Conservation & Heritage Issue 49 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 21
Wrights of Lymm Ltd represents something rare in today’s
globalised marketplace, a business where history, family, and
artistry intertwine. From its 19th-century beginnings to its
21st-century Royal recognition, the company continues to
prove that traditional craftsmanship can not only survive
but thrive in the modern world.
5. Second Beating (“Shoder”)
As the golden glow of its work continues to adorn buildings
and artworks across the globe, Wrights of Lymm stands as
a shining reminder that true craftsmanship never goes out
of style.
6. Final Beating (“Mould”)
Gold leaf manufacturing is one of the oldest and most
meticulous metalworking crafts in the world. The process
has hardly changed for centuries—it still relies on precision,
patience, and skill. Here’s a step-by-step overview:
• The larger, thinner leaves are cut again into smaller
squares and placed into a new packet, called the shoder,
with fresh interleaving sheets.
• Beating continues, thinning the gold dramatically—
already far finer than ordinary foil.
• The process is repeated one last time, with an even
larger packet known as the mould.
• Hours of beating reduce the gold to an extraordinary
thinness—typically 1/10,000th of a millimetre (about
0.1 microns). At this stage, light can pass through it.
1. Alloying the Gold
• Pure gold (24 carat) is too soft to handle alone, so it’s
often alloyed with small amounts of silver or copper to
produce different shades and strengths.
• The gold alloy is melted in a furnace and cast into small
ingots (bars).
7. Cutting & Packaging
• The finished leaf is carefully handled with special
tweezers (since fingers would tear it instantly).
• Sheets are cut into standard sizes (often 80 x 80 mm,
but sizes vary by region and customers preference).
• They are then interleaved between sheets of rouged
tissue or parchment to form a book of gold leaf, ready
for gilders, restorers, or artists.
2. Rolling into Ribbon
• The cooled ingot is fed through rolling mills, which
gradually flatten it into a thin ribbon or strip, just
fractions of a millimetre thick.
• Between passes, the strip is annealed (reheated and
cooled) to keep it malleable without cracking.
3. Cutting into Squares
• The gold ribbon is cut into small squares, usually about
30–40 mm across.
• These squares are the starting point for the
beating process.
4. First Beating (“Cutch”)
• The squares are stacked between sheets of special
parchment or synthetic paper to form a packet,
called a cutch.
• This packet is beaten with a mechanical hammer
(historically by hand) until each piece spreads into a
thin sheet about 10–12 cm across.
