Video THE MAKING(English Version)(271)The Making of Gold Leaf

This series follows the technology used to make products we regularly come in contact with, explaining its contents and related science and technology. In this episode we introduce gold leaf. In order to make the gold leaf easy to stretch, silver and copper is mixed with gold by melting it at 1,300 degrees Celsius. After the gold alloy is thinned by running it through rollers, it is placed between sheets of special Japanese washi paper, and then pounded and thinned out until it’s thinned to a width of one ten-thousandth of a millimeter.