WarmGlass.com

Hi,

I thought that I'd better check with the experts before embarking on my next project!

I would like to try my hand at gold inclusions. Through internet searches, I found 23 kt Chinese, Italian and German gold leaves. The latter two types of leaves are up to twice as expensive as the Chinese ones, so that begs the following questions:

1- Is there a difference in quality and thus behaviour of the gold upon fusing? Isn't 23 kt gold, well... 23 kt, or there would be other impurities in the sheet that would wreck havoc during a full fuse?

2- If there is really a difference in quality, most of the time, there is no mention of the origin of the gold leaf. How do you deal with that: supplier's reputation?

3- Is it better to get the patent gold leaves from a gilder or a glass supplier, or it does not matter?

Your two cents is very much appreciated.

Cheers!

Lucie

gold LEAF generally dissapears into the glass. gold FOIL is what you want for fusing. rosanna

For starters, if you're going to use the gold leaf as a fusing inclusion, you need to take the thickness of the leaf into account. Gold leaf for fusing needs to be around 3 microns thick, many of the gold leaf products sold for gilding are less than a micron thick. Often (but not always) when it's this thick it's called gold foil rather than gold leaf. If you do use gold leaf instead of foil, you'll need to use several layers to get good results.

It's difficult to compare gold from one manufacturer to another, mainly because the standard thickness varies from one manufacturer to another. Most people consider the Japanese, Italian, and German gold leafs (gold leaves?) to be best, but that could be just anti-Chinese bias. Certainly the European and Japanese products have been around for longer and are more tested.

I've used both the gold foil Bullseye sells and an Italian variety Brambilla Battiloro IT23-65GLF. Sepp Leaf also sells a Japanese gold foil that should work well for fusing.

As already stated, don't both with gold leaf. Not only is it very difficult to work with, but it just doesn't fuse well. I fired several layers between two layers of glass and got an ugly brownish stain.

I've used Bullseye's gold foil and like the results very much. Easier to cut and handle too.

You might want to do some experiments with gold mica which can give very beautiful results at a fraction of the cost.