Gold Leaf Helmet Shields

[gabrielw19]

Hi All!

I am fairly new to leatherwork in general. I have made a hand full of shields for myself and friends and have been pretty happy with them. Each one is better than the last!

I had someone approach me and ask about doing a gold leaf shield for a chief officer. The process of putting the gold leaf on seems pretty easy. I can't find any help specifically for this purpose, but there is lots of gold leaf information on the web. I would for sure appreciate any help or pointers on it though.

The part that has left me wondering is how do I get the graphics on the top? I can't imagine high volume companies like DE Williams or thefirestore.com would be hand painting them. Are they screened or some sort of vinyl? How can I get a finished product similar to what is pictured.

Thanks for any input!

Also, I would love to trade some templates if anybody has some they will share. I don't have much, but will share what I have!

-gabriel

[hooknhalliganleatherco]

Hey brother, I make helmet shields as well. The shields from the fire store are most likely vinyl and I'm not even sure the "gold leaf" that they do is real gold leaf. Seems like a vinyl as well. I've tried to mess around with the gold leaf but haven't got it down just right. With real gold leaf the shield would have to be pre-bent or else when you go to shape it the gold leaf will crack. 

As far as the graphics over top of the gold leaf, what I have tried is completely tooling out the shield and then laying the gold leaf on the shield. Then just paint over top of the gold leaf. A top coat will seal it all in.  I'm going to mess around with it some more and if I find anything else that works I'd be glad to share.