Gold sign writing produced on a shopfront is created using geniune gold leaf. Its 23 carat & comes in fine leaves which are pressed onto hand painted signage & once dried leaves the gold firmly stuck to the painted signage leaving pure gold lettering.
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To produce the gold sign writing the branding & artwork has to be created to the ideal size. This is produced prior to being on site & drawn onto paper. The paper drawing/layout is then used on site by measuring into place & then reliefed onto the shopfront. As can be seen the centre of the shopfront is marked out in this instance by tape. The lettering to be sign written is marked out in chalk which has been reliefed to the surface.
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The signwriting is applied by hand & brush. This is a specialist job & requires a lot of precision. The wording is painted with a mix of specialist liquid glue & oil based paint. The paint allows the signwriter to see where they have painted. The glue is the adhesive for the gold. The wording is produced in small areas at a time as the drying time of the mix is crucial. It has to have just a small amount of tack to touch for the gold to be applied smoothly. The gold is applied by pressing leaves of gold onto the written lettering. This is again a skill an experienced signwriter has.
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Applying the gold sign writing on this project was produced by adding the gold to the logo first & then the first word of the branding. Any more than this would’ve meant the tack for the application would have gone over & the signwriting too dry for the gold to be applied & sick to it.
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The remainder of the logo writing is then hand painted & allowed to dry to the point of low tack before the gold is applied & allowed to dry on the sign writing. As can be seen the gold applied to the rest of the signage is left to dry to the sign writing & doesn’t have the excess gold cleaned of until the end.
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The Sign writing was hand painted & completed in the paint/adhesive mix. The drying time on this day was not too fast, which allowed the remainder of the wording to be written before applying the gold.
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The gold sign writing is created with the pressed application of the gold leaf across all the wording. There is always some excess at this stage as the leaves of gold are so fine it tears from the leaf in an uneven way. As long as all sign writing is covered by the gold the excess is no issue, its simply cleaned of by a ‘burnishing’. This process is how you create the crisp edge lettering after the removal of the excess gold by use of a soft brush or with a damp cloth.
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The cleaned off (burnished) gold sign writing looks superb in both sunlight or fading sunlight like in this instance. The 23ct gold really gleams & more than any gold paint could try to replicate, which is why Traditional signs won’t use gold paint of gold sign writing as it produces a sub standard finish.
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Traditional & Contemporary Hand Painted Sign Writing in London
Sign Writer Traditional Signs of London
https://traditionalsignsoflondon.uk/contact/
info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk