125r - - - - - [continued]
and with your pipes and abrevouers @, you can also place small threads of wax which are applied to the body so that the metal goes more easily from one part to another and runs quickly throughout. And with these pipes, you can guide your cast and your vents without having ruined anything.
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[continued]
Figure
small rolls, you make your casts and vents without danger of chipping or … any of the mold because the wax, once it has been removed, leaves a thoroughly empty place. Make your vents proceed from the head of the cast, which is at the bottom, towards the cast. Make your cast so that it is not thick, and make two or three notches inside the passage because this impairs the metal fury. And it makes it flow easily without filling with bubbles, and it does not make too much smoke which dams up the passage. You can also divide it into two or three branches thusly Figure
Plaster
When you mold something in order to cast with wax, first mold only plaster, you mold with plaster that is only reheated after it has been pulverized. Because, once it has been reheated on the stone slab, the outside is burnt, and the inside remains nearly unburnt. Transparent grey plaster is not strong, but the good one plaster becomes white once it has been soaked, and it sets well quickly. Nevertheless I have found the grey plaster to be quite firm and hard after it has set, but it takes longer to work with it. Know the nature of each. You will never mold very neatly if you do not soak until it is quite clear and liquid, your plaster or the core’s sand. Soak it straight away after it has been reheated.
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However, if you mold with plaster that has been reheated once as said, coat the first mold well with oil. And when the second cast has set and you have prepared it, soak it in water for a long time. And if it does not release, soak it in hot water, because cold water hardens it.
Something to know
And hot water softens it plaster more than cold water which does not penetrate it plaster as it does mixed plaster because it plaster is stronger and mixed plaster is spongier. Medals are cast from this powdered, reheated plaster, and the medals will be waterproof as though they were varnished. In Germany, people hang these medals on houses. See to it that the water is very hot, and if the water is boiling, it will not endanger it. All molds made of plaster only or molds made of mixed plaster are stripped from it.
Scimitars
Workers from Damascus or from Hungary, neighbors to the Turks, separate iron from the mines with steel. And they cast the blades of the scimitar in sand with this first steel that was first casted from its mine. Afterwards, they the blades cut other iron without without great difficulty because all melted iron is harder than soft iron beaten into … and bars. Thus is the steel of scimitars, but it is quite brittle. When someone takes the haft of a scimitar off, that person recognizes it well by the tip in the haft which is cast in sand.
Hearing from afar
Make a small hole into the ground, put your ear against it during the night or during an equally quiet time, and you will easily hear the muffled sound.