Porcupine’s spine (quill)

When we look at icon, we can often see a golden hatching on coloured areas, that is made of gold leaf – so called assist. Gold is laid on a picture by „suslo“ – mass made of boiling away beer. Sometimes we need to replace the position of golden line, that isn’t easy at all, because suslo holds the gold very tightly and it is possible to destroy a fragile surface of a colour. To such reparation we use instead of a scalpel a porcupine’s spine. For this activity is good to have a gamut of different lengths and thicknesses. The tool is to be chosen according to the strength of adhering of the gold to the surface.