Gold Leaf

[Gordon Sanders]

As always, I stumbled on a very cool video

 

It is fascinating if how the gold leaf, that is on our habakis, tsuba, fuchi kashira is produced. Doesn't seam much has changed in 500 years!!

 

https://youtu.be/PVL7tuhlnsM

[Gordon Sanders]

apologies for the typos above.  was submitting from my ipad ;-

[Brian]

Amazing video. Thanks for sharing.

[Fuuten]

It never seizes to amaze me how complicated old Japan must've been, from the work processes, to the standard they upheld for that whole time.

 

The one thing i was wondering to myself the entire video was how they apply it to any given ornament, like the box or the yakimono in the end. All in all very interesting, thank you for posting.

 

For the ones who were wondering too: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+is+gold+foil+applied

[Prewar70]

i am practically speechless.  The amount of time and steps in that process is crazy.  Tedious work for sure.

[Greg F]

Very interesting stuff. 1gram can be stretched 3 km's!!!

Axel I feel the same way about old Japans work processes and standards, truly amazing!

Thanks for sharing this terrific video Gordon. Cheers.

 

Greg

[Gordon Sanders]

I am waiting for Ford to comment, since this is the stuff that HE gets to PLAY with!!!!  

 

My first thought that gold leaf is not expensive because it is GOLD... it is expensive because of the manhours to produce a sheet  of leaf .0001mm thick!

[Ford Hallam]

I haven't had a chance to watch the film yet but will no doubt enjoy it in a moment. Cheers Gordon 

 

Just wanted to point out that this is gold leaf being made here the material we use in tosogu is far thicker and would be termed foil. The foil I use for nunome-zogan and occasionally on habaki is 0,025mm thick. That's about as thick as 80gram printer paper.

 

The famous production centre for gold leaf in Japan is Kanazawa. The process is essentially the same though.

 

 

 

[b.hennick]

As a science teacher I often had to repair electroscopes (used to test static electricity charge) with gold leaf. The gold leaf was relatively inexpensive. It truly worked amazingly well. 

[Peter Bleed]

Gordon,

Thank you. This video is very interesting. I had not been aware of how Japanese gold leaf was made, but I recall a "old" bit of film on how leaf was produced in (pre-modern) Italy. There the pounding  was all done by hand between leather sheets. I assume that is how it was done in pre-modern Japan. There is lots or routine in all of this, but. .  . Boring? I'm sure these folks see the power hammers and as god-sent. Nanako? Now THAT is boring.

All this to say, "Thanks"

Peter