Does your house sign or number need restoration? Are the letters and numbers faded and sloppy? Was it a good quality house sign in its heyday? If so, consider upgrading your hose sign with genuine gold leaf.
Gold leaf has some real advantages over metallic paint, which is the alternative. Many of these paints will fade in sunlight, some of them quite quickly. Unless you can get a professional sign-maker’s paint, bright gold paint will change to a color more like dull old copper.

Any DIY artist will enjoy the challenge of upgrading an old house sign, it’s an ideal little project to try out the art of gilding.

First you will need a few things:

1. A small 1/4-inch paintbrush

2. A larger 1-inch soft brush for dusting

3. Sharp flat knife, an old dining knife sharpened on a grinding stone will do.

4. 22-karat gold leaf book on a transferred back

5. Sharp scissors

6. Yellow gilders size 30 minutes

Since the house sign project is intended as a little preliminary test, spend as little money as possible, fix with what you already have, you can always buy the right tools if you enjoy this effort.

Gold is sold in books, usually with 25 pages of gold leaf. Sold as loose sheet or with transfer backing. Loose leaves are more difficult to handle and will waste a lot of gold. So, buy a book of transfer gold leaf and a small gilder-sized bottle from a suitable gilding supplier (find one on the web), you may be surprised at the reasonable cost. Don’t bother with dummy gold leaf from model shops, it doesn’t handle like real gold and may not have the weather resistance that genuine gold leaf has.

About the size of the gilders: The size of the gilders is the adhesive to stick the gold. The size is sold with various time factors, the 30 minutes in this case applies to the time between painting the size and applying the gold leaf. Although sold in a 30-minute size, actual workability time will vary with ambient temperature. The size is ready by the time it’s tacky to the touch, you have a short time to apply the gilding so be patient and do a few letters at a time.

Try a few practice runs to get some experience, see if you can find an old piece of carved wood or stone, maybe a discarded picture frame or one of those ornate little plastic pots, remember you just need to practice driving and the configuration. to gold leaf in strange shapes.

Gold Handling: Transferred gold leaf is gold leaf on a paper backing. Do not try to manipulate with your fingers, but with the blade of an old, dull knife. Cut with sharp scissors into rectangles about 50% larger than each letter or number.

Method:

1: Clean the old sign letters as thoroughly as possible to return to the original material. If the body of the house sign needs to be painted, do so before gilding, keep letters and gilding areas free of paint if you can. Let the painted house sign dry, gilding should be the final job.

2. Start with just one letter or number on your house sign, you can do more as your confidence grows.
Paint the size on the surface where you will apply the gold. Try not to overpaint on the face of the house sign, use a clean cloth to wipe off any excess.

3: Keep an eye on the size, as soon as it dries to the touch you are ready to apply the gold. press the gold leaf, face down on size, rub firmly with your finger or use a soft tool, a brush handle will do, then remove the backing paper leaving the new gold in place.

There will inevitably be excess spillage, but let it go! Wait until the work has dried overnight and then clean it with a razor blade or wet and dry thin paper, depending on the background finish of the house sign.

I hope you enjoy this attempt at gilding and if it inspires you to take up gilding as a hobby, please let me know!