Black copper silver is a unique traditional Chinese copper handicraft in Yunnan, which was founded in Shiping, Yunnan. It takes copper as the tire, carves various patterns on the tire, and then fills the molten silver (or gold) water into the pattern, polishes and smooths after cooling, and the bottom copper naturally becomes jet black after a long time, revealing the silver (or gold) pattern, showing a black and white (or black and yellow) distinct decorative effect, antique, elegant and chic. Because it is generally inlaid with silver, it is called "black copper silver". In the past, most of these handicrafts were stationery utensils. Now there is a wide range of categories.

Black copper silver, full of legendary four words, is a nearly 300 years of history, once with cloisonne as famous, known as "the world's copper art double" handicraft, but after several changes, now few people master the whole process of black copper silver, in addition to the complicated process There is another reason: the copper of the silver is not an ordinary copper.

Legend has it that in the Yongzheng period, there was a coppersmith in Shiping County, Yunnan Province, named Yue Fu, during a copper smelting, the gold ring on his hand accidentally fell into the furnace, and melted immediately under the high temperature. Puzzled, he poured all the "liquid" in the pot on the ground, and walked away with his hands behind his back.

The next day, however, he noticed that the metal that had been haphazardly smelted was a copper-colored color, unlike anything he had ever seen before. Yue Fu used it to make a kind of utensil, and when he was tired from work, he used it in his hand to play. Unexpectedly, the utensils gradually became black and shiny. Later, he studied the proportion of ingredients, and then carved some simple patterns, melted the silver, and became this black copper and silver.

It is simple and chic, the patterns are delicate and complex, and the black and white colors make it have a dignified atmosphere and elegant feeling. Owning bronze and silver utensils has also become a status symbol.

Yue Fu's descendants passed this skill from Shiping to Kunming, Jianshui and other places.

By chance, Jin Yongcai, who lives in Guandu District, Kunming, met Li Jiaru, the fifth-generation successor of Wutong and Silver, and worshipped him as a teacher in 1982. After 12 years of testing, Jin Yong was able to inherit the formula engraved in his heart by Li Jiaru, and kept in mind what his master said: The formula of black copper and silver is not written down on paper, but engraved in his heart. Since then, the sixth-generation successor Kim Yongcai has begun the road of study and inheritance.

Jin Yongcai's "Five Blessings Holding Longevity Walking Gold and Silver Fangding" won the gold medal of the "Hundred Flowers Award", the highest award of Chinese arts and crafts. He broke through the traditional techniques and combined gold and silver, which further highlighted the exquisite and profound historical heritage of the black bronze silver walking skills, which was a classic work of Jin Yongcai in the later period.

The production process of black copper and silver is extremely complex and exquisite. In the past, copper was not pure, so copper smelting by soil method was an essential skill for craftsmen. Purification is commonly known as "chemical material", according to the amount of copper material, choose to use carbon gold pot or graphite crucible.

Most of the copper used in black copper and silver is the copper of the local large factory, and if the tin or white copper the size of a grain of rice is accidentally dropped in the smelting process, then the pot will be wasted.

When the temperature in the crucible reaches 500°C, the copper is slowly deformed; When it reaches 700°C, the copper at the bottom begins to melt and a material needs to be added; When 900°C is reached, add another material...... In this way, 9 kinds of other metal materials are added at different temperature stages of smelting, and the action should be fast, and the release time should be controlled within 30 seconds.

Put the weighed material into the high-temperature copper material, and it will emit a beautiful light instantly.

After heating the oil tank, wipe it with a candle, pour the melted copper into it, and then pour it out and insert it into the straw pile to cool down. So far, the entire copper smelting process has been completed.

From the secret recipe of copper smelting to forging, engraving, silver, forming, polishing, kneading, etc., black copper and silver have "walked" more than ten processes.

According to the shape of the utensils, the smelted copper is beaten into copper sheets of a certain length, width and thickness. Then the traditional method is used to loft, followed by blanking and engraving.

Engraving, the artist's hearing requirements are very high, generally silver can not exceed 20 silk (0.2 mm), gold can not exceed 15 silk (0.5 mm), apprentices in the engraving Jin Yong can distinguish the depth by listening to the sound. The engraved copper sheet is wiped with a cotton cloth dipped in borax water to remove impurities, so that silver or gold can be walked on it.

The so-called black copper silver is to put the silver on the black copper sheet, when the black copper sheet is heated to a certain temperature, the silver is burned with fire to melt it, and the silver is pushed with fire tongs, so that the watery silver goes forward along the groove of the engraved pattern.

The melting point of silver is 960.8 °C, the melting point of copper is 1083.4 °C, the melting point of black copper alloy is slightly lower than that of copper about 50 °C, because the melting point of black copper is higher than the melting point of silver, under the action of fire, silver melts and cools in the groove of black copper, and the two are firmly combined with the help of melting point difference. If the device is small, silver powder can be used to walk, which can be evenly walked, and the temperature is easy to control.

