Hello all, I am a fashion designer (leather, apparel and home) in California. One of my specialties are leather totes with our logo debossed in gold foil. Can anyone please give advice as to how to fix a poor foil deboss on uneven leather (croc, etc.) and to touch up old logo debosses? When I went over a second time with a new press and foil, it became sloppy as it wasn't exactly in the same spot. Does anyone know of a good way to do this by hand? I was thinking of heating up some hand tools and touching up the spots. But I know I am not the only one who has experienced this. Advice welcome!
We do alot of blocking in both real gold and faux gold foils. A few things to check before you block: 1) some leathers need 'paste washing' before they are happy to accept blocking or gold tooling. (I am a bookbinder by trade). Do say if you need to know how to do this. 2) any type or block you use must first be polished to a high shine. I use a polishing pad that is easy to make.
Please say if you need any of this explained in more detail. I was trained by an 'old guy' who did his apprenticeship as a gold finisher.
Hello Elizabeth.
This is definately a case of prevention being better than the cure. You really want to make sure the piece you are foiling is held in place and completely immobilised until you have finished the foiling process.
That way if your initial foiling efforts aren't satisfactory, you can hit it again with a fresh piece of foil and a little more pressure, dwell time, or heat as needed.
Fadi has offered a good idea, but you may be better off foiling a small square of croc and stitching it over the top of the original logo.
Oops, thank you!
I am moving this post to the "Help" section so that more people can see it and help you.
I think it would greatly depend on the press you are using, and mainly on the mechanism used to lock the brass stamp in place.
I did the following once, and it only work because my machine (Omac 993) uses screws to hold the stamp in place.
What i did was, while cold, i dropped the stamp in its place on the leather. You can feel it "slide and lock" into place on the old stamp. I navigated the whole piece of leather and stamp to where the machine will grab on to it. I pressed the lever down to where i felt the machine and stamp connected properly (it will take lots of trials to get it right, and make absolutely sure the stamp did not move a mm when doing so). At this point, while keeping a light pressure down, i taped my piece of leather on the plate so immobilise it. Lift the arm up and the stamp will lift with the machine. Heat it and gold foil. Voilaaaa.
Another thing I am wondering aloud about, if it is a minor touch up, maybe heat a piece of iron rod (or even a round awl that you can file down to have a rounded tip) and go manually over the spots that need retoutching?
You might find a little more help in the "Help From The Community" section of the Forum as the Mastermind section is reserved for questions about projects in Phil's course videos.