Gold pounders – Hansen Inc.

You will most likely meet the habit of putting leaf gold on Buddha statues and you are likely to meet women who try to sell you leaf gold in small packets. So Myanmar uses a lot of the leaf gold and need to produce them. You can see the production of the gold leafs in Mandalay, go to 36^th street between 77^th and 79^th street where you’ll find their workshops.

The gold is beaten thoroughly with a 3 kg sledge hammer

And after the beating its loosen by beating it gentler with a stick

It's said to way 3 kg, would you like a full day's work with it? — It’s said to way 3 kg, would you like a full day’s work with it?

It’s an amazing process where they start with approximately 1 cubic cm of gold and hammer it repeatedly, cut it into peaces and continue with more hammering until there is several hundred leafs approximately 4×4 cm and thinner than paper. They stick the leafs on to rice paper and bundle 5 in a small plastic bag and it’s ready for sale for approximately $1.