A while back I found myself with a nice set of Indian Rosewood, but unfortunately it was covered with some ugly stains. I decided to build with it anyway and gild the resulting guitar with metal leaf as an excuse to explore different colors and textures not normally associated with guitars. The result was a 28" scale steel string baritone. I thought I would share my methods and results.
For those unfamiliar with gilding, it is simply the application of a very thin layer of metal to a surface. It has been practiced for centuries and in all those years the process hasn't changed much. The basic process for gilding wood goes something like this: first the surface is primed with a light coat of shellac. Next a coat of adhesive, or 'size', is painted on. Once the size is tacky a metal leaf is applied (leaf is just an extremely thin sheet of metal like gold, silver, copper, etc) and finally the leaf is burnished into the surface. Depending on how the leaf is applied one can get all kinds of different textural effects. Sometimes chemicals can be applied which react with the metal to mimic various patinas or tarnishes that metals take on as they age. Metals like gold and aluminum are non-reactive so patinas are not possible; however, metals like silver, copper, dutch metal, or pretty much anything that oxidizes or tarnishes, will react with a wide array of chemicals and can produce stunning colors and textures depending on how and how long they are applied. For this project I chose copper as the metal and a Barium Sulfide solution to produce the chemical patina.
Here's the guitar in question, it is sitka spruce with cocobolo bridge and fingerboard:
Applying the copper leaf: on this section I kind of swirled the leaf around while applying it to get a swirly texture. In this picture I have the purflings masked with tape and am tamping the leaf down into the edge with a very soft brush which is taped for support:
Here is another section, where I left the size somewhat softer than normal and applied the leaf by tapping it into the wood with my fingertip. The valleys you see are the pores of the wood; the other texture you see is the imprint left by my fingerprints:
The same section with Barium Sulfide solution added to get the chemical patina:
Some of the colors:
It was a pretty big pain to scrape away the excess leaf and size around the purfling with an exacto knife... next time I might wait until after gilding to rout the binding/purfling channels.
The finished back:
Here's a cool trick: I sprayed thin lines of shellac then very very lightly and carefully sanded the result with a very fine grit. The result looks uniform straight on and like a curly figure at certain angles:
There are other features the photos don't capture. I will be bringing this guitar to the GAL convention in June. Come check it out and say hello!
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