Gold leaf for cars and motorcycles

Already more than a thousand years old, the use of gold leaf for paint is one of the oldest artistic decorative techniques and used in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Always eager for innovation and endowed with unlimited creativity, bodywork decorators and other Custom paint specialists have appropriated gold leaf to incorporate them into their decorations.

Using gold leaf is surely one of the best techniques to imitate gold. The golden color is symbolically synonymous with rarity and magnificence. On the tanks, the helmets and other parts of the bodywork, the gold leaves make it possible to illuminate the inscriptions but also the lines and other graphics. Among all the decorative techniques of plastic arts and fine arts, leaf gilding has been applied perfectly to surfaces in the field of automotive painting, because these sheets of metal of micrometric thickness know how to adapt to n' any shape.

Types of gold leaf for bodywork and custom

It is possible to acquire these sheets of precious metal quite easily, or more often of imitation of the famous golden precious metal. When gilding leaves are used, the quantity of gold deposited is microscopic, because a leaf, even if it is pure gold, weighs only a few millionths of a kg, or a thousandth of a gram. Real gold has an essential quality, that is to say that it does not oxidize, while other imitation metals such as bronze, copper, have the particularity of oxidizing. However, when the sheets are varnished, neither the Nino air can oxidize the metal.

Today, it is becoming very difficult to obtain gold leaf in pure gold: It is possible either to use 12-carat gold leaf (but this one has a rather disappointing shade because their yellow tint is quite pale), or alloy-based imitation leaves: the latter are very economical, having the same properties and finesse as real gold leaf, and now their color perfectly imitates the golden metal. Aside from the quality and composition, there is also the method of delivery: we essentially see a so-called "bulk" or "transfer slip" offer.

Finally, there are the sizes which generally vary between 8 cm squares or 12 or 14 cm squares. On bodywork and in the field of painting precisely, we generally need a rectangular shape to stick in a lettering or to gild a line. It is therefore necessary to cut its leaves to avoid waste.

The manipulation of gold leaf

The advantage of offering gold leaf in a transfer book is that each leaf is separated by a thin sheet of paper which serves as a support and which helps with handling: if you does not have transfer sheets, it is impossible to take a sheet with your finger, otherwise it will break immediately.

Gilding professionals use a large, soft brush that will charge with static electricity, for example by rubbing it on their hair and will thus be able to collect the leaf with the tip of their brush, to deposit it on the area that they want to gild.

The gilding technique applied to bodywork

The technique of applying gold leaf, whatever the surface, and relatively easy. The essential point is the most difficult to master, it is to find the good product to stick them and to determine the good timing. There are products specific to the gilding technique, usually used in the world of fine arts and art restoration, which can be used on bodywork. This is called a “mixture”. It is really not recommended to use another product, for example a sticky varnish or a transparent primer, because these dry too quickly and have difficulty in retaining the sheet.

Gilding glue on bodywork