The Framers Forum

I'm getting hopelessly confused with the spelling and meaning of ormolu now. One meaning refers to metal gilding with mercury and the other the term used to describe a deadening varnish applied over freshly gilded surfaces. From what you've mentioned about gesso over toile fabric, I assume you're de...

Hello Corinna. I'm not sure I understand the question on ormolu frames. From what little I know, ormolu gilding refers to a chemical/ heat process of gilding metal objects with a mercury gold amalgam. Is this what you mean, and if so, sorry no - never had to deal with one. They were mostly used as p...

Fantastic that you've made one of those machines and have it producing brilliant work. From what I've read, it's hard physical work operating the machine by hand. Would you see it possible to run it off a well geared down electric motor?

First up, the underlying surface of the wood must be marble smooth. So that needs a few coats of RSG gesso and sanded back to a finest finish. Then a coat of red bole, or red oxide acrylic paint well thinned ( no brush marks). Then two good coats of clear shellac. After that it's best to use a 3 hou...

Transparency is key to a finish with any sort of depth. Whether you use black acrylic, black oil paint, or any other sort of medium, if it contains black pigment then the finish is opaque. Which is fine if that's all you're looking for. If you want something that has an optical transparency to show ...

I like what you're doing. A wide black frame always looks good around a small still life such as this. I think they were often referred to as cabinet frames and many of the original ones I've seen were cut from walnut or other prime hardwoods. The big problem with using a cheaper wood such as ayous ...

Congratulations there, you're making and designing your own frames. And knowing how you want things to look helps enormously. It's more often the case of, "let's try a bit of this on and see what happens". I'm going to agree with fusionframer here where he feels the inner black rail distra...

Polyco GL890 are the gloves I use. Always best to buy 1 size larger than you need, then they can be taken off and on for easy re-use. But don't let the Thinners near any good brushes. Use Q tips or a disposable brush.

Two things to try would be acetone and cellulose thinners. You can get both in small quantities and free-post on e-bay. Thinners is not very pleasant stuff, so I should order a box of blue vinyl disposable gloves.

RSG is short for Rabbit Skin Glue, which is just a refined grade of hide glue - no rabbits were harmed in it's production. The glue is used as a binder in gesso and bole, as well as a glue-size for use in water-gilding. It was also used to matt out fresh gilding and indeed forms one of the component...

I wouldn't say it's the best idea to use water on a gilded picture-frame, but for most of the frames we're likely to encounter these days, water is the simplest and easyest solvent to aid restoration. Cold water alone would not be enough to dissolve the RSG from that age but it's always best to do a...

The first thing to do with an old frame is to give it a good dusting with a dry brush. Indeed, on very valuable frames, this is the only preferred cleaning they should get. Next is to have a good quality "one-stroke" water colour brush ( Pro Arte Prolene 1" flat, series 106 ) and a bo...

Hi Jacky The only book I ever found useful was a book called Framing and Gilding by Paul Curson. Unfortunately he's gone to Australia and taken his book with him. He showed everything you needed to know with simple and accurate descriptions and not like the usual fuzzy mentions of "a cup full o...

Or maybe one of these -
http://tiranti.co.uk/products/no-47-sta ... f-spatula/

And then when you carved the gesso, the frame needs about two coats of red bole. After that, two coats of a heavily pigmented wash of raw umber/terre verte and maybe some ultra marine or cobalt blue - you'll have to experiment to get a colour match but don't use acrylics as you need to keep the fini...

NYAF describes exactly how this frame was made. Some poor sod has had to scribe into the soft gesso using a sort of home-made tool. This was obviously done on the instructions from the original artist who may or may not have gone on to be of some importance. If you did use a cmc to carve the wood th...

That's good to hear you're enjoying using Dutch leaf. You can get a much brighter gild by using loose leaf. The way to handle it is to cut the whole book into 1" or 2" strips with a pair of scissors. Then you have easily manageable pieces of loose leaf. Keep your fingertips well rouged fro...

For me - rottenstone is a no-no. I personally regard it as a lazy shortcut that contributes nothing to the colour of a frame. It's a polishing powder, not a pigment. I know what you want is for a "dust of ages" in the corners and crevices, but rottenstone is too obvious, a cliche and subtr...

Well, welcome to the grievous world of leaf gilding. I'm not going to attach criticisms to any of what you've done here because I believe you will be the best critic of your work. The principal question to ask is, has the frame turned out the way you wanted it to. I can give some pointers and it's u...

Me - I don't cut mounts, so I'm not the best person to comment here. But, I fully endorse everything that has been said here, especially the two replies from Mark. Some of his best work to date. As everyone says, use your eye and even more important, educate your eye. As I said, I have no great inte...