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Metal craft workshop

Metal craft artists work primarily on small items, casting with moulds or shaping the metal with jewellers' tools. Molten bronze is poured into moulds made by Norbulingka artists and the resultant casting is finished by hand.

Metal craft - working on a mould, the repoussé process

Copper, silver and gold are beaten to shape and intricately detailed to create fine pieces of jewellery, fittings for wood products, lotus shaped lamps and candlesticks. The metals are beaten to the required thickness, then shaped on anvils or mounted in a resin base and shaped with chisel-like tools. Many resin-mounted pieces are >worked on three sides,Ì being shaped on one side, then the other, and back to the first for maximum depth and detail. The metal craft artists fashion many of their own tools, making use of old drill bits or other pieces of hardened metal.