By Nathan Walch
With an engraving tool in one hand, a sample of Hebrew inspired characters in the other and a metal alloy sheet on the table in front of her, Laura Bagshaw scribes her way into history.
?I just thought it would be fun to see how engraving works,? said Bagshaw, a Provo resident.
About 30 BYU students and Provo residents engraved 45 pages of a Book of Mormon gold plates replica on Saturday, scheduled for display at the Joseph Smith exhibit in the Salt Lake Family History Museum.
Each metal sheet made of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. Each sheet is about 8 inches tall and 6 inches wide. Each line of engraving is about a quarter of an inch high.
A black substance covered each sheet, which made it easier volunteers to engrave.
?It was actually kind of smooth and made me think that this was not what it was like for Moroni,? Matthew Christensen, a Provo resident.
Stephen Pratt, a local craftsman who volunteered to make gold plates replica, will dip the sheets into an acid, which will complete the etching process.
?It gives them a little bit of what it was like for the Book of Mormon prophets to scribe these plates,? said Harold Skousen, a friend of Pratt filming the experience. ?It may have been more difficult than this, or it may have been just as easy, but it certainly had to be a lasting process.?
Pratt researched eyewitness accounts of the gold plates to produce the most logically correct product. He researched everything from how the rings were shaped to what the sealed portion looked like.
?There was only one witness that gave us anything to help us on the sealed portion,? Pratt said.
Pratt said many people think the sealed portion is strapped with a metal band; however, Pratt quoted Whitmer who said, ?What there was sealed, appeared as solid to my view as wood.?
?So, we came up with an interpretation that hopefully will remind someone of a block of wood, and it?s not going to rot,? Pratt said. He ended up using rosin because he figured it could seal the gold plates for about 1,600 years without rotting and still have the appearance of wood.
Pratt also researched different alloys of what the gold plates could be made out of.
If Pratt used real gold, it would cost about $100 per a square inch and the book would weigh roughly 156 pounds. Pratt also experimented making the plates out of copper.
Pratt ended up using electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. Electrum is the most likely alloy used for the original gold plates, he said, because it looks like gold and natural deposits of electrum are found all over the world. But Pratt said he has not heard of church scholars discussing electrum as an alloy for the gold plates.
?I look forward to going to the Church History Museum and seeing the finished product,? Christensen said. ?I hope others will get a feel for what Joseph Smith worked with and what the witnesses got to see and heft.?