The stages can be referred as manufacturing processes. The following shows the processes step by step. Wax Stage: This is the first stage of the statue. Every statue is first made with wax. Clay Molding: The wax statue is them molded/covered with special kind of clay and let to dry up in the sun. Casting: After the clay has dried up the mold is heated so that the wax inside the mold melts. The mel
ted wax comes out leaving a hollow clay. Now melted copper is poured in the hollow. The copper cools down instantly. Now the clay mold will be covering the copper. The mold is broken down and a raw piece of copper statue remains. Carving: The casted statue is now polished and carved. The types of carving is grouped into three categories – Wholesale quality, Medium quality and Fine quality. I will be telling more about these categories later. Finishing: As the name suggests, this is the final stage of the statue. Finishing can be of several types – full gold plated, half gold plated, gold antique, Copper antique. Again each of these finishing types can be divided into categories as in carving stage. About the three categories
a. Wholesale quality: This is the lowest quality of statue. The carvings aren’t much clear and even the finishing is not fine. They are the cheapest (Price) quality. These are usually bought by Tibetans to worship as they cannot afford other statues. Medium quality: These are not so good and not that bad kind of statues. Foreigners, usually westerns, buy these statues. They buy these because they don’t like the whole sale quality and they cannot afford the fine quality. Fine quality: These are quality of statues that have made Nepal popular for handmade copper statues. They are also very expensive ones. People buy these to put them in their living room or hotel lobby. Sometimes some statues are so fine that they are auctioned. Note about gold plating
We do not electroplate the gold. Electroplated gold fades away within a year and it does not look good on the statue. We use mercury to plated gold. Mercury is mixed with very fine dust of pure gold and the mixture is painted on the copper statue. Then the statue is heated, which will let the mercury evaporate leaving the gold on the statue. This lets a thicker (than electroplate) layer of gold to stay on the copper statue. This gold gives a better look and stays on the statue for years. Now there are categories of gold plating too, they are –
a. Shining
i. Half gold – only the skin part of the statue is plated
ii. Full gold – all the parts of the statue is plated
b. Antique – The statue is oxidized to make it look very old. The shining of gold is lost. Half gold
ii. Full gold
Other notes:
a. There are other several kinds of finishing. Some paint (very thick) the face with pure powdered gold. Some statues are silver plated on body parts or all over. The gold plating we use does have some problems. If the mercury doesn’t not evaporate properly, white and black spots can appear in later time. Currently we pay the cargo/logistics people to send the statues to foreign countries. Prices vary with weight and the destination.
