BEATER is applied, in matters of commerce, to divers sorts of workmen, whose business is to hammer or flatten certain matters, particularly metals.

Gold-BEATERS, are artisans, who, by beating gold and silver with a hammer on a marble in moulds of velvet and bullocks guts, reduce them to thin leaves fit for gilding or silvering of copper, iron, steel, wood, &c. Gold-beaters differ from flatters of gold or silver; as the former bring their metal into leaves by the hammer, whereas the latter only flatten it by pressing it through a mill preparatory to beating.

There are also Tin-BEATERS employed in the looking-glass trade, whose business is to beat tin on large blocks of marble till it be reduced to thin leaves fit to be applied with quicksilver behind looking-glasses. See FOLIATING, GOLD-Beating.