Manetti : Metal Leaf : 80 X 80mm : Platinum

Platinum is a precious, silvery-grey metal. It is a highly valuable commodity due to it’s scarcity and very little of it is mined each year. It is a non-oxidising metal, and so does not need to be lacqured.

Each book of leaf contains 25 leaves that measure 80mm x 80mm. 1 book will cover an area of 0.16m² without waste or overlap. (The amount of waste can be determined by the gilder’s own level of expertise and will depend on the complexity of the surface being gilded.) The higher the gold content of a leaf the more resistant it will be to tarnishing.

Transfer Leaf is the same as loose leaf except that each leaf has been pressed onto a lightly waxed sheet of tissue paper which can be picked up, thus avoiding contact with the metal. The tissue is then offered up to the sized area and rubbed from behind so that the leaf transfers from the paper to the object to be gilded.

Further transfer pressing is available. As a standard, transfer leaf comes loosely pressed – a loosely pressed leaf will come straight off the paper as soon as you stick any part of it to the gold size. A medium or hard-pressed leaf will only come off where you have pressed the leaf to the size, the rest of the leaf will stay on the paper to use again. The hard-pressed leaf is ideal when working on small letters and details, like honours boards, where the whole leaf coming off would result in a lot of wasted gold.

Please note: metal leaf pressed services cannot be returned or cancelled. Any leaf (gold or metal, etc) which is transfer leaf (rather than loose) can be pressed.