Idea's Input Please

[Tod Gilding]

Hello All, I have my next build on the drawing board this will be Australian Red Cedar Back & Sides, I was thinking about adding to this a purfling of 24K Gold leaf, this is called gilding and with a name like mine I thought I'd give it a go, my idea is to bind the box and then finish with a couple of coats of shellac and then apply the gold onto the shellac and when finished continue on with a french polish finish over the gold, I suppose my question is has anyone tried gilding on a guitar that could advise or does anyone have any input at all that could help ?

Thanks Tod

[Alastair]

A couple of comments from my side, on the Cedar for back and sides:

I have used a lot of this for various furniture projects, and both the colour as well as the hardness of the timber can vary widely depending on the soil and growing conditions, from dark red and firm, to pale pink and quite "wooly".

In general, it is a softer timber, and would be more susceptible to dings than (eg) blackwood, Q maple etc)
In addition, the really spectacular "flame" grain is only evident in the flatsawn timber. Q/S is much less figured.

[Tod Gilding]

Thanks Alistair, I agree completely with regard to AU Cedar Jankar , the Au cedar was chosen after a bit of thought Re the pro’s and con’s ,this build will follow Trevor Gore’s design criteria eg Falcate, Live back, side mass etc and whilst a live back can be produced from almost any species, the same could also be argued for soundboards, but we don’t select them for their hardness, in an attempt to compensate for the softer wood I will use Rosewood bindings and be bloody careful with it as it will be my personal guitar and I am very careful , I have never damaged a guitar Yet. So the hardness wasn’t a significant con.
The Particular board that I have secured from the woodrat’s stash (Thanks John) is perfectly quarter sawn and although rare does display a beautiful exceptional figure.

[woodrat]

Tod, you got that in one of my weak moments! Well Done!

John

[kiwigeo]

Tod, you got that in one of my weak moments! Well Done!

John

Please PM your address.....I'll be arriving tomorrow morning

[woodrat]

[Tod Gilding]

Tod, you got that in one of my weak moments! Well Done!

John

Please PM your address.....I'll be arriving tomorrow morning

Martin, be careful of the guard dogs They exist on a diet of Luthier

[kiwigeo]

Tod, you got that in one of my weak moments! Well Done!

John

Please PM your address.....I'll be arriving tomorrow morning

Martin, be careful of the guard dogs They exist on a diet of Luthier

Your dogs would take at least a day to chew up my leathery carcass and then they'd have indigestion for a week afterwards.

[Alastair]

Tod, you got that in one of my weak moments! Well Done!

John

John,

Unlike Martin, you'e not that far from me. Better keep that guard dog well fed

[woodrat]

I have just fed them and turned the stash's cloaking device on! There are also trip wires triggering tape recordings of Vogon Poetry at 110dB...that should keep you warmints away!!

John

[Tod Gilding]

I have just fed them and turned the stash's cloaking device on! There are also trip wires triggering tape recordings of Vogon Poetry at 110dB...that should keep you warmints away!!

John

That's it John Keep those varmits out of OUR tonewood


But it looks like no help with the gilding , I have done a google search and can't find anything

looks like this gilding purf may be an original idea. good

[auscab]

does anyone have any input at all that could help ?

Thanks Tod

Tod ,
I’ve never done gilding successfully[ I played with it a little] but have read a bit about it , from what I know you would have to read up on water gilding or oil gilding ,they have a different look about them, even if the same gold leaf is used. I think there are other ways of doing it these days. I’m not sure if it can be done with shellac ? possibly.

Water gilding looks stunning. it gets burnished at the end of the process and because of that gets a hard polished look. The guys and Gals that know how to do it well would have spent a fair bit of time learning how.

[Tod Gilding]

Yeah that's right Rob , I have been learning about it for some time, it is an ancient art. and yes it will need burnishing with agate, that brings it up with a shine , I was just hoping that someone could give some advice on it's use on a guitar, or wood, as it is very thin it shows any deformity as in pores in the wood, this is why I have thought of pore filling first with shellac, to give a smooth surface to apply too, I also believe that some do use shellac as the adhesive. Just thought someone would have used this ancient art previously and could have advised me further. but I am happy especially with a name like Gilding to be the first to try it, I think it will look amazing and understated to an extent as a purfling around a dark wood like AU Cedar.

[Trevor Gore]

I have a mate who gilded a Strat he built, so it was a completely gold body. He did tell me how he did it; he is in that line of business. I have a very sketchy recollection of what he said, as it wasn't something I was going to try in a hurry. Apparently there are two methods, one is water gilding (the "proper" way) and another method, which a can't recall. He applied the gold foil and then sprayed it with clear lacquer. He would have had to have had some sort of undercoat on first, which, I guess would have been nitro, and then put the gilding on top of that. To do a purfling, I would think you would have to gild a strip near the edge, then cut through the gold leaf with a purfling cutter both sides and then peel off the excess, leaving a nice even purfling strip. However, I don't know how the stuff peels off once it's on.

I've seen brass inlays on furniture that looks like gold purfling. Provided you can source the annealed brass strip, you could inlay it in a channel like inlaying a shell purfling, and that might be easier,with less risk should you have a sand through when finishing. You would then have to change you name, though - Brassed off?

[Tod Gilding]

Yeah Trevor "Tod Brassed Off "sounds Ok, but that would mean changing my drivers licence, credit cards, everything

But seriously I am determined to get this done , I will attempt any and all way's until I get it right, and then post a tut on it for anyone that wants to give it a go.

I think if I just mask a strip about 2mm wide and brush shellac on as a an adhesive, apply the leaf, I should be able to just brush the excess off leaving a perfect 2mm wide line ( I Think ) leave it with me.

I can't believe something like this hasn't been done, in this way I mean, I don't think that I would like it all over ,as in a gold plated Strat, but each to their own.

[Kim]

I have done a google search and can't find anything

looks like this gilding purf may be an original idea. good

Don't be such a bloody wimp Tod...just man up a bit, dig deep and buy a few ozzies of au to make ur own solid purflings...

On a more realistic note.. Perhaps you could guild a solid strip of a non-porous pliable material such as copper or soft aluminium, inlay that in a similar fashion to shell using a removable Teflon strip to form a channel between the binding and body but leaving it shy of the surface by .010 or .015". Then you could drop fill with CA and scrape back level prior to finishing and buffing out with the rest of the guitar...no prior experience here but its and idea which may be worth investigating??? But then maybe not too...

Cheers

Kim

[Tod Gilding]

Sounds Like a Great idea Kim, I will give that a try on a bit of scrap first. Thanks

[Matt Bach]

I did a gold leaf finish on an electric once for "fun", it turned out pretty cool, but something along the line contaminated the clear and it's never been right since. I don't think it was the actual gold though. I used acrylic lacquer as the glue, brushing it on, then attempted to put the gold leaf down on the wet surface, then lacquered over the top. Getting the gold to stick was tricky, it's so thin, it breaks really easily. If I did it again I think I'd use a different method or product to get the gold leaf to stick, because I can still see brush strokes in it from the "gluing" which doesn't look terrible but it's not really great either.

I don't know if Gretsch use actual gold leaf on their fancy guys but they might have some tricks to steal?

[Tod Gilding]

Great Matt Thankyou

[Allen]

I've not done it on a guitar, but I made my dinning table with copper leaf gilding. It looks great, but it is delicate. I wanted the table to have an old world look so when a bit wore off here and there it wasn't a big deal. I would worry that on a guitar that same wear would look less than ideal.

[Tod Gilding]

did you have a finish on it Allen ?

[ProfChris]

It's been done:



http://www.lunchtimeshopper.com/musical ... uitars.php

How they did it is still a mystery though.

[Tod Gilding]

I think the one on the left is an early Strat

[Alastair]

Tho' he's been absent from this thread, methinks Martin might just have some ideas, given his FP and Lute interests??

[kiwigeo]

Tho' he's been absent from this thread, methinks Martin might just have some ideas, given his FP and Lute interests??

No ideas sorry......gold not really my thing.