Preserving A Centuries Old Tradition 

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Gilder Bob Gamache’s Craft Dates Back to Egyptian Times

Story and Photos by Art Petrosemolo
MIDDLETOWN – Master Craftsman Bob Gamache is preserving a tradition that dates back to the Egyptians. If you’ve ever marveled at the ornate gold leaf that adorns centuries-old sarcophagi you’ve seen in a museum or a elaborate restaurant sign – that’s gold gilding and what Gamache does daily.
Gamache, a Middletown resident, is one of just a few dozen craftsmen who has the special skills and expertise to both surface gild and to do water gild lettering, graphics and ornate designs onto glass. The technique became popular in the late 1800s as window signs for restaurants, bars, retail stores and barbershops. Today, with his work adorning glass at well-known companies including Ralph Lauren, Tommy Bahama and Goorin Brothers – he works with them nationwide – Gamache doesn’t look for customers, customers find him. “This is old-school work,” he smiles, “and not a lot of people do it. Customers find me by word-of-mouth or when they reach my website (www.glassgilding.com) through an internet search.”

A gold gilded sign for Hudson Cafe in New York.
A gold gilded sign for Hudson Cafe in New York.

Gamache began as a sign painter in his teens in Monmouth County. His friends paid him to pinstripe cars and boats or to create elaborate landscape scenes for trucks and other vehicles. “You didn’t go to school for this at the time,” he says. “You picked it up.”
Gamache was always good with a pencil and a brush as a kid and took to this work naturally to earn spending money in the beginning and then as a business.
For nearly a decade, he worked from a mobile van painting and airbrushing vehicles as well as – with his art background – creating and building free-standing signs. In his mid-20s, Gamache took a break and earned a degree in graphic design, studying both at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and the Colorado Institute of Art.
A big part of Gamache’s business over the years, and still today, is the lettering of school buses. Shamrock Stage Coach and several other bus lines employ him to letter their vehicles to NJ DOT standards.

For Restaurant Chez L'Ami in Paris, France.
For Restaurant Chez L’Ami in Paris, France.

Although window signage was always part of his work – “It takes a steady hand,” he says – he became interested in using gold leafing as part of the process. Gold leafing was first used in modern times to adorn fire trucks early in the 1900s well before reflective materials and tapes were invented. “I used gold leaf in free-standing signs for years,” Gamache says, “as it adds a level of quality to an ordinary sign and many customers request it.”
The gold leaf used in gilding is mostly 23 karat and is made both in this country and abroad. Gamache uses gold leaf from a century-old company – Wehrung and Billmeier in Wisconsin.
Gamache, 60, explains that gold leaf is applied and not painted. When gold leaf goes on a free standing sign it is called surface gilding. When applied to glass in reverse image, it is called water gilding. The process has worked for years and is still followed by sign painters.
To begin a surface gilding project, a graphic or lettering is prepared on paper, today sometimes with the use of computer technology. The paper is called a pounce and the outline of the letters or graphic gets a series of tiny holes applied on the shape with a pounce wheel.  The pounce is then taped to the sign and a chalk pad is tapped against the surface to provide a chalk outline. An adhesive is applied to the surface by the gilder and the gold is fixed by way of a transfer paper.
Gold sheets were made before modern production techniques by “beaters.” “They were individuals,” Gamache says, “who took small pieces of gold and beat them flat with hammers covered in velvet…the result was cut into sheets or turned into rolls for gilding.”
The process of water gilding differs on glass where the loose leaf – in gold or silver – is applied in a wet process. According to Gamache, working on glass is more exacting and time consuming. The process starts with a pattern, a pounce and chalk. The lettering or graphics, however, are applied in reverse on the inside of the glass. Once the pattern is complete and ready to accept the golf leaf, Gamache floods the site with water and applies the loose gold with a brush called a gilder’s tip.
Large signs are done by section and takes at least an hour to dry during which time the leaf becomes smooth and acquires mirror-like surface so admired by sign lovers and customers.
A one-window sign with graphics or graphics and letting can take up to eight hours on site and several hours in preparation. Many multi-window or window and mirror projects can takes days like the work he did in New York’s Soho district for New York Ink’s Ami James.
One of Gamache’s biggest clients is Goorin Brothers of San Francisco, famous for their premium hats, with stores nationwide. He travels to shops regularly getting them ready to open with glass-gilded windows and mirrors.
You may see Gamache’s work, even if you don’t know it, daily throughout Monmouth County including at the Dublin House Restaurant on Monmouth Street in Red Bank.
Gamache and his fellow glass gilders across the world – all of whom he knows – are a dying breed of craftsman. “It’s old-school work,” he smiles, “and we feel an honor to carry on this tradition.”