Making and Knowing
A minimal edition of BnF Ms Fr 640

[TOC] | [diplomatic]

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To hold the noyaux, some use wire of the same metal that they cast, because it reduces with & melts with its counterpart, but because when melting or folding, the noyau changes, some find it better to r use iron wire, sharpened at the ends, because it holds firmer & having delicate ends, it appears as no more than a point of a needle. And one can apply gold or silver, before using it for a work. If it makes a hole, one covers it with a small chisel.

Eau de vye prevents the sand from becoming porous & does not make little holes on the edges of the mold if the thing to mold is well dampened with it. The holes & pustules & bubbles are not made at the place of the mold which is thick, but at the edges which are thinner.

One casts with common silver with which goldsmiths commonly work, which forms a mediocre Et que alloy. And when one would cast with solder, it would run even better.

Spalt is a whitish stone which can be found in Germany, & mainly in Augsburg, which one uses for the most excellent sand that can be found for lead, tin, copper, silver & gold. And the more it is used, the better it is. It is appropriate for casting flat things in a chassis. For round things, it is not as fitting nor does it hold in the fire as well as the above mentioned made with plaster.

The shreds of cui thick, greasy leather are pb good to cast in the melted copper and latten, for it cleans it & removes from it all its filth.

Spalt

Spalt is white like cooked plaster and can be found in mounds and stones formed in long scales & long veins. It is very soft, such that with a fingernail one can scrape it & makes a powder like our chalk from Champagne. And because everything which comes from the earth is mixed with some other substance, to purify it, one grinds it, coming from the quarry, quite coarsely, then one mixes it essence of sal ammoniac. And, by putting in a piece the size of a walnut in a large bottle of water and

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