The manufacturing process of gold leaf sheets consists of several steps and it requires craftsmen to have an excellent skill level. The following are the steps involved in manufacturing.
Manufacturing of gold leaf sheets requires skilled craftsmanship and is done in following 5 steps:
(1) Blending and melting of metals:
It starts from the blending and melting of copper, zinc and silver in varying proportions for imitation sheets; while, edible gold leaf sheets requiring melting of 24 carat gold. This step is necessary to get the desired colour of gold leaf sheets. Once blended and melted, the material is placed in molds to make small rectangular bars.
(2) Bar Flattening:
In order to reduce the thickness of the previously produced rectangular bars, rollers are used to impose the force and flatten the bars.
(3) Cutting and Weighing:
Once the bars are flattened, they undergo the process of cutting and weighing. This is an important step as the precision of the cutting and weighing determines the size and weight requirement of the final gold leaf sheets.
(4) Beating and Inspection:
In this critical step of gold leaf manufacturing, hammering is done with calculated force and number of counts. These small pieces of flattened bars are placed between carbon-fiber black papers and beaten with an auto hammer to reach the desired thickness, dimension and shine.
This is followed by the expert inspection who assess the size, thickness and shine of gold leaf sheets according to the desired final product.
(5) Sheets Cutting and Packaging:
The final stage is where the craftsmen remove the gold sheets from carbon paper layers and cut them in to the required size. The stock is then carefully placed in packaging to be moved the market.