Making and Knowing
A minimal edition of BnF Ms Fr 640

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Earth, or sand, moistened or ground with water, wants to be reheated more than sand.

Latten from a candlestick is not pure, for one mixes in it iron filings & potin.

Latten wants to be cast hotter than copper, quod non credo.

One ought not, to cast carefully, to take metals already alloyed, but take them pure & mix them.

Iron hardly agrees with being cast in a mixture of copper or latten.

It is better all with a sand, either in a frame or noyau at once, rather than several mixed.

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One ought to reheat for one or two hours et p, in thata charcoal fire which lights by itself, a crucible with the substance inside, and then blow & cover the crucible with large charcoals & the mouth of the furnace with bricks, and let it consume two or three feedings of charcoal, which se fill the furnace above the crucible. In the end feed and stoke the fire, & when the flame is very white & that the substance will be in a liquid bain like water & casting off pale blue flames, cast. The secret is to cast very hot & in one go.

Lean white sand

Without bond renders well proper for casting, & having body, if you grind it very finely on porphyry or calcine it, reddening it several times in the fire, & being in vinegar, or finely ground with water as you know, it also molds very neatly in noyau, as I have experimented. But do not moisten it with salt water if you want to quickly reheat it, for salt boils on the fire & makes bubbles, being pressed by the fire. I believe that the noyau, gently reheated, would not do this. I molded very neatly in noyau the substance of skillets. White sand smells like sulphur when reheated, and I believe it would melt. And since the substance has been cast in it, it acquires in the mold comme a luster as if it were leaded or vitrified. I believe that glassmakers could use it.

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One needs very little of sal ammoniac dissolved in water.

Bell handles

They can be put back on, without remaking the bell, which one ought to put back in the pit, & and mold it there. But should you solder a ref cracked bell, it is considered impossible to give it its first voice.