Malaysia Part 8 - Royal Selangor Pewter Factory

Sunday 15th July

Royal Selangor Pewter Factory

One of the resources Malaysia has is tin. Pewter used to be made from tin and lead but they stopped using lead a while ago because it is poisonous. These days, pewter is made from Tin, Antimony and Copper.

The tour of the pewter factory is free. They will even pick you up from your hotel and drop you back. The car that picked us up from the hotel was actually empty and it was just us. The driver said his name is Dayalan. He was such an excellent driver and the drive to the pewter factory was actually like a personal guided tour of Malaysia as he provided commentary of the sights along the route. He said he would also be the one sending us back to the hotel afterwards and gave us a time to meet him.

There was a guided tour of the factory. It started with some of the history of pewter. The sultan of Selangor (a province in Malaysia) endorsed the pewter and that is why it is called "Royal Selangor Pewter".
Pewter was an early form of money and used to be cast into a money tree. Coins broken off to pay for goods and services.

Inside the foyer is a huge model of the Petronas towers made out of pewter mugs. It spans 2 storeys.  
The guide was talking about the "twin towers made of pewter mugs"... my comment was "dont you mean the tin towers?" referring to the fact that pewter is mostly tin. But nobody laughed at my joke =(

Molten pewter

The tour took us through some of the stations and showed us how they make a beer mug. It was actually a big eye-opener for what we take for granted when we look at the pewter in the shops. Each piece is hand made and there are quite a few steps involved. Firstly, molten pewter is put into a cast to cast the shape of the barrel of the mug.

Polishing the shell

Then we saw the polishing of the exterior surface. The polishing smooths out the surface and also creates that shiny look of the pewter. We felt the before and after shells and after polishing, the shell weighs about half of the initial cast. The scraps are removed and melted down again.

Adding the design

 Next we saw the addition of the design on the mug. The mottled appearance of that particular mug was all done by hand. It is amazing to see and think that if any mistake is made, the shell is discarded and melted down again. The people at the beginning would be pretty annoyed if somebody further down the production line stuffed up and their work had to be discarded.

Adding the base

Next we saw the addition of the base of the mug. The circular base was placed on a cylindrical spinning surface (it's hard to explain but it's a bit like a lazy susan that spins). The person makes sure that the base is perfectly balanced. A bit of a mixture is added to the edge of the shell surface that will be joined to the base. Our guide said it was a mixture of acid and something else. Then the person used a blowtorch to heat the base and join it to the mug shell. The handle is added last.

Intricate designs

Watching all the different steps and the precision needed to handcraft each piece of pewter gave me a great appreciation of the beauty and difficulty creating it. We only saw a mug being made but many of the Selangor pewter pieces have intricate designs.

There are a couple of walls at the factory decorated with hands. Each one of these belongs to a person who works at the factory. After 5 years of continuous service, the company rewards loyalty by having your hand cast and displayed on the walls.

Our guide was able to show us his hand. He has been working for Royal Selangor Pewter for 28 years now.

Our driver Dayalan's hand cast.

Selangor Pewter is used in many trophys for sporting events such at the Malaysian F1 and ATP Shanghai tennis