What Are the Categories of Gold Craft?
Going back over the course of the history of the development of gold craftsmanship, you may find that the enthusiasm for it was extremely high throughout this entire century, the sixteenth century. You may then wonder why it was gold engraving craft that flourished the most in metal engraving, rather than silver or any other kind of metal. One reliable answer is that the inherent value of gold is several times greater than that of other metals. That’s why people may invest more time and energy in the research of gold products. Moreover, the complexity of different processing techniques is also different, and the final price of the finished product is also different. So, let’s learn about the different gold processes today.
1. Gold Filigree and Gold Bead Process
What does the term gold filigree mean? In fact, the language in which this expression appears is Latin. We can roughly see from this word what the concept of this kind of gold craft is like. It is actually the process of making very fine threads of gold and then twisting the finished gold threads together. This may sound very simple, but the actual operation is not easy at all. Later, with the rising level of human productivity, people have more tools, such as pneumatic engraver, the process of gold filigree has become more and more complex. Even the gold is able to present a skeletonized form.Then talk about the gold bead process, and the above filigree process is similar, the gold bead process is to make the gold into the form of small round beads. However, compared with the gold filigree process, the gold bead process requires less secondary processing. The beads are simply glued directly onto the piece. Although the operation is a little easier, but if you need to make the gold beads of small size, then the operation of the coefficient of difficulty is naturally high.
2. Stamping Process
The so-called gold stamping process is actually to use some molds on the gold extrusion, so as to shape the shape of gold. We all know that the hardness of gold is not very high, so it is easy to realize the processing of gold works by using some metals with higher hardness than gold. Of course, the advantage of this processing method is very obvious, that is, the gold can be processed in bulk. As long as you have a mold, you will be able to process a lot of gold in a short period of time. In addition, if some people don’t like this mass-produced gold products, some craftsmen will carry out additional processing on the gold pieces finished with molds, such as polishing, engraving and punching. This is done to meet the individual needs of different users.
3. Engraving Process
In fact, this process is somewhat similar to the gold engraving mentioned in our daily life. The burin process is actually using a hammer to strike a sharp object like an awl, so as to carve the desired pattern on the surface of gold. This gold engraving process is very demanding on the craftsman. After all, each engraved pattern can not be withdrawn. However, the unrepeatable nature of the hand-carved work is also incomparable to other machine carving.
4. Chiseling
Unlike the two processes mentioned above, stamping and burring do not cause any loss of gold material; they simply strike the gold with an external force. Chiseling, on the other hand, directly removes the excess gold. Although we are sure to uphold the principle of not wasting materials in the process of handling gold, but sometimes in order to achieve better results. We will have to resort to this method to deal with gold. In fact, it is said that the excess is removed, but the gold that has been excavated will certainly still be retained.
5. Gold and Silver Overlay Process
What we are talking about here is actually the inlaying of silver, a metal, onto gold. Why did this practice exist? It starts from the underdeveloped gemstone cutting process at that time. If the gemstones were not cut well, the light of the gemstones could not be fully released. So someone came up with the idea of setting gemstones on a metal like silver. Although it is true that to a certain extent, the sparkle of the gemstone is enhanced. However, silver is a metal that has the characteristic that once it is not cleaned properly, it may lose its original luster. Moreover, silver oxidizes easily, and after oxidation, it will leave traces after rubbing against skin or clothes. So there is a British jewelry artisan combined with the high stability of this metal gold, gold and silver stacked hit this method. Is to gold as the bottom of the material, then silver, and finally is the gemstone. This kind of collocation again just proposed when the circulation degree is very high, until later only gradually decline.
6. Lost Wax Casting Process
This method is still in use today. Simply put, the principle is to melt the gold after heating at high temperature and then cool it to get the shape we want. But what does this method have to do with wax? In fact, if we want to cool and shape the gold, we need to make the molds in advance. That’s right, the raw material we use to make the mold is wax. After making the wax into the shape we want, we wrap the mold in plaster. Then heat a whole plaster to let the wax flow out. Finally, just pour the melted and finished gold into the plaster to set the shape.
In fact, the history of the development of gold engraving craft is very long. If we really want to trace back, the types of gold crafts are certainly more than those mentioned above. Moreover, the development process of each kind of gold engraving process is also very worthy of us to explore in depth. If the reader has the need, you can check more information to understand.
