Handmade with Love
The supplier is very concerned with social responsibility. The organisation in Kathmandu, Nepal, mainly employs disadvantaged women. They receive fair wages and good working conditions. They have a lot of respect for animals and nature. The products are made by hand.
The Process of manufacturing the singing bowls
The manufacturing of hammered singing bowls is a completely manual process. Each singing bowl is carefully hammered into the right shape, going through several stages to obtain the right shape and a pure tone. First, the different metals (copper, tin, iron, lead, gold and silver) are melted in a furnace. Depending on what the end product requires, copper and tin (bronze) are the main ingredients for the bronze bowls, with very small percentages of the other metals for the seven metal bowls. The molten metal is then removed from the furnace and poured into a mould, after which it is cut into discs of various diameters and thicknesses for further processing. The discs are then, after precise measurement and classification by weight, hammered by hand into the desired shape and size. Around five discs are first laid on top of each other and heated in the oven to red-hot, after which they are hammered one by one into a bowl shape using a mould.
The expert craftsmen can only do this when the metal is red-hot, because if it cools down too much it becomes brittle and may develop cracks, making the bowl unusable. After the bowls have their rough shape, the fine process of finishing begins. In this stage, each bowl gets its own shape and size, and again a lot of fine hammering is involved, so the bowl has to be heated red-hot again to get exactly the right shape and sound. After this, the bowls are individually sanded and polished on the outside and inside, and if necessary chiselled for the finishing touch.