GOLD LACE, a kind of lace made of gold wire, flattened between two polished steel roll ers into a ribbon which is twisted round a core of silk. In India '
(See WIRE AND WIRE-DRAWING). The wire is frequently annealed during the process of drawing, and this requires to be very skilfully done, or the golden tint of the surface is lost.
Gold wire for thread is generally drawn down to a size measuring 1,100 to 1,400 yards to the ounce of metal. Finer sizes reach the length of 1.800 to 2,000 yards to the ounce, and to attain this fineness the wire is drawn through perforated gems, such as diamonds or rubies.
The fine wire, after being annealed, is flattened between polished steel rollers. Finally the flat wire, or rather ribbon, is wound over yellow or orange colored silk, so as completely to en velop it, by a spinning engine. The gold thread is then finished. Some of the best qualities of the metal covering or "plate" of this thread have 12 pennyweights of gold to the pound of silver or of alloy. Inferior kinds have as little as 2 pennyweights to the pound, and still cheaper sorts of thread are covered with flat tened copper wire which has received a thin coating of electro-deposited silver, and this afterward receives, on the outside of the thread only, a still thinner electro-deposited coating of gold—two grains of the precious metal cover ing 3,000 square inches of surface. For this very cheap kind of thread yellow cotton is used instead of silk.
The only difference between gold and silver thread is that the thin coating of gold is want ing on the latter. Gold thread is used in the manufacture of military lace. This, however, is a woven substance and not true lace; but some real lace is made both of gold and silver thread. Both kinds of thread are also used for facings of liveries, and for ecclesiastical robes, altar cloths and banners. These and other fabrics are either embroidered or woven, but often only in part, with the thread. (See