To complete the delicate silver walking process is grinding, assembly and molding, fine grinding and polishing.

When grinding, Jin Yongcai uses an iron plate to collect the silver (gold) powder that has been ground down for recycling.

The materials used in polishing are also more interesting, and Jin Yongcai uses burnt dry tobacco, which has a brighter and smoother gloss. He used to use iron sandpaper to polish, but fine marks could be seen under his highly reading glasses, and after several experiments, he used cotton cloth to polish and polish.

The next is the most important part of the black copper and silver: cover the finished black copper and silver products with the palm of your hand, and rub them while covering them after your hands are sweaty. The reaction between sweat and black copper makes the surface of the black copper oxidized, forming a natural protective film, and the black copper billet is in a black and shiny state (under normal circumstances, there are two kinds of silver blackening, one is oxidation and the other is sulfurization).

For this reason, he set up an unbelievable rule for accepting apprentices: see if the sweat fits. At the beginning of the introduction, he handed the other party an ink cartridge and asked him to play with it for 20 minutes to see the color of the ink cartridge. There's another episode in this.

Someone once bought Jin Yongcai's ink cartridge and couldn't put it down and played with it in his hand, but within a few days, the original black and shiny ink cartridge was so miserable that the old man thought he was fooled and came to Jin Yongcai to settle the account.

He was also puzzled by the difficulty of arguing, and after learning about the before and after the experience, Jin Yongcai was sure that the old man was alkaline sweat. Helplessly, he couldn't explain it, he made a promise, you come back in a week, if the cartridge is still this red sample, you will lose double the price.

In the laboratory, the upper right corner of the black copper silver ink cartridge made by Jin Yongcai was coated with sodium hydroxide, and it encountered the same "fading" situation as the old man.

At that time, although Kim Yongcai knew what the reason was, he was holding the cartridge but he didn't know how to change it. That night, Jin Yongcai's family ate dumplings, and when he dipped in vinegar, he inadvertently dropped two drops on the ink cartridge, until he accidentally found that after eating, the place where the vinegar was dripping turned black, and the other places did not change. He remembered the acidic sweat, so he simply soaked the cartridge in old vinegar, and soon it was black and shiny again.

A week later, the old man came to get the cartridge, and Jin Yongcai explained the reason: your sweat is alkaline, and it will not turn black and will only "fade" when you play with it, but if you put it at home, it will only get darker and brighter in ten or eight years.

As for what metal is contained in black copper, Jin Yongcai is also difficult to say, in 1997, the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Precious Metals used modern scientific and technological means to decipher and conduct laboratory analysis of black copper. Unfortunately, only four components were analyzed. The art of bronze and silver is still shrouded in a veil of mystery, just as it was when it was created.

The only inheritor of the sixth generation of black copper silver production skills, the director of the black copper silver learning museum, senior arts and crafts artist, Yunnan Province arts and crafts master, and internationally registered senior arts and crafts master. Over the past few decades, he has created more than 100 works, mainly including "Fang Ding, Four Treasures of Study, Wine Vessels, Tea Vessels, Incense Burners, Vases", etc., and his works have won more than 40 gold, silver and bronze awards of national arts and crafts.

He was named "2012 Typical Person of China's Arts and Crafts Industry", and in 2013, he was awarded the honorary title of "Contemporary Art Saint" of world folklore by UNESCO and the United Nations Highest Honor Review Committee. In recent years, it has been reported by CCTV's "Into Science", "Exploration and Discovery", "Nongguang Tiandi" and other media at home and abroad.

Black copper silver is a unique copper handicraft in Yunnan, which was founded in Shiping, Yunnan. It takes copper as the tire, carves various patterns on the tire, and then fills the molten silver (or gold) water into the pattern, polishes and smooths it after cooling, and makes the bottom copper naturally turn black through the hand cover, revealing the silver (or gold) pattern, showing a black and white (or black and yellow) distinct decorative effect, antique, elegant and chic.

Because it is generally inlaid with silver, it is called "black copper silver". In the past, most of these handicrafts were stationery utensils, but now they are widely available.

The word "go" is the essence of black copper and silver, and the white bank walks on the black copper, like the flow of life, and the action and process leap in front of you. Yuan Kunlin is like a director, Wu Bronze is his carefully created scene, and Yin is an actor who will not make mistakes, step by step, complementing each other.

Yuan Kunlin is a native of Jinning County, Kunming, Yunnan Province, the inheritor of black copper and silver intangible culture, and a master of arts and crafts in Yunnan Province.

In the past, if he wanted to find Yuan Kunlin, he had to walk for another half an hour to Tianchengmen Village, at that time, he basically positioned himself as a farmer, and doing black copper and silver was just a hobby when he was not working, and he couldn't support his family if he couldn't do business.

