The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-24
SHEETS OF GOLD LEAF
HAMMERED UNTIL ONLY 15o.0O0TH
FART OF AN INCH THICK.
n Film Almost Transparent-Sheets
Of Gold and silver Made by Hand
as They Were fin Ancient Times.
Chicago Record.

Chicago Record.
Goldbeaters hammer the precious met
al into sheets SO thin that green rays Of
light will pass through them. and each
sheet is but the 15O.0OOth part of an inch
thick. The slightest Whit of air will
send the gold leaf scurrying as though
it were pigeon down.
When Julius Hess, one Of Chicago's
four master goldbeaters, came out of the
room where the heavy, short-handled
hammers were beating the yellow metal
into gold leaf. his hair, eyebrows and
beard were spangled with the bits of
gold which fioat around the shop.
He carried in his hand a piece of
parchment ON which was written the
deed for some good old English land. for
the deed was dated far back of the year
100. The lawyers of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. when they
wrote out deeds, indentures and bonds
on new parchment in the quaint round
handwriting OF those days, had no idea
that few hundred years later those
same legal documents would be cut PIP
into strips and sent to the goldbeaters
at work in a great city in what was to
Yet that is the fate of many old English
parchments. They are dug out of strong
boxes, the seals are cut off, and they are
used by goldbeaters as bands around the
books in which the precious metal is ex-
banding in length and breadth and
shrinking in body to an almost infinitesi-
NAL dimension.
Gold-beating is a retiring sort of trade.
1t hides itself away In residence districts.
and IL 1t were not for the modest sign
over the front door few people passing
the sidewalks would think that the
muffiad strokes OF hammers coming from
the first fiat were made by goldbeaters.
Mr.. Hess explained that the stone
blocks on which the gold was beaten re-
CURED the solid earth as foundation,
and, as solid earth In the downtown
went into quiet residence streets where
st could get light. air and the earth as
wei. Here for ten hours day the heavy
cast-iron hammers fall on the books.
which are interviewed with pure gold.
These hammers rebound far above the
goldbeaters' heads after every stroke
thus saving them the trouble and IA
tigue of lifting the twenty-pound and
ten-pound hammers. A goldbeater is a
silver beaten as well. and goldbeaters
not only make gold and silver leaf, but
leaf from aluminium, copper. compost
tion," Dutch metal and other grosser
metals. The lettering on plate-glass
windows, the gilded domes and towers,
and the gold covered columns are not all
covered with pure gold leaf, but with al
Toys Of copper and tin and other yellow
metals which give good effect. Alumni
fum is largely used in place of silver,
and white "schlag" metal Is the substi-
tute used for cheaper work.
Gold and silver leaf is beaten out en-
tirely by hand, but the baser metals in
some shops are beaten under trip-ham-
mers. which pound away at the rate of
two hundred blows a minute. and en-
able a man to do two or three times the
work he can do by hand.
DETAILS OF THE WORK.
The gold which is beaten in to leaf is
the almost pure metal, which has been
melted at greater temperature than
feasibility requires, for this extra heat
gives the gold a greater malleability. 1t
is cast into bars or fiat ingots, and sent
to the goldbeater in that form. He rolls
1t into long, thin ribbon about two and
a half inches wide. and then cuts the
ribbon into squares. Girls do this work,
placing the squares between the sheets
of "a peculiar paper called French" pa.
per- This looks like an exceedingly fine.
close-grained oil paper. and each sheet
of 1T is about five inches square. Three
hundred sheets are piled on one another
and square of gold is laid in the center
of the French paper between each sheet
until about three hundred squares are
In this book or. as the goldbeaters
call 1t. cutch: The clutch Is carried
the bands of parchment. binding all the
leaves with the gold squares between
them i'll n solid block.
The Clutch Is laid on a block of stone
which has been faced UP square and
with twenty-pound cast-iron hammer
the goldbeater begins to fiatten out the
gold. The hammer has short. thick
handle. and II the goldbeater had to lift
the hourglasE-shaped piece of iron each
time his would be an arduous task, but
the clutch and the solid stone anvil are
so elastic that the hammer rebounds to
the height of "A foot above the work.
mans head. He then has but to bring
IL down with some force and ii lifts IT.
self. He let's the hammer fall on the
center OF the clutch for a time, and his
rule Ia always to hit inside Of the gold
else the metal will not work out. The
clutch is beaten nearly half an hour and
by that time the gold has expanded to
the size OF the sheets of French paper.
Girls then take the clutch. remove each
sheet OF gold and cut 1t into four squares
so that each sheet Is evenly CHARTERED
The girls cut the leaves Of gold with q
"hlling wagon" which consists OF two
pieces of sharp-edged reed or bamboo
set in frame SO that the parallel cut
ting edges will divide the leaf into the
proper size In one cut. The leaf is cut
ON a soft piece of leather, so that steel
knives cannot be used The leaf is
handled with pincers made OF lockwood
and the girls become SO expert in cut
ting and handling the delicate sheets
that they lay each square exactly in the
center and with gentle pun OF breath
smooth Il out without o. crease.
The Quartered sheets are laid In the
'shoder." which is like the clutch. save
that the leaves are goldbeaters' skin.
About one thousand OF the gold squares
are filled in the shoder. and 1t is beaten
with Il underground hammer for an
hour. Again the leaves are cut into
quarters and are placed in the mold"
which. like the shoder, Is made up OF
goldbeaters' skin. and the hammer
pounds 1t for nearly seven hours until
the gold has spread out the size OF the
mold. The leaves are then ready to be
cut into squares three and three-eighths
inches on q side and laid In books
twenty leaves to each book and
twenty books TO a pack so that a
pack contains 500 sheets of gold leaf
Silver is beaten the same way: first
In the clutch, then In the shoder and
last in the mold, but the intrinsic value
of the gold in a pack is 81 and that of
silver Is % cents.
GoLDBEATERS' SKIN.
The goldbeaters' skin. which plays
such an important part in the manufac-
ture OF gold and silver leaf. is fine