117v - - - - - To make the ashes of flowers and herbs leave molds
Some people put quicksilver inside. But, if it is a little work, or fine & delicate foliage, that only has a slender issue, they make two errors: the first, that quicksilver by its heaviness can destroy some delicate tract inside in coming out, the other, that some bit will always linger inside that will make other metals sour & inhibit the perfection of the casting. It is true that if it is to empty the mold of some large animal that has big conduits & passages through which the quicksilver can easily exit, like of a bird or a serpent, one can indeed put some amount of quicksilver to break the calcinated bones of the animal in escaping, because of which the said ☿ will empty out & not remain at all.
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The asparagus stalk is so hard that most often it perseveres as charcoal. Because of this, do it rather dried out or wet it with sulfur oil & turpentine, or indeed cast the little branches separately & solder them onto a fat stalk drawn through with a wire.
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If the burnt thing has left behind some filth or ash, let it cool down a little, & with an iron wire wrapped in cotton that can bend with the cavities that you have, investigate. Clean & blow to a fault, either with a soft brush or a clipped brush.
Daisies
They can be cast well in gold. But if you want to enamel them, you have to make them by hand & enamel them & then attach them. Otherwise, the leaves would be so pressured that it would encrust the enamel.
Sand that has already been used
Do not cast it. But because it is mixed with stone allum, you can use it in the mixture of other things & it can serve in place of brick.
Core molding wax figures or lead medals
Rub them with oil with a brush. But be sure that it be so softly that your medal be barely wiped with it & that it hardly appear to have been greased. After rub it with spirits and heat the water with which you will wet your sand, that of plaster, brick & alum, so that being sort of lukewarm when you cast it, the oil will not refuse it, as it does with cold water, & do not forget to moisten your sand with it, mixing it always with a little sal ammoniac.
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Medals molded in this way are very fine.
Snakes’ blood
If you have to cut some snake inside a mold in order to burn it, cut it far from the intake of the mold so that no blood at all remains, because it makes a crust that afterwards would not be taken away by the same quicksilver & removes impressions from your mold.