In metalsmithing (jewelry), you can add gold in a process called keum-boo. If you use gold leaf, it just disappears, you need thicker. For keum-boo, you use a gold foil, still very thin, but nothing like leaf - it's equivalent to approximately 144 layers of gold leaf.
Hi! I'm making ceramic jewelry and trying to figure out a way of working with gold on my pieces. Thanks for sharing your experiences and saving me the trouble, I really appreciate that!
Thanks for sharing this! I've wanted to try gold luster, and would probably start thinking along the same lines as you discuss at the beginning of this video - so I very much appreciate that you have done the work and shared the results!! The glittery gold through the final glaze is very pretty - though I realize it isn't what you were after.
Maybe try gold foil instead. When working w glass I found gold foil to hold up and react better at high temps when the leaf would burn off. Oddly silver leaf does kinda ok ...oh and the foil you can easily handle cut into shapes etc
The gold you see on china is a paint that is applied to the rim and baked at a low temp. I am not sure if you can buy that gold paint??? I would think you could... I have taken my gold bits after using leaf and added alcohol to make a crude paint of sorts. Keep your scraps in a plastic baggy, then you can 'mush' it with your fingers until it's more of a dust and then add a couple of drops of alcohol. It actually works well with enameling that gets fired at @1300. It must be the final firing, I have found, as the gold will go away if you refire it... where it goes, I don't know...
You dont need to heat it much.Just enough that the base glaze starts to soften wich is much lower than to fully melt it. Also,use reduction atmosphere or best thing would be to buy a few grams of gold luster. Im making my own gold lusters experiments with 24k gold.Gold mixed in glass gives pink and purples ( thats why red glass or pink ruby glass is expensive). You can also make your own lusters with gold chloride ,somme oil and a bit of sulphur,or with colophony.
I think it would stick to bare bisque better. Maybe glaze around those areas, and add the gold after glazing. Why fire it again? You don’t ordinarily heat gold leaf when applying to other materials, right?
I’m going to try something totally drastic but instead of putting it into the kiln is a blow torch to heat up your pot Then apply the gold with no size onto the hot pot See if the gold sticks to the pot I haven’t tried it yet but that’s my idea good luck
The issue is that gold will react with your glaze and upon binding will integrate. Basically it disappeared because it is not gold anymore but an alloy. When you applied a lot of it, it had the chance to make gold to gold bindings which preserved its chemical (and visual) property. I would mix some lithium or your transparent and apply gold directly on it while wet so you don't need to use glue. Might aswell buy powdered gold and do that at your first glaze fire and maybe use brass instead to save money
I don't know the specifics of gold lustre, but I suppose borax of some kind of gold salt solution would give better adhesion. I'm guessing that in the old days they might have made use of all kinds of solvents and chemicals that you wouldn't want to breathe. Perhaps it has something to do with the reduction of chloroauric acid (first dipping the pottery into an alkaline solution).
"A gold salt solution"...now that's interesting. I had thought to dissolve gold into something, but I really didn't what to be burning off hydrochloric acid or cyanide in my kiln. Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it.
Gold fuses really well to silver I'm wondering about using gold foil over a layer of silver foil. Also if you could get a good layer of silver adhered to the pot, you could potentially gold leaf over it in your oven or with a heat gun.
Hey, have you tried to use it on bisqued pottery and then just apply a clear glaze, i guess the results would be better? Maybe i will try myself and tell you the results in the comments!
The temperature near 1800°f the melting point of gold. I know that gold will burn off if it's much over its melting point and the gold foil is thin. Maybe fine China that has gold trim is dipped in a molten pot of gold where the gold is applied and then polished after it cools.
I dont know whether your still interested but the reason it's not working is the gold leaf your using, as with 90%+ of gold leaf sold, has has a miniscule amount if any actual gold in it. Even though it will say it has. You need to buy very high quality gold leaf and its very expensive. As you can imagine pure 22ct gold leaf will reflect the price of the gold markets 22ct gold if you want real 22ct gold leaf. You can also use 22ct liquid bright or powders but as before real 22ct liquid bright is very very expensive. My Grandmother had owned and ran a pottery factory for 40+ years in Stoke On Trent, Staffordshire in the UK pottery was our thing until the Chinese ruined the pottery industry here. Anyway real 22ct gold leaf can be applied and you will get the effect you are looking for
Make an amalgam of gold with Mercury, it becomes paste, Mercury will evaporate during the firing, toxic as hell, but the gold will remain. Mercury will amalgamate with the platinum series of elements, and it will also take up silver. This may be a way to make a gold "paint" and will leave a golden finish on the piece.
It sure seemed so. I bought the "special brush" from the gold supplier along with a tiny little brush to pick and set the gold. I really thought it would just rub down onto the piece. Not so much.
