Gold Leaf Shields

[Dgriffin32]

I make fire helmet shields and various leather products for the fire service and was wondering how they make fire helmet shields with gold leaf and silver leaf on them?

Thanks

[PutnamLeather]

I haven't done it myself yet but plan to, I traded a whip a while back for a book of gold leaf. If you look up 'GILDING' on YouTube there are a tone of videos on how other people do it.

Good luck.

[mmirob]

More than likely it is hot foil embossing not actual goal leaf. Buy a hot foil stamper like a kwikprint model 86 or 64 and have your magnesium die made for any badge, shape, logo or anything really and start stamping away. I highly recommend these two models as they offer features that make your life easier. Check ebay. There are cheaper models but you will have wished you spent the extra. They are a ton of fun to use, they do take some practice however. You only get one chance to press. One mistake on dwell time, alignment or temperature setting could turn many hours of labor into a dog chew toy. Ask me how I know!

[yodersj]

I have a older leathercraft book that talks about gold leafing. If I recall correctly the gist was stamping the gold leaf into the leather. Will be glad to dig it up and type out that part of the chapter, if anyone is interested.

What I've been using is liquid gold leaf. Stinks and the fumes are bad for you, so get a good filter mask if you want to use it. What I do is apply a sealer first, let dry (over night typically, but I think I've moved on as early as four hours). Then the liquid gold leaf. After that dries (see sealer drying), I apply a coat of triple thick clear acrylic glaze over top. I have found that without two coats of the sealer Fiebing's oil dye will cause a reaction after about 3-4 weeks, it goes dark at least with the brass liquid leaf. Fiebing's acrylic dye will cause tiny dark spots to appear (smaller reaction) with no sealer at all.

Here is roughly what I'm using:

http://decoart.com/cgi-bin/Products.cgi?Multi-Purpose_Sealer

http://www.amazon.com/Plaid-6110-Liquid-Leaf-oz-Classic/dp/B000BZX2GS

http://decoart.com/cgi-bin/Products.cgi?Triple_Thick_Gloss_Glaze

I have also experimented with DecoArt's Metallics "Glorious Gold" acrylic. While I didn't use the sealer, I did top coat it with the clear glaze after drying. For small, thin areas it is almost equivalent to the liquid leaf. I've not tried either on larger areas.

https://decoart.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=c7ee2181adfaeaed43c2a1e3b48158cd&Screen=PROD&Store_Code=D&Product_Code=DAO71-3&Category_Code=DM

Here are pictures of a test strip I did. I didn't try too hard to stay in the lines of the stamps, so don't judge it by that.