The process requires a few basic tools; first a large block of limestone, approximately 200sqmm x 1m high, is used as an anvil. Various hammers are used, the heaviest being 10kg, and these hammers are gradually reduced in weight as the gold becomes thinner after it is worked.

Sheets of genuine gold, millimetres thick, are sandwiched between pigskin and then bound into a large block. A large hammer, weighing approximately 10kg, is used to reduce the thickness of the gold sheets. By repeating this process a Gold Beater can process genuine gold leaf to increments of 0.5 of a micron. Generally this process could be considered more of an art than a trade.

There are very few people left who produce material in this traditional manner. Much of the material used now is imitation gold leaf, which is effectively aluminium. Gold Beating is at the origin of the Kurz organisation; the process now known as hot stamping foil.

See Kurz and their gold beater at stand 1316.

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