Now that the Mosler is painted it is time for the art work, I'll cover the gold leaf this time. The goal on this safe is to recreate the original art work within reason since all of the original could be determined. Some safes used a gold paint but this Mosler did have gold leaf for the lettering and stripes. The lettering was created with a stencil and the stripes probably masked. Both were outlined by hand in black with the lettering also having a wide shadow in blue. No two Mosler safes seem to be the same although there is a common design theme on most that I have seen. I have not seen another Mosler with this layout.
The gold looks fair after 100 years but the blue has partially oxidized off and has turned dark.
Although I have done a lot of painting and vinyl graphic work, I have never done gold leaf. So I hit the forums and youtube videos to learn. I decided to jump in with both feet and go with real gold vs imitation. The leaf comes in two styles, loose and patent. Loose is just that, a very thin sheet of hammered gold lying loose between tissue paper. Approximately .1- .2 microns thick (less than 0.000004") A thousand sheets in a stack would be similar to the thickness of a sheet of printer paper. You might guess that it is very difficult to work with. (to say the least) In fact if you take a piece and rub it between your fingers it turns to powder, and not much of it.
I went with patent gold which means it is pressed so that it sticks to a sheet of thin tissue paper which makes it easier to handle. I also went with double gold which is about 20% thicker (and they call it double?) which also helps when working with it. It is still very fragile and the slightest air movement or clumsy fingers causes problems quickly. For practice I took an old car hood from one of the wife's deer accidents and practiced leafing technique, maybe more of a controlled disaster to be truthful. Once I started to get the hang of it I did a practice sign with the same graphics as on the safe. I even tried some turning of the gold on the border for practice.
For the lettering I went to a local sign shop with my tracings of the original. It was the first time dealing with this small shop and the gal was more than willing to correct my renderings so a paint mask could be cut on the vinyl plotter. The lettering did not match any known fonts so she corrected it manually on the computer. The resulting mask is applied to the safe like a vinyl sticker, then a size (varnish based glue) is brushed on, the leaf laid on, and then the mask is pulled. Some pictures will be from the other Mosler I am working on.
The mask applied.
Brushing on the size.
I used 1-shot quick size. Depending on temperature it is ready to leaf in about an hour and has an open window of about two hours until it is too dry. One has to plan how much you can realistically do and have all your materials ready to go. Brushing on the size was also tricky. While it flows out wonderfully, you have to work gently with it so as not to create bubbles that will leave imperfections in the gold. Slower sizes are supposed to be better but can take 12 hours or more to be ready to leaf. I don't have enough patients for that!
Then it is time to lay the leaf. I have the gold precut to the sizes I need. It comes in sheets 3 3/8 inch square. Here I have pieces cut for the door and body stripes. Cutting the gold is a challenge in of itself.
The pieces are gently laid into place with a slight overlap. High quality tweezers work well for this. When the gold initially sticks it looks like crap. Rough, uneven, sometimes a crack or you miss a spot, but don't panic. Cracks and missed spots can have a small piece pressed over them. Then it really looks like sheit.
Then you take a very soft brush and gently brush the gold into the size and it smoothes right out. I stole one of the wife's makeup brushes which works well for this. Any touch ups still show but with more brushing the excess gold comes off and the results look great.
Here is a door with gold on the mask partially brushed out. Little flecks of excess gold end up everywhere.
Back to this Mosler; here are a some pictures of the results.
Gold leafing is tedious work but very rewarding when finished. Next up, the pinstriper shows up to outline and shadow the gold.
It is time... stand up for a constitutional America. Without it, we have shed blood in vain.