Gold bat
Goldschläger is the name given to the manufacturers of gold leaf who practice gold striking, a craft that has been around for over 5000 years.
History of the craft
Making gold leaf is an ancient craft . The craft was practiced in India more than 5000 years ago. Later, at the time of the pharaohs, gold leaf could also be produced in Egypt, until the monks learned it in the monasteries in the Middle Ages.
It was only 500 years ago that craftsmen began to manufacture gold leaf in Germany. The Middle Franconian city of Schwabach developed into the world center of this craft, every sixth inhabitant had something to do with it. In 1927 there were 130 companies. The importance of hitting gold declined over time. In 2006 the city mentions nine companies. In 2015 there were still four companies, which, however, use mechanization to produce many times the historical quantities.
Work steps
The production of gold leaf is a tedious job, because many work steps can only be done by hand. Up until now it has not been possible to carry out the gold mining completely by machine.
alloy
Before the hitting begins, the gold beater melts the gold. Depending on the desired color of the gold leaf, different metals are added to the gold melt. Gold is alloyed with silver for a light color. Copper creates a dark tint.
The gold alloy is poured into a small ingot which, after cooling, is rolled out into a long ribbon. Small squares are cut out of the tape, which is roughly the thickness of newspaper (~ 0.07 mm), which are knocked into gold leaf in three steps.
Hammering with the squeezer
In the first step, the gold squares are stacked on top of one another, each separated by a layer of paper (Montgolfier paper). Around 600 sheets of paper and gold squares are placed on top of one another to form a "pack" - a punch shape. The shape is lashed with leather straps and hammered with a machine called a squeezer. The machine's steel hammer will hammer the gold squares to a thickness of 0.006 mm.
Another hammer processing
The gold flakes are cut to a size of 6 cm × 6 cm and stacked on top of one another alternating with paper. The paper is now much thinner. The thin gold leaves can only be handled with long, delicate wooden tweezers, similar to Asian chopsticks .
So that the leaves in this pack, the second form, do not stick, all paper leaves are dusted with a plaster mixture called brown . The gold leaves are worked again with a mechanical hammer until they are 0.001 mm thick.
Hammering with the thin hammer form
In the last form of impact, the gold leaves are separated from each other with plastic film (formerly gold bat skin ). 2000-2500 gold leaves fit into the so-called thin lay form. This last pack is still hammered by hand today. The gold beater strikes the gold around 2800 times with a hammer weighing 12 kilograms for more than two hours. The gold leaf is beaten up to a thickness of 0.0001 mm = 100 nm.
Preparation for sale
Before these gold leaves can be sold, they are cut again into squares of the same size. A book with 25–30 pages of gold leaf is made from the squares.
See also
Web links
- www.schwabach.de: Schwabach - the gold club town
- www.deutschlandfunk.de: Handwerkskunst / At the Goldschläger in Schwabach in Franconia
Individual evidence
- ^ Frank and Holger Schossig: Die Goldschläger von Schwabach. Franken-Blogger, March 26, 2016, accessed on January 11, 2016 (data from 4:31 min).