Famous Jewelry Collections: THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

How to Use Gilder's Paste to Colorize Metal Jewelry

Posted: 08 Jun 2011 04:00 AM PDT

Just the other day, I was looking at my little collection of vintage brass stampings and lamenting their lack of color. While I was looking for colored stampings, I discovered there is such a thing as Gilder's Paste.

This special colored wax is produced by Baroque Art and can be used not only on metals but wood, ceramics, resin and polymer clay.

It's typically used to gild outdoor iron work, pottery, picture frames, candles and furniture. Jewelry artisans though are starting to have fun with this fantastic product on their components.

There are 28 colors available including some lovely metallic hues. It has the consistency of shoe polish and even comes in tins like them. The blended and layered techniques with different colors result in even more variations. One of the colors, Verdigris, mimics the greenish blue patina of tarnished metals. A little goes a long way so a small tin will probably do a jewelry artisan. They do make the stuff for people working with much larger iron work pieces!!

The colored wax is either rubbed on neat or brushed on after mixing with paint thinner. It takes about 12 hours to cure with plenty of time in the first hour to easily remove it. After it cures, it will take paint thinner etc to remove it. Get the gilded finish look by lightly buffing after curing.

It can be applied and blended over a painted base. Several types of sealants can be used to protect the final design. Diamond Glaze, Renaissance wax, matte varnishes, Ceramcoat sealer are some suggestions.

Some of you would probably be wondering about product safety. Well, the manufacturer states you can use your fingers to apply the paste. I suspect the solvent base might be white spirit . To be sure, check the MSDS (material safety data sheet) supplied by the manufacturer. If so, the main issue would then probably be skin irritation with prolonged skin contact. So just use your common sense - either use a cloth, tool or wear gloves and work in a well ventilated spot if you're going to be using this a lot.

While researching on how to use Gilder's Paste for jewelry, I stumbled upon Brenda Sue's delightful videos on Youtube. She is the founder of B'Sue Boutiques which sells supplies. She has been making jewelry for more than 20 years. Her warm, bubbly and can-do personality shines through her fun presentations.

Her first video covers the basic use. The paste is especially effective when applied over an acrylic painted metal finding.

Her second video shows how she put together an absolutely gorgeous metallic necklace made up of floral stampings covered with Lumiere paint, Gilder's Paste and Diamond Glaze. She includes the wire work instructions on how to put it all together and a tip on how to sign your work on designs.

Brenda found it's much easier to thin the paste and paint on chain and filigrees as you can see in her third video. There's probably more to follow as she explores how to use Gilder's Paste.