The first step is to pour composite resin and some other chemicals into the mold according to his recipe.
"The hardest part is making the mold because it determines the shape of the product. I have to pay attention to every detail of the trophy to make it as accurate as possible. I make a new mold every World Cup season," Tam said.
"I had the idea of making these trophies in the 1990s, but it didn’t happen until 2014," the 59-year-old man said.
After about 10 minutes, when the resin and chemicals are hardened, the mold is opened. Because there is only one mold and all steps are conducted manually, each worker at Tam's workshop can only make around 10 trophies a day.
Tran Thanh Tung (L) uses sandpaper to smooth out the details before painting and inlaid the trophy with gold leaves. Tung’s main job is a shipper but when the World Cup approaches, he got a part-time job at the workshop.
24K gold leaves are used for the inlaid process. To coat the entire surface of a trophy, it takes 40-50 gold leaves on average.
Tam used a gentle brush to smooth out the surface and make the trophy looks more refined. It takes about 90 minutes to complete a trophy.
"Depending on customer requirements, the workshop can inlaid different types of gold," he said.
The products here have the same ratio as the real trophy, the same height and width but lighter in weight.
The details are made to look just like the real trophy. The price for a trophy like this is around VND1 million (US$40.31), depending on the price of the type of gold inlaid.
Tam expects that in the 2022 World Cup, he will produce at least 500 trophies.
"I also plan to make a giant cup that is 3.65 m high to display on Bui Vien walking street (HCMC) when the tournament enters the knockout stage," Tam said.
The 2022 World Cup will take place in Qatar from November 20 to December 18. This is the first time in history that the World Cup is hosted in winter, due to the extremely hot weather of Qatar in summer.
