GOLD-LACE MANUFACTURE. 



GOLD-LACE MANUFACTURE. 



430 



When the last beating is finished, the packet is opened, and the thin 

 leaves of gold removed one by one. The goldbeater makes use of a 

 delicate pah- of long pincers, made of white wood, and takes up the 

 fragile leaves of gold one by one. Each leaf is laid down on a cushion, 

 and blown out flat by the breath of the workman : if any of them have 

 been broken or injured in the beating, they are thrown aside, to be 

 remelted for future use ; but otherwise each leaf has the ragged edges 

 cut from it, so as to bring it to the size of about three inches and a 

 third square. Small books are prepared, each containing twenty-six 

 leaves of paper about four inches square ; both surfaces of every leaf are 

 rubbed with red chalk, to prevent the adhesion of the gold ; and 

 twenty-five leaves of gold are placed in each book. In this form the 

 leaf-gold is sold, at fifteen to eighteen pence per book. 



The French adopt the same general mode of proceeding as the 

 English gold-beaters, but vary it slightly in detail. The laminated 

 riband is cut into pieces an inch and a half long by an inch wide, and 

 about l-24th of an inch thick. Twenty-four of these are laid one on 

 another on a smooth slab of steel, and hammered until they are 

 two inches square. Fifty-six of those expanded leaves are made up 

 into a packet, with two leaves of vellum between each. This packet 

 is enclosed in a sheath, and is beaten with a hammer in the same way 

 aa in England. Indeed the hammering and quartering, and the use 

 first of vellum and then of gold-beaters' skin, are the same in most of 

 their features as those already described ; but the French gold requires 

 more hammering on account of the greater weight and size of the 

 pieces at the commencement of the beating. 



Two other metals, silver and copper, have sufficient ductility to be 

 brought into the state of thin leaves by hammering ; and both are 

 used to a limited extent in this state in the arts. But these metals 

 would fracture long before such a degree of thinness could be obtained 

 aa in the case of gold ; and indeed the smaller value of the material 

 renders it less important to economise material in this way : conse- 

 quently leaf silver and copper are thicker than leaf-gold. 



Two inventions of recent date may be briefly noticed here Lane's 

 ingot, and Bennett's gold-beating machine. In the usual method, 

 described above, an ingot of alloyed gold is rolled and beaten ; for 

 there is always a little silver or copper mixed with the gold, to render 

 it workable. Mr. Lane's suggestion is, to use a central plate of nearly 

 pure gold, with two plate* of alloyed gold on the two surfaces : the 

 alloy .to have any tint, or any degree of purity that may be desired. 

 The three plates are heated nearly to fusion, which enables them to 

 combine into one ingot, afterwards rolled and beaten in the usual 

 way. The advantages of this method are assumed to be, that the 

 colour of the leaf is variable at pleasure ; and that the pure gold inside 

 affords a highly malleable foundation, which carries the two surface- 

 layers with it. The other novelty, Bennett's machine, is one among 

 many contrivances which have been introduced to hammer the gold by 

 machinery, instead of applying manual labour to it. Most of them 

 have failed, on account of the nice adjustment of force necessary. In 

 Bennett's machine a steam engine, by means of a band, gives motion 

 to a fast-and-loose pulley, which in its turn cause* the rotation of a 

 shaft or axis. A cone on the axis, by means of a band, gives motion 

 to another cone on another axis ; the band, by minor adjustments is 

 made to shift along the surfaces of the two cones, as a means of 

 regulating the speed of the hammer connected with one of them. 

 Smaller axes, pulleys, bands, wheels, crank-pins, connecting rods, 

 guides, and cross hearts, allow the motion to be brought to bear upon 

 the hammer, which thereupon rises and falls rapidly. The mould, or 

 interleaved group of gold and vellum, or gold and gold-beaters' skin, is 

 placed on an anvil, and is made to shift slowly as a means of equalising 

 the action, after every blow of the hammer. Each upward movement 

 of the hammer sets in motion a system of screws, nuts, axes, pulleys, 

 and tooth-wheels, which cause the mould to shift its position slightly. 

 Notwithstanding the ingenuity displayed in this machine, however, 

 nearly all the leaf -gold manufactured is still beaten by hand. 



GOLD-LACE MANUFACTURE. The beautiful substances, gold 

 and silver lace, are produced by the application of a very thin coating 

 of the precious metal to threads of silk. In the original and long- 

 practiaed method, a stiffened thread is thus produced, applicable to 

 tin! production of cloth-of-gold and other heavy tissues ; but recently- 

 invented processes enable manufacturers to apply gold to perfectly 

 flexible thread. These two varieties may consequently be distin- 

 guished as filire-pl<itin</ and Jiljrt-giUlmg. 



l'iln-i Dinting. This is the process for the well-known gold and 



silver-lace, largely manufactured both by orientals and by Europeans. 



The Hindoo gold-lace is thus made. A rod of silver is roughed, and is 



plated with a leaf or film of gold ; the thickness of the gold being to 



that of the silver in the ratio of 1 to 22. A little moisture and a 



Blight pressure are all that are necessary to hold the gold in its place. 



Thw rod ix made red-hot in a pan of charcoal ; then taken out, 



nered, and rubbed with a piece of wood. The rod, about three- 



; an inch thick and six or eight inches long, is next drawn 



into wire, by .1 very rude apparatus, but one which the patient and 



Hindoo manages cleverly; it passes successively through 



many holes in a stel plate, each finer than the one that preceded 



it. The metal is heated and annealed after each drawing; ami thin 



series of drawing) and annea]ing is repeated until the rod is 



brought down to the thickne** of whipcord. Another net of wir- 



drawers, with greater skill and more delicate fingers, are next em- 

 ployed; they draw the metal through fifteen or twenty holes in 

 succession, until it is reduced to the thickness of the finest hair. The 

 gilt-silver is now too thin to be woven by itself ; it would not possess 

 sufficient strength ; but it will serve as a covering for silk thread. 