After becoming a descendant of intangible cultural heritage in the past few years, he cooperated with a friend's silver building to have a shop and exhibition hall in the county's commercial street, and became a professional craftsman. People called him "Master", and he just smiled when he heard it, but his face was still inherently shy and pure.

Few people have ever seen exquisite patterns and patterns made on jet-black copper, and few people know that this production process is on par with the world-famous cloisonne and is known as "the world's copper art". It has a nice name called "Black Copper Walking Silver".

During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, a craftsman surnamed Shipingyue accidentally fell into a gold ring when he was smelting copper, and the gold was melted in copper, but the cast vessel gradually became black under the touch of his hand. He beat this kind of black copper into thin sheets, engraved various patterns on it, and then filled these patterns with silver water, after polishing, the black copper, silver shining, the contrast is eye-catching, and there is an elegant atmosphere, which is named "black copper silver".

Later, the Yue family opened a shop in Kunming, and after several generations, the inheritance was broken, but fortunately, Yuan Kunlin's grandfather, the Yuan family, had been an apprentice in the Kunming silver shop, and brought the technology of black copper and silver back to Tianchengmen Village.

Smelted black copper, it takes countless hammers to turn into flakes.

The black copper silver process is far more complex than the general copper and silver process, and it requires a comprehensive grasp of carving modeling, calligraphy and painting, miniature carving and other skills. Paste the required patterns or words on the black copper sheet, and then use the chisel to carve out various patterns. The traditional black copper and silver patterns are mainly based on traditional Chinese ornaments such as plum orchids, bamboo chrysanthemums, dragons, phoenixes, deer and cranes.

After carving, the silver powder is evenly smeared on the pattern, and the melting point of copper is about 1084 °C, the melting point of black copper alloy is slightly lower than that of copper 50 °C, and the melting point of silver is about 960.8 °C.

In order to better integrate the melted silver into the carved lines, Yuan Kunlin adopted the traditional method of "blowing fire", using air to control the size of the fire, but until it was finished, the flames could not be extinguished, so he inhaled through his nose and mouth, and constantly moved the fire point to heat it evenly.

After walking the silver, it will be cooled and then start grinding, which needs to be "grinded down" to control the character, file and brush together, the strength is too light to grind off the surface impurities, and the strength is too heavy and will grind off the silver at the subtle lines. When the grinding force passes, the end of a line is worn off, and the whole charm changes.

The black copper sheet with good silver is polished, assembled, and welded into shape, or the black copper sheet is welded and assembled on the relevant parts of the metal utensils that have been designed and manufactured, so that it becomes a complete utensil.

Hand grinding, the initial shape of the utensils for cleaning and polishing. (Nowadays, sandpaper or grinding wheels are mostly used for polishing). Let it show a silvery-white line.

The black copper silver production technique belongs to the traditional Chinese metal production process, which only exists in Maohe Yuejiawan Village, Baxin Town, Yilong Town, Shiping County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and Jincheng Town, Jinning County, Kunming City.

The vases, incense burners, wine vessels, tea vessels, four treasures of the study and other handicrafts made by this method present an antique, elegant and chic charm. The heirloom cultural relics include black bronze silver landscape pattern ink cartridges.

Go silver that is, silver plating, black copper silver is carved out of exquisite ornamental patterns on the copper embryo, and then silver or gold plating in the yin carved ornamentation, and then the surface of the copper embryo is treated into black, so that it sets off the silver (gold) glittering brilliant ornament on the solemn and deep black background, so that the handicrafts appear graceful and luxurious, magnificent and colorful.

Its shape is ingenious, the production process is exquisite, the characteristics are strong, not only has high historical and artistic value and research value, but also has a greater commercial development value.

On May 23, 2011, the black copper and silver production skills were approved by the State Council to be included in the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

The black copper silver process was founded in the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty and has a history of more than 280 years. It is said that when the coppersmith surnamed Shiping Yiyue was smelting copper, he accidentally fell the gold ring he wore into the copper smelting, and later found that the bronze he smelted was as black as coal, so he engraved patterns on the surface of the bronze and embedded silver scraps to make the earliest black copper silver.

The production method of black copper and silver was first created by the Yue brothers, and the past dynasties were exclusively operated, and in the production process, the Yue family has always adhered to the conservative concept of passing on the inside and not passing on the outside, and passing on the man but not the woman.

During the period of the Republic of China, Yue's shop in Minsheng Street in Kunming was used to produce and sell black copper and silver utensils, and in the later period, due to the lack of raw materials, production gradually declined, and the skills were passed on to Yue Zhongmin, because Yue Zhongmin had no children, he had to pass on the skills to Lang Uncle Su to inherit.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to the soaring price of gold, the lack of raw materials, coupled with the high cost of making black copper and silver, the price was expensive, and the people's life was hard. Take a look at the latest chapters of "Dream Claw Book House in the Great Era" and read it for free for the first time.