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metal foil for natural metal finishes - what about gold leaf?


Never a Pro

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Hi.

 

I am becoming increasingly interested in trying a natural metal finish with metal foil.

 

I want to have a nice polished chrome look on a propeller, so I did a try with aluminium foil. It didn’t went well, as it was hard to properly burnish the foil to the propeller curves, and I scrapped the test.

 

Today, I got into a store and saw some silver gold leafs (labelled as metal sheets, used normally for decoupages), and got intrigued. That thing is damn light and fragile, very hard to cut and handle, but it conforms beautifully.

 

I tried on a propeller spinner, and it worked well, as long as you are gentle and don’t go hard on burnishing, because it will break easily, but you can always put more as the edges are almost impossible to see.

 

I am wondering, sure, aluminium foil is likely easier to work and cut, you can even sand it and colour / discolour it, but I wonder if anyone did try gold leaf in your builds.

Edited by Never a Pro
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2 hours ago, janneman36 said:

No I did not but I use gold leaf glue on my 13 microns thick kitchen foil and that does burnishes well and adheres very good!
In my opinion the best combination!

 

cheers, Jan 

 

maybe I should try on something easier than a tiny propeller, but it’s good to know that gold leaf can do the work where aluminium foil can be very challenging.

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Can you share some photos of your results?  Subscribers may be able to assist with technique..

As for gold leaf, the frame on this Eagle was formerly a Rolo wrapper,

Easter egg foil is good too.

Rolo2.jpg

stuck on with foil adhesive  https://www.modellingtools.co.uk/microscale-metal-foil-adhesive-13752-p.asp

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Have you tried Bare-metal foil?  https://www.bare-metal.com/bare-metal-foil.html Self adhesive and as thin as kitchen foil. Think Hannants & Modellingtools sell it and probably a few more

 

https://www.modellingtools.co.uk/bare-metal-foil-30-c.asp

https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?scale_id=89514&per_page=25&search_direction=asc&search=bare meta&manufacturer_id=309536

 

 

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7 hours ago, Cheshiretaurus said:

Have you tried Bare-metal foil?  https://www.bare-metal.com/bare-metal-foil.html Self adhesive and as thin as kitchen foil. Think Hannants & Modellingtools sell it and probably a few more

 

https://www.modellingtools.co.uk/bare-metal-foil-30-c.asp

https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?scale_id=89514&per_page=25&search_direction=asc&search=bare meta&manufacturer_id=309536

 

 

 

I read about that metal foil, it seems like it is a little more flexible but still behaves a little like kitchen foil I guess. 

 

With this gold leaf it looks like you can do stuff like put white glue on a landing gear struct, wrap leaf around it with, then brush out whatever didn't glue.

 

I am still wondering if it's not used that much because it's not worth the hassle compared to aluminium foil and alclad paints.

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  • 1 year later...

Just came across this thread, a couple of years ago I used gold leaf to simulate the Kapton insulating foil on one of the Dragon 1/72 Apollo LEM. Was a bit of a faff, but worked well in the end, especially as crinkly and wrinkly was the effect needed. 

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I work as a sign writer so regularly use gold leaf. In general I wouldn't have said it was suitable for models although you can get silver leafs as well as copper and bronze etc. so it might be worth playing with if you are feeling adventurous 🧐

 

Loose leaf is very difficult to handle. It's usually picked up by use a bit of sweat on a gilders tip (kind of brush that you wipe on the oily skin on the side of your nose) Transfer leaf is easier to work with since it's been loosely attached to a sheet of thin paper. Both attach to a surface using size rather than glue or a dilute gelatin wash in the case of glass. Avoid Dutch gold or imitation gold leaf since it will oxidise over time after fixing unless it is properly sealed. 

 

Hope that helps

Paul

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