125v - - - - - Vipers and snakes
I molded a viper, which is much cleaner to cast than any other snake, because it has beautiful & very visible scales on the entire body & principally on the head and under the throat. It has a flat heat, a ruddy snout tending to deep carnation, & thick and short like horned aspic or like the top of a pig’s snout, big jowls