A bright, authentic-looking gold paint?

[Al N]

G'day Peeps,

I'm looking for a small amount (250ml or so) of bright gold paint that looks as close as possible to real gold leaf. I need it for painting the frames of two or three antique mirrors in my house. Some of the gold paints I've tried seem to lose their brighness quite drastically after a while, and end up looking abysmally dull and horrible. Can anyone suggest one tht looks as close as possible to real gold leaf, and maintains it's colour and brightness long term? It can be either in an aerosol can, or in a regular tin for brush application. I don't care what type of base it has as long as it can be applied to old oil-based paint.

Many thanks...

Al

[Another John]

Have you tried this:

Art shops might be your best source.

I myself have something called "Magic Leaf" imitation gold leaf, which is applied like the real thing, which I bought about 15 years ago (or more) for 4.99. It worked really well for my purposes, and looks very gold-like.

However: the mighty Google cannot bring it up! It's called Magic Leaf, but is made by Blattmetall (which means leaf metal, in German). Loads of hits for Magic Leaf Blattmetall, but none which look like UK retailers.

hth John

[Chris Hogg]

Dutch metal is low-cost alternative to gold leaf, and applied in the same way. It's a copper-zinc alloy and can be produced in very thin sheets, like gold leaf. Available from art shops etc, for example; see

[Chris Hogg]

PS: Applying either gold leaf or Dutch metal is a very skilled job IMO, requiring some experience. My wife sometime applies one or the other to old mirror frames or picture frames, and I wouldn't like to try it.

But plenty of videos on YouTube, see

[AL_n]

Another John wrote in news:lalaw44- E68C7F.09371806122013@[216.196.109.145.hva.nl]:

Thanks... Is it any good?

Yes, that's a possibility...

I have applied real gold leaf in the past. It was perhaps 25 years ago, and it really wan't very expensive. I guess that may have changed now due to the hike in gold prices since the post-2000 fears of the collapse of fiat currency.

One of the mirror frames I have would be difficult to gold-leaf because it has a lot of small spheres attached all the way round its circumference. I'd be happy just to paint it. I'm curious to find out how much gold paint has improved in recent years too!

Al

[AL_n]

Chris Hogg wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I've done gold leafing in the past (when gold was more affordable) but I think a really decent gold paint would be good enough for this project. I don't want to spend much time on it.

I vaguely recall that a new level of metallic brush-on paints appeared on the market 25 years ago or so. Unlike previous metallic paints, this stuff was exceptionally bright. I suspect that the particles of metal were flat, and rose to the surface in horizontal orientation, as the wet paint settled on the surface. I think they even described the silver version as "chrome" paint, which was arguably pushing the Trade Description envelope a bit. Plenty of gullible punters bought it, thinking they were going to end up with a mirror chrome finish like the chrome-plated lid on the tin! I think the gold version was pretty good. However, I don't remember if the gold version remained bright indefinitely, though.

Thank you

Al

[Chris Hogg]

This gold paint from Winsor and Newton on Amazon has got good reviews, and W&N are amongst the best when it comes to artists' paints.

[AL_n]

Chris Hogg wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Yes.. that looks like a good bet... thanks!

Al

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

About that time there appeared a new spray-on bright silver aerosol paint, which actually did a credible job on wheel spokes, etc. It was leaps and bounds ahead of the previous attempts at creating a fake chrome finish. I bought one tin of it at the time and it disappeared shortly thereafter, never to be seen again. A competitor product sprung up, but it wasn't as good.