FauxGoldarticle

Of course, faux gold and silver finishes will never replace the look of real gold or silver finishes. But the costs of these materials are prohibitive and the next best thing, leafing, is time consuming to complete. With a colored metallic base coat, a glaze and a couple of clear coats, you can easily add a few extra dollars to the selling price. You can cut out the pattern for this classic Greek comedy-tragedy icon, faux finish it, and have yourself a sample you can show to potential customers. Once you try doing a few faux finishes you will see how easy they are to do, you will want to add this unique technique to your finishing arsenal.( The pattern is in the Fall 2001 issue of Scroll Saw Workshop magazine)

Make sure that whatever material you'll be faux finishing is clean. A clean surface is critical to achieving good adhesion between the wood and your finishing materials. If the surface of the wood is too porous like open-grained woods, you may want to brush or spray on a coat or two of your choice of shellac, laquer, varnish, polyurethene or acrylic.

For speed and convenience, I find gold an silver colored aerosols work very well for coloring and covering the wood's surface. If you prefer brushing instead of spraying, you can buy prepared liquid gold and silver coatings. You can make your own gold or silver basecoat with colored bronzing powders added to a clear acrylic, varnish or polyurethene. No matter which materials you select to use, be sure they are compatable with all the other materials you will be using for your work. A good way to ensure compatability is to stay with the same catagory of coating: For example if you start with an acrylic-based coating, finish with an acrylic coating. Always test yor materials first on samples, taking the process all the way to the end so you can work out any problems.

To create the base for your faux finish, lightly spray the aerosol to cover the wood; heavy coats are not needed. Then allow the coating to dry. I prefer spraying a clear coat to seal-in the sprayed gold or silver. This also adds body to the finish.

A colored glaze is a colored liquid that stays wet for various periods of time, depending on the materials used to make up the glaze. The working time of the glaze allows you to apply it and still have enough time to control and manipulate it to copy the characteristics of the material you want to duplicate. Glazes are sold by finishing supply companies. They come either as a clear glazing liquid where you add your own colorants, or they come already mixed in an assortment of colors. If you prefer you can make your own from scratch.

We will create and antique gold look with a Van Dyke brown glaze, and an antique silver look with black glaze. I highly recommend staying with the Van Dyke brown, but you can choose any variation of black. You can purchase glazes and the gold and silver aerosols from your finishing supplier or from your favorite art supply or craft store.

To apply the glaze, begin with a piece of clean cloth, folded into a ball. The size of the ball depends on the pieces you will be working on. Dip the cloth into the glaze, then work the "pad" on some newspaper to evenly distribute the glaze on the front of the cloth. Begin lightly dabbing the cloth on the gold or silver, lightly pouncing and twinsting the cloth to get a mottled look. When the cloth is dry, load it up again, and work it on the newspaper. Continue mottling and twisting until you have covered the piece. Do not over do the glaze by makng it too dark. Allow some of the backround color to show through. To soften the look of the glaze, use a clean cloth "dampened" with mineral spirits, and lightly mottle over the glaze, to achieve that soft, classic antique look of gold and silver. Once the glazing process is completed and allowed to dry, spray light clear coats to seal in the glaze, then allow it to dry.

To make the finish appear to be aged, select a red, green, or blue colorant, mix it with some mineral spirits, and brush it lightly on the edges, and along the sides. Lightly wipe the color with your fingertip until it's muted. Then apply another light clear coating to seal in these colors. Once it has dried, you can finish off your pieces with more clear topcoats.

A different look can be obtained by using a gold glaze over the brown sealed-in glaze or a silver glaze over the black one. You'll need a small amount of bronzing powder and a new cloth ball. Place a little powder on some newspaper, dip the cloth ball into the "coating" you will be using, then work it into the powder on the newspaper. Dab on the gold or silver glaze to create the mottling effect you made with the colored glaze.You can dab randomly on places, or do the entire piece to enrich the glazed metallic faux finish. If this glaze begins to dry out, you can rejuvinate it with a little mineral spirits.

With a little practice and patience, you should be able to make your scrolled work look like classic antique gold or silver pieces, and also increase your future custom-made orders. Give this unique pattern a try. Make up a few scrolled pieces with a few different faux gold or silver finishes, show them to your customers, and then get ready to start scrolling their orders.