[Peter Johnsson]

Tod, great work on this sword.

I am not sure what I am most impressed by: the sword or the scabbard.

Gilding presents us makers today with a knotty problem. I am doing battle with questions around this myself right now.
What you suggest with using an under layer of varying thickness sounds like a great idea. I would love to see your sword in real life and now feel stupid I did not take time to read and reply properly before the Park Lane Arms fair weekend...
But perhaps the sword had reached its owner by then anyway?

Beautiful interpretation and great work. Inspiring to see!

[Bruno Giordan]

Mr Todeschini

It seems fire gilding without mercury could be a real possibility.

Look at this lines written by an italian expert

Un altro tipo di doratura a fiamma è realizzata senza l’uso del mercurio. In questo caso si riscalda il metallo finché non prende un colore blu, si stende direttamente la foglia d’oro sul pezzo per mezzo di un ferro liscio, poi si riscalda ulteriormente il tutto sulle braci. Possono seguire fino ad altre quattro mani di doratura, posando un foglio alla volta o per i lavori di maggior qualità due insieme sovrapposti, e riscaldando ogni volta. La superficie risulta con questo metodo già lucida, poi se necessario si brunisce il tutto. È un sistema più veloce, economico e meno pericoloso per la salute, ma anche meno resistente; inoltre non riesce a raggiungere la bellezza dei contrasti ottenibili con la doratura al mercurio.

Original link here

http://www.antichitasantoro.com/pubblicazioni..._fuoco.htm

It just requires gold leaf and the piece to be heated at a blue color.

Results are still given as inferior to mercury gilding but you could more easily give a try at this simpler method.

The article linked contains mostly a detailed description of mercury gilding proper.

My deepest congratulations for your last work.

[Bruno Giordan]

Translation of the text on mercury-less fire gilding



Another kind of fire gilding is obtained without the use of mercury. In this case metal is heated until it gets a blue colour, golden leaf is laid down directly by means of a smooth iron, then the whole is heated furtherly on the coals. Up to four cycles of gilding may follow, laying a single leaf at a time or two leaves juxtaposed for higher quality works, heating each time. By this method the surface will results immediately shiny, then if necessary the whole can be burnished. It is a system that is faster, economic and less dangerous for health, but also less resistant: furthermore it cannot reach for the beautiful contrasts that can be obtained with mercury gilding.

[Sean Flynt]

Thanks for that, Bruno! Very interesting.

[Matthew Stagmer]

I wonder...has anyone tried plating gold the same way you can with a brass brush? I think you would be hard pressed to find a gold wire brush but if it worked it would be worth making one I suppose.

I know we have had good results with brass using this method and it sort of works with copper.

Here you can see the hilt and pommels of these swords that we did for the LA Opera are steel and brass brushed when at a blue heat. It leaves a nice antiqued look to it.


Just a thought.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Matthew: Is this almost like brazing, in principle, but very thin and as a surface covering ?

[Bruno Giordan]

[Leo Todeschini]

Thanks for all this information Bruno and Matthew that effect is fantastic and have never heard the like of it - all very interesting.

Bruno, most of the gold leaf you can buy in art shops is in fact anodised aluminium, but if you ask carefully the real stuff will be hiding amongst all the aluminium.

Tod

[Matthew Stagmer]

Yea, I had noticed that the sword world had not used this effect with brass much.

You have all seen it many times, but prob never realized what you were looking at. It is an old school blacksmith method. How many times have you seen iron gate and fence work with golden finials? Most of them are done this way. Until I researched it I always assumed that they were just painted.

Jean, I suppose it is like brazing. It is so super easy to do and you can just keep applying over and over to get as thick of a coating as you want. Seen in the swords above we just did one heat to give it an antiqued look but you can do it until the piece looks like solid brass. You can buff over this surface and it wont come off.

I would assume that any material with a lower melting point then steel would work. Copper however, kind of leaves a neat blackish finish and not a bright copper tone. I have been meaning to play with this method with other materials but time has not allowed that yet.

[Jeremy V. Krause]

[Brad Harada]

Absolutely gorgeous work Tod! This is a bit off-topic, but for those of you who are interested, an example of modern-day fire gilding using traditional techniques can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM0VnL30rDc

at around the 5:50 mark. The "butter of gold" is the mercury/gold amalgam. I'm not quite sure how he handles ventilation to avoid breathing in the fumes.

[Bruno Giordan]

[Jeremy V. Krause]

[Antal László]

Without question this is the best looking replica of the original I've ever seen and I'd bet it handles like a dream. The scabbard Tod made really makes this set a whole unit of exquisite awesomeness. Truly a sword for a champion, and what a startling resemblance to the prize for the Grand Tournament in Sankt Wendel

[J. Hargis]

As mentioned by Tod: