At Historical Arts, we design and build some spectacular hand railings.  Often the client wishes to reproduce a railing found in an old photograph, or even something that they have seen in an ancient palace.  Many beautiful railings were originally hand forged, or even cast in Iron.  Often small sculptural details are highlighted with Gold embellishments.

Roger Baird - Gold Leafing a handrail for a private residence in Chicago, Illinois

On a recent project we reproduced such a classical railing.  The hand railing extended between the ground and the third floor, circling in an elliptical fashion.  Cast in aluminum, and painted a dull satin black color, it required Gold accents on the floral designs, which the client requested gilded with 22 Karat Gold.

Although periodically we guild architectural details, it is not something that we do every day.  The short time frame required that this work be accomplished quickly with a high degree of sparkle.  It contained many complex three dimensional sculptured elements.  In this work I have often faced challenges with unpredictable Gold Size (adhesive used to adhere the gold to the cast metal).  As well as man power challenges enlisting help from other departments in our shop from employees with limited gilding experience.  The challenge was to do the work quickly and consistently.  The finished product needed to look as good as the railing in the Palace that it was copied from.

I was introduced to a gilding system called INSTACOLL, which I purchased from Sepp Leaf Products of New York City, where I also bought the Manetti Gold Leaf.  This system is comprised of a yellow base coat, and a milky white activator.  It creates a remarkable bright shine similar to plating, and is suitable for both interior and exterior applications.

I first painted on the base coat with a fine camel hair brush, and allowed it to dry for four hours.  The base coat flowed out nicely and dried quite hard.  There is no tack time or length of time to wait before continuing the process once the base coat is dry.  It can sit indefinitely.

Next the activator is applied to the base coat.  It is ready to guild when it dries clear.  About 10 or 15 minutes.  The

Section of Handrail - Gold Leafing Detail

surface is now ready to guild.  I found the open time to be over 24 hours.  We had great success applying and burnishing the 22K Gold Leaf with Pink Pearl Erasers.  These remarkable tools allowed us to work the gold into all of the little cracks and crevices and at no time did their abrasive nature wear off the gold.  The finished product produced a bright shiny and tough gold surface.  Which received a final buff with cotton swabs.

I was very pleased with the INSTACOLL process. It is easy to use, and produces superior results.  You can be assured that I will use it on my next Gilding Project and best of all, the clients were thrilled with the appearance of their new hand railing.