Guilding by Sonny Franks - May 8, 2010

On Saturday, Sonny Franks showed the group how to add some pop to your woodworking projects by the use of guilding. Although other metal alloys such as silver, copper or mixes of silver, gold and copper, can be used for guilding, Sonny uses gold leaf for most in his work. Sonny works primarily with signs and uses gold leaf guilding to emphasize certain aspects of his signs but this process works on wood, ceramics and glass as well. Sonny showed us how to apply gold leaf to several wooden items. This process was often used in the past on furniture but has sort of fallen out of favor in the US. Although Sonny stated that it is still used extensively in Europe.

Sonny went through the entire process starting with applying the sizing which similar to varnish and letting that dry for the appropriate period. He then applied the gold leaf and burnished it to remove the excess. Sonny said that you could apply a clear coat over the gold leaf but it was not necessary. In fact he said the the clear coat would diminish the glitter of the gold leaf somewhat. There was a great deal of interest from the memebers that were present and they kept Sonny for quite a while after class asking questions.

Gerald Jones

President