 The fine wire is flattened by a highly-polished steel hammer, working 

 against an equally polished steel anvil ; one blow with the hammer 

 suffices to flatten eight or ten wires placed side by side ; and the wires 

 unwind from small bobbins or reels as the flattening proceeds. The 

 orange-colour silk is then coated with the wire, by a twisting process, 

 almost wholly without tools, and such as none but the delicate fingers 

 of the Hindoo could perform. 



English gold-lace is made in a manner which has recently been 

 described by Mr. Bennoch, in a paper read before the Society of Arts, 

 based on information obtained at the establishment of Messrs. Johnson 

 and Simpson. Here, as in India, there is first the preparation of 

 a rod of silver ; then the coating of the silver with gold ; then the 

 reduction of the rod to the state of wire ; and finally, the twisting of 

 the wire round orange-coloured silk thread. The silver best suited 

 for this purpose is obtained from lead, and is characterised by great 

 tenacity and toughness. It is purchased in the form of a cake, which 

 is melted to a white heat over a charcoal fire, and poured into nn 

 ingot mould made of iron or copper. The silver ingot so cast is about 

 two feet long by two inches in diameter. It is brought to a red heat 

 over a charcoal fire, and is beaten with hammers until its length is 

 increased twenty per cent. ; its substance being also rendered more 

 dense and compact, by the fibres being then in parallel directions. 

 Then begins the process of reduction. The ingot is drawn through a 

 hole with a steam-engine force of 16-horse power, reducing its diumeter 

 and increasing its length. Again and again is this done, ten or twelve 

 times, a smaller die being used each tune. The attenuated rod is then 

 thoroughly cleansed, and is ready for the application of the more 

 precious metal. As the gold is applied in the form of leaf, and as all 

 the leaves are of about equal thickness, different qualities of gold-lace 

 are produced by varying the number of gold leaves laid on one over 

 another; the commonest kind, for livery-lace, for the ends of muslins, 

 and for skein-thread exported to India and China, have about ten 

 layers of gold leaf ; the best kind, for military purposes and for bullion- 

 embroidery, have thirty ; and between these extremes there are many 

 intermediate kinds. The leaves are piled one on another to the re- 

 quisite number, and such piles are laid side by side till they equal the 

 length of the silver rod ; the rod is rolled gently upon them, and the 

 gold slightly adheres, without the intervention of size, water, or any 

 other agent. The rod so overspread is enveloped in paper, tied 

 round with a peculiar kind of cord, and. placed in the centre of a heap 

 of lighted charcoal ; the paper and cord do not consume until the bar 

 become! nearly red-hot. The rod, while hot, is burnished with a 

 blood-stone, to expel any air that may remain between the gold and 

 silver, and to increase the closeness of contact of the two metals. 

 When cool, the rod is coated with wax, and is ready for the wire- 

 drawing process. The drawings, heatings, and annealings, are very 

 numerous ; for it is necessary to carry on the process of attenuation 

 by minute degrees. So long as steel dies, or perforations in steel plates, 

 were alone used, the silver-gilt rod could not be brought finer than 

 1000 yards to an ounce of metal ; but now, perforated rubies are used 

 for the finer kinds, and an ounce of the metal can be brought to the 

 surprising length of a mile and a quarter. Concerning this invention, 

 Mr. Bennoch said : " There ore not more than three men in London 

 capable of perforating and setting these ruby dies properly ; and one 

 man, who works probably not more than three hours a day on the 

 average, has received from one wire-drawing firm as much as 500/. or 

 60W. in a single year." Even this wire, finer than any human hair, 

 has so much tenacity, that a piece twelve inches long will bear twelve 

 ounces weight. The wire, after being slightly deepened in tint by 

 passing over a heated cylinder, is flattened in the flatting-mill. This 

 consists of two small steel rollers exquisitely turned and polished ; 

 they are brought from Rhenish Prussia, and have had such a large 

 amount of labour and skill bestowed upon them, that they command 

 the enormous price of 120?. the pair. The wire, flattened to twice or 

 thrice it* original width, and proportionably reduced in thickness, is 

 then twisted upon or around a silken thread, by the aid of bobbins, 

 reels, and a spinning- frame. A beautiful gold thread is thus produced, 

 applicable to the making of gold-lace, embroidery, fringe, &c. Perfectly 

 golden as the exterior is, however, it is surprising how little real gold 

 the thread contains; for, of the whole bulk, nine-tenths is silk, and 

 only one-tenth metal ; and, in the average kinds, one-fiftieth part of the 

 metal only is gold, the rest being silver ; so that the gold constitutes 

 no more than one five-hundredth part of the substance of the thread. 

 Estimated by one man's labour, it takes 700 hours to reduce the ingot 

 of silver, weighing about 400 ounces, to the finest wire ; so extremely 

 numerous are the drawing processes; in the finest kind, the ingot 

 would be elongated to 500 miles of wire. Only 8 ounces of golil 

 are applied to the ingot of 400 ounces; consequently, OH a mile ami a 

 quarter of the finest silver-gilt wire weighs only one ounce, one ounce; 

 of gold suffices to envelope more than 60 miles of such wire. 



It has long been believed that the eloctro-metallurgic process will 

 ultimately be rendered applicable, both to fibre-plating and fibre- 

 gilding, sithor in the thread 01 : : the fabrio. Up to the present time, 



