.

When you lay the leaf from the book and cut the leaf with your finger nail, turn the ball of the finger toward you and the nail towards the gold, and run the nail close to the edge of the turned paper; then, if the nail is not too long, the end of the finger will hold down the paper while the nail cuts the leaf.

To prepare paper for the transfer method I rub the paper on my hair, then lay it on the gold leaf, gently rub it with my finger tips, and the leaf adheres to the paper.

It can then be cut with shears in any desired shape to cover the work.