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"ageing" letters on glass

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Site Man
Posts: 573
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:03 am
Location: Marlborough, MA

"ageing" letters on glass

Post by Site Man »

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Posted by Lee Littlewood on November 18, 2003
The job is 10 inscriptions on inside of windows, all with the same logo but different copy, in white with red shades, all caps, probably about 2" cap ht. And it's in a hurry of course. We figure to handletter a film positive and screenprint the logo then handletter the variable copy and shades so it should look consistent but not typographic. BUT the interesting part is that the designer would like the letters to look aged... Since it is a real bakery, not a backdrop or set, I don't want to compromise the longevity of the signs. Any ideas or warnings?
Roderick
To start out I've found that I always tint the glass with a dirty glaze first,liquin ,japan dryier and brtn seinna and raw umber, very translucent.Then any color you use for the lettering must be devalued in color ALOT.You might think your mixing the deadest color but when your backpainting glass it's always brighter from the front.If you use spray mask to paint the letters you can do your glaze and color very fast.you can do all your lettering translucent as well to give that "faded look"includeing brush strokes.In the end if you want to get a flaky look you can spary over it with lacquer thinner or anythink that will make the paint peel .Spray a little on and wait for it to lift the one shot just a little.Let it dry and then take a little steel wool and rub off the loose stuff.In the end you should be able to peel off the mask and clear coat .Hope that helps

Roderick


Robare M. Novou
I seem to remember Bruce Jackson mentioning the use of ink to stain the gild with.

And wasnt there an article by Carl Rohrs doing some time of glass window for a victorias secret type of sign.

Hope this helps,

RMN
Gary Godby
I don't know if this job is pertaining to gilding applications but, you can apply certain techniques to enamel lettering using the "candle smoke technique which can be viewed at this link.
You can also try this link as far as distressing & patina techniques.

the link: http://goldreverre.com/technique/smoke.html

Gary
Danny Busselle
HI You will actually use very little ASPHALTUM works well with other paint and is TRANSPARENT almost and just leaves a heavy age. I have aged Hunderds of pieces of glass and lamps in the movies. Should be no Problem
Mike Jackson
Sounds like the perfect time for a "beer" size. We tried it in Kansas City a long time ago. Try a dark ale. Seems like Kent Smith was part of that project. Maybe he has more specifics.

Mike Jackson
Carol
Do you drink it? Sounds like the lettering is suppose to be white. What would you size? Maybe I'm misunderstand the job.
C.
Mike Jackson
I must have gold leaf on the brain. I don't think sizing under paint would help unless you gave it a bath of beer first, sprayed it with shellac when dry, lettered it, and then removed the excess shellac and beer with alcohol. Might work!

Mike
Lee Littlewood
Well, what about shellac on glass? Does it get enough grab on the glass to hold up over time? It is certainly an attractive idea, because you could put your tinting/ageing loosely all over the sign area, then letter over it and then (next day?) remove the excess tinting with alcohol which should not affect the oil-based paint. But if the shellac fails then all the lettering would come off...
Our first test is thin OneShot scumbled and streaked on glass, let dry, and then lettered over with OneShot. Next day it was pretty easy to remove most of the tinting 'smears' with spray glass cleaner - only a little chipping on the edges of the lettering (which looks appropriate). But what I've got is more of a dirty letter than an aged letter - maybe need to do more up&down streaking, maybe flick some dark 'flyspecks' or something. I do like the idea of adding varnish to help show brushstrokes. Thanks, everybody
Roderick
Lee,

The trick to the first aging tint is too go very sutle with it if it's to strong it will just look dirty.I liked your Idea of wiping off the excess. I 'll try that.As far as shellack on the fist coat it works great.My dad used to do window lettering that way.First coat shellac leaving it a little out side the letters then letter with one shot and then sealing with shellac.
So if you dial in your dirty tint color with shellac,paint the letters with transparent one shot devalued in color (faded) maybe even 2 coats to show the strokes just like you see when a hand painted sign fades.Then wipe off the excess shellac you might have some thing good.

Roderick
Lee Littlewood
Thanks a lot, Roderick and all of you. As it happened, the client decided not to do any ageing, so we just spent the weekend printing and lettering with straight colors. Considering the timeline it was a Good Thing. But now I'm really interested in looking carefully at old window lettering. And what to do when they need "aged vinyl letters"??
Mike Jackson
Lee, aging vinyl lettering to look like painted letters would probably be easy. (unless you are wanting peeling calendered vinyl). You can spray vinyl lettering with Krylon, then quickly wipe it, sponge it, feather it, flick paint on it, or otherwise give it a distressed feel. You'd have to experiment with different colors of Krylon to pick one that gives the right effect.

Frog Juice will also work as a clear binder for similar effects. You can do all the work on either process while the letters are cut and still on the liner or distress it as a solid roll and cut afterwards.

I don't do this a lot, but have seen Butch create some interesting effects.

Mike
Sven Lynch
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by Sven Lynch »

Hello everybody, Had a quick question on the "beer" size mentioned above..

Would this mean just using straight beer and letting the stickiness of the beer do the work holding the leaf...

or is it that you would be using beer rather then water when making a water size. Heating the stale beer with gelatin ?

I imagine it could work either way but then I was thinking the gelatin may be needed for the longevity of the sign ?

And to Clarify ... as I understand it the beer will give a satin finish but with less effect then what you get using a varnish. And depending on the darkness of the beer varying brown tints ?

thanks for any insight .. I am off to the shop to make some test plates for my customer.

-cheers !
BruceJackson
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by BruceJackson »

Here's one simple way to approach it when doing a gilded letter....just rubbed back prior to backing up...and then back up with clear instead of black.
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Sven Lynch
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by Sven Lynch »

Wow nice work Bruce!!
so... is that with a beer or water guild ? it looks REAL nice !
Larry White
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by Larry White »

Image

The background panel around "Deadmen" is 12K white gold, gilded with beer
size. It yields a mottled matte finish, rather than the uniform finish that would
be achieved water gilding over varnish or using surface gold size.



Image

The lettering on this sign was also done with beer size.
I musta done this one some 20 years ago, looks the same
as when I made it, truth be told.
Larry White
That's enough for now... it's gettin' late
Town Of Machine
http://www.walljewelry.com
Sven Lynch
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by Sven Lynch »

Thanks for the fine examples of beer sizing Larry and it looks like it dose hold the test of time ! Nice with the white gold too and that pointer hand is killer !!

I just made my fist glass guilds last night with both beer and water sizes and learned some lessons right quick, but man how cool is it when the size sets up and you see the mirror effect ! I do believe I could be hooked :D
BruceJackson
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Re: "ageing" letters on glass

Post by BruceJackson »

Sven,

The one I posted above was just normal water size. You'll notice a matt centre in the letters. This was done by painting the matt first onto the glass with clear gold size. After it had got to the end of it's tack window and surface-dried but was still soft, give it a light scuff just to kill the gloss a little. Then water gild the whole thing. After that's dried, proceed as per described above by abrading the gild, then back up with gold size. You have to make a judgement call on how much gold to abrade away. Hang a piece of black card behind it and have a look from outside. It might look like you taken a huge amount off from inside, but outside will be just about right.

As for beer size, as Larry showed it gives a nice cloudy appearance. It doesn't add any brown color because it is such a thin layer. Personally, i would make up a strong water size and then add beer to it. I've also made it with milk (I thought it might add a little casein for adhesion...who knows?) and it had the same effect. Probably a whole lot of recipes will do the same thing, because all it is doing is contaminating the water size...
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