Whats a good way to retail the price of laying gold leaf on 14 8" gemini plastic formed letters? I know generally my shop labor cost + cost of gold leaf packets. But its determing the amount of gold leaf thats a puzzle that i will use. And whats fair to add to the plastic letter cost.
peace
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
I'll bump this one out of curiosity to see an answer myself. Are you selling just the letters or making a sign? Are you installing the letters? I think the mark-up on just the plastic would depend on "percieved value" I'm installing the number 250 on the front of a building & they will be paying mostly for the install, but even with that I wouldn't want them to know how inexpensive the letters really are.
If your not good at guessing the material required, I'm assuming you are new at gilding. I just tried my first attempt. I didn't waste much leaf in the process, but the whole job will need re-doing which I anticipated & was working on a reduced size test piece anyway.
I'll hope for experienced answers for both of us, but in my opinion if the letters are too wide to wrap a half sheet easily over the stroke, then you should figure on full sheets slightly overlapped. Or if it's a thick & thin typestyle maybe if you're lucky 1/3 and 2/3 sections of leaf can both be used. As for waste due to your learning curve (if my assumption is correct)you would want to pay for that yourself. The gilded letters will probably be costly enough that you don't want to factor that in or you may discourage future opportunities to learn gilding on paying jobs.
Posted by Curtis hammond (Member # 2170) on :
you can purchse ready made gold leafed letters. They are comparable in price if you did them yourself.
hmmmmmm. forgot who it was that had them at kathies and RT's meet.
Posted by Kissymatina (Member # 2028) on :
Hey Curtis, was it GOLD LEAF LETTERS? hehe
They were at the Mars meet. Their website is www.goldleafletters.com, phone 877-233-4587. They're outta Port Richey Florida.
Perhaps if you call, you could mention they would've been a LOT easier to find had they advertised on letterheads.com Posted by John Arnott (Member # 215) on :
I charge $35 to $40 per letter to gild not counting the letter itself.
Posted by bronzeo (Member # 1408) on :
Formed letters take quite a bit more time and effort to gild, than carved letters. They will typically take quite a bit of leaf also. I would grab a Gemini sample, and do one for your display, as a time test. I did, and was surprised at the difference.
Posted by Kent Smith (Member # 251) on :
8" letter, $55.00 to gild. Remember to wipe them down with PC reducer before sizing.
Posted by Steve Purcell (Member # 1140) on :
The amount of leaf per letter will be determined by the letterstyle, it's weight, and which characters are used. Serifs eat gold and labor.
On a job of that size I would double the cost of the letters, and add the gilding, etc., to that.
Posted by John Smith (Member # 1308) on :
Kent, (my good friend) what is PC Reducer? Not that I do any of this work myself, but, this is a new term to me. Thanks, John
Posted by Robert Beverly (Member # 1907) on :
Matthew
I would also add that we did a trial piece of leafing on a coastal enterprise epoxy resin surface during the meet in Oklahoma and surprisingly enough( or at least I was), we found that by actually wiping the quick size off the surface rather than just brushing it on and leaving it...
produce a much brighter gild!
try it...you may be very surprised!
just use a non lint cloth and wipe as much off as you can...and we also waited the same time frame for both.
We also found that it was less likely to accept an engine turn effect...while it did of course work on the brushed on size
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hehe