# Book gilding



## meatheadmerlin (Mar 4, 2015)

I have often wondered about the potential of recovering the gilding from books.
I have also seen a silver color in gilding, this could be silver or aluminum,as I understand.
I have also heard that more recently, most gilding is actually copper based and not gold.
As part of a large recycling operation, this could be very beneficial to paper quality.
It seems the yields would be quite low, but if one was recycling old, broken books
it might be worth it to remove the gilding, if only to keep it out of the paper recycling process.

Anyway, I would clamp the book tight to shave the edges, then incinerate and recover.
Anyone else have thoughts on the feasibility of this? 
I understand that it probably isn't for the home refiner,
and most books that would have gold are probably worth more as is unless already severely damaged.


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## goldsilverpro (Mar 4, 2015)

If it's gold leaf or gold foil applied by heat and/or pressure, it's about 3.5 millionths of an inch thick. That's about 4 cents for each square inch of gold coverage. No matter what method used to apply the gold, it probably isn't any thicker than that.

When I started gold leafing, I first bought a kit that used faux gold leaf, made of a copper based foil, to practice with. When applied, it looked very much like real gold. This faux leaf was much thicker than real gold leaf. 

I used to buy a new copy of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics every so often. There was always a small sheet of gold looking foil (?) included with the book. You could lay the sheet on the cover and write your name on it with a ball point pen. The pressure transferred your name as written from the foil to the cover.


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## meatheadmerlin (Mar 7, 2015)

If I come across books with gilded edges that are worthless otherwise,
I think i will try to recover the gilding and put it in with
my waste filters to be processed at some future date.
I can't see finding enough books at one time
to make processing worth the chemicals.


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