How do I know which Gel or Medium is the right one for me?
Because there are so many GOLDEN Gels and Mediums to choose from, an artist first needs to determine which characteristics they are looking to change, and which ones must remain. First, make a list of all of the positive attributes: What thickness is most desired? Do you want textures, such as brush strokes, or do you want to create a film completely level? Is the pigment load important? Do you want an opaque or transparent film? Is overall sheen of importance? Do I need a toothy surface? As you go through these issues, it is easy to eliminate many of the choices. However, modifying paints, gels and mediums can sometimes be very difficult, and it is always suggested to do tests and experiments on a small scale before doing applications on a canvas.

Why are there so many Gels and Mediums?
Gels and Mediums are essentially thickened acrylic resins; the binder in acrylic paints. GOLDEN produces a large variety of them because they allow an artist to make their paints perform exactly how they want them to. The main differences in gels and mediums are: viscosity (thickness), rheology (feel), sheen, flexibility and texture. If you are having difficulties deciding which gel or medium to use, use these properties as a guide to figure out which product suits your needs. For example, if you want to thicken a Heavy Body Paint for impasto work, and desire a semi gloss sheen, then your choices are limited to gels thicker than the Heavy Body Paints, such as Heavy Gel, Extra Heavy Gel and High Solid Gel. Since there isn't a High Solid Semi Gloss, you need to decide between the Heavy and Extra Heavy, and in this case adding Extra Heavy Semi Gloss Gel will thicken paint the fastest.

What can I use as an adhesive to attach canvas to wood?
We suggest using GOLDEN Soft Gel as an adhesive for wood to canvas. While it's not entirely necessary, gessoing both the canvas and wood surfaces to be joined is a good idea for the best possible
adhesion.

You may be able to lay the canvas down on a flat table or floor, brush or roller the Soft Gel, and lay the board on top. It can be tricky to apply just the proper amount of gel needed, but try not to apply too much or it may seep out.

It’s important for the canvas to be very flat and even. Once the two surfaces meet, press down firmly and turn over. Use a rolling pin or brayer ink roller to smooth out the gel and air pockets. Try to remove any gel that seeps out.

Once this coating dries, flip the panel over and focus on the flaps. These should also be glued down using the Soft Gel. The length of the flaps is up to you, but you probably want to measure at least a couple of inches on all sides.

Which of your products is the best for gluing canvas to canvas?
While most of our gels and mediums are used at one time or another by artists as adhesives, perhaps the most frequently used one is Soft Gel. Soft Gel comes in Gloss, Semi-Gloss and Matte, and has a good consistency for use as a glue, especially paper to canvas, canvas to canvas, etc. It can be readily thinned with water for an excellent decoupage/collage medium as well. We normally suggest using gloss, unless
varnishing can't be used once the project is complete. The product is almost pourable, and you can apply
it liberally without it dripping or running, even on vertical applications.

What's the best Gel or Medium to use as glue?
Soft Gel Gloss is the best choice for gluing objects to a gessoed canvas or to other acrylic surfaces, although most gels, mediums and even paints have excellent adhesion to each other.

I have been using Ultra Glow which is a clear resin. I like the way the resin leaves a thick coat over the work when poured, but I do not like the toxic fumes in my studio, even though I use a mask. I heard your company has a resin like material that is similar.
We believe Ultra Glow is a two-part epoxy resin. These are dangerous to work with because of the fumes. We have several mediums and gels that may work, and one custom product that sounds ideal, but unless you can live with a little tool mark texture, you'll have to do several coats of a pourable medium to avoid "crazes".

The two part products cure with a chemical reaction which happens fairly quickly, whereas acrylic needs to air dry and it takes longer and longer as you get thicker and thicker. The best product to start testing with is Clear Tar Gel. Apply even coats and don't try to dam the layers to make it thicker. Soft Gel Gloss is another one. This will leave a little tool mark texture, but if your prints are small, you can use a squeegee to apply a nice thick even coat. This product won't craze or crack like the Clear Tar Gel can if it's applied too heavily.

I have been having problems with the GOLDEN Coarse Pumice Gel flaking off after it has dried. I applied it with a plastic palette knife on a purchased pre-gessoed (acrylic gesso) pre-stretched canvas, thickly, so the entire surface was covered with the coarse pumice chunks. What do you think might have happened?
Without having the artwork right in front of us, we would say the first thing it could be is poor intercoat adhesion in this section.

This may be the result of using a preprimed canvas, of which is usually a fairly thin canvas material and skim coats of gesso. Because the Coarse Pumice Gel is so pasty, it may have never attached well enough to bind in certain areas.

Typically, on a thicker unprimed canvas which is then gessoed by hand, the intercoat adhesion is ideal. However, it may have been sufficient for most of the artwork, except in the corner where perhaps some air pockets were not forced out as the Pumice Gel was applied.

We think a layer of Soft Gel Gloss, or even GOLDEN Gesso applied over the artwork before the Pumice Gel would have prevented this. Although you cannot do this now, you should be able to apply some Soft Gel into the lost areas and re-apply the pumice gel in these areas.

Does this seem to make sense to you? There really isn't much else that comes to mind as to why you would see such poor delamination, unless some of the pumice was dried out a little. Very early batches of Pumice Gels (1989) were a bit on the dry side as the pumice material liked to suck up any free water in the acrylic binder, but this problem was fixed a long time ago with a formula change.

(The artist reported back to say the poor adhesion was due to cheap primed canvas and the Soft Gel solved the problem.)