Today I picked up a big piece of 18 gauge mild steel sheet from a steel yard in the city. (For the curious, “mild” means it’s low carbon, metallic, and not stainless.  It’s easy to weld, bend and etch but rusts like an old swingset, so it needs paint or powder coat. And for the really curious, 18 gauge means it’s 1/18th of an inch thick) I then then went to Building Resources (my happy place) because it was nearby and got a corrugated steel scrap and a 5 foot by 1 foot strip of what looks to be clear acrylic.  The mild steel is for the plasma cutter, the corrugated is to make a “Shanty Town” sign for the studio, and the plastic is for the laser cutter.  They’re all comingling in my car right now, and i’m hoping for some interesting offspring by morning.

On my way to the studio I stopped at Arch art supply which isn’t as good as Blick, but it’s close to the studio.  There I got some markers and Krylon Leafing Pens which aren’t cheap, but are absolutely fantastic.  While not quite as shiny as true leaf, they look exactly like antiqued leaf.  They’re much better than any metallic paint or marker I’ve ever tried.  The surface is uniform; there’s no powdery effect.

At the studio, I put another touchup gilding layer on the Ra piece, but was unsatisfied with the unevenness of it, so I applied a bit of the gilding pen and am quite happy with the result.  On a lark, I tried gilding a pastic-framed magnifying glass and the result is excellent:

Nice, huh?

I also received a replacement gasmask filter in the mail today and I worked on gilding it.  Result not great, but it’ll get there. I decided to touch up the copper mask as well and have some size ready to go tomorrow.  I may spend some time at Techshop too as I need to do some precise drilling and wood cutting.