Weekend Workshop

I took a fantastic workshop this weekend, Gilding and Toolmaking with Brien Beidler. And I'm exhausted! Last week I started working full time at work because there was a grant that will pay me through January for that. Bad timing though with this workshop. I'll be full time for two weeks straight. But really there is nothing to complain about. I learned so much and am very happy with my take-aways. Tools and a pretty nicely gilded spine.

Brien is an excellent teacher. The class was unique and he did a great job with all of it. 

Step one: drill holes into the handles so they can be soaked in water. 

 Then the "fun" part. Filing the brass stock into shape. It had to be tapered just so. We were instruced to remove 1/5" of each side from the base. 

Mine is the one on the left - on the right is Brien's. I've got a way's to go! 

This was probably the most exhausting part of the workshop. So much physical work filing four brass bars into the perfect taper. ooof. 

Finally the last step is to polish the top for the design. 

My first tool went well. I made this art deco inspired shape. 

Tested it too. I think it looks pretty good! 

The second tool, well, let's just say I put about five different designs on the tip of that thing and filed them off until I finally settled on the circle. When the brass stock was finished we whacked them into the wet handles. They went in smoothly and the wood will shrink around the stock to hold everything in place.  

 I was even able to replace the handle on a tool I already had. The handle had burned out and the tool was held in place with cotton wadding.

 

Brien brought a lot of examples for us to gain inspiration from.


Day two:
Well, I woke up early so that I could make one more stock tool. I made a little dot. I'm very happy about the dot. Then I dashed off to get to the workshop at 10am.

Today was gilding day. Wow, I learned so much.


The principle of gilding is not difficult. Put egg glair down. Put down an extremely thin sheet of gold. Use a hot gilding tool to press a design into the leather. Wipe off extra gold, and voila! Beautiful.

In practice, this is an entirely different matter.

Working with the gold leaf is really something. It is gravity defying. It is so beautiful to see a 4x4 square of the foil floating on a gold knife, but the slightest breeze will cause hell with it. Cutting it to size and transfering it to the spine of a book is quite a challenge.

Brien prepared wood blocks with leather on a rounded spine for us to practice on. The entire spine is polished then covered with the leaf. I was so excited I forgot to take pictures of the process.

In the end it looked pretty good but there were two spots where the gold didn't stick. Easy to repaire just put a little glair on add gold scraps and try again.

I was successful! 

 All of our class examples. They look so nice!

 The nicest part of the class was one person who remarked about how they used to be so judgemental about the gilding on spines of old books. But now she knows better. I agree with her completely! It is so hard to get a design to be even on this surface.