123r - - - - - How to make argento run
Take white arsenic, two ounces, 2 ℥ Orpiment or yellow arsenic, two ounces, 2 ℥ Aes ustum, two ounces, 2 ℥ Fine copper filings moderately well ground, 2 ℥ Antimony, 2 ℥ Rock salt, 2 ℥ Raw Tartar, 2 ℥ Sandever, 2 ℥ Saltpeter, the half amount, namely 1 ℥ Course common salt, melted, the half amount, 1 ℥ Sublimate, the half amount, 1 ℥ Borax, the half amount, 1 ℥ Sal ammoniac, same quantity as borax, 1 ℥
Take these ingredients, the best ones you can find. Weigh them as described above, and crush them separately, keeping your face covered, over the nose & the mouth, from the eyes down, in order to avoid the exhalations of arsenic, sublimate, and orpiment. Mix them well all together, then put them in a good crucible that must be so large that the ingredients can have at least the fourth or fifth part empty. Cover the crucible with a good tile, precisely adapted in its roundness so as to fit the opening. And having connected it tightly with wire from top to bottom and around the sides, lute it with manure or founder’s earth,that artillery founders use. And in this, be careful & diligent, & do not forget to mix in crushed glass throughout the lute to fortify your crucible, in a way that it takes no air, for the mixture would be worth scarcely anything, because the 4 five last ingredients would be exhaled.
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Note that you need to lute your crucible well, so that the ingredients do not take air, and would not be exhaled.
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Lute well your crucible, so that it does not break, for if it breaks, the materials evaporate & the fumes from it are dangerous. If within 12 hours it has not melted and intermingled, it will not be well made.
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Goldsmiths who know about these things sell a denier of this for 5 sols to other goldsmiths, & especially to those who make dishware and great works, for at the end of their works, they can solder over the first solder by the means of this mixture, in general all those who want to mold and cast something delicate. This mixture should not be divulged, so that it is not abused.
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The grain is like broken steel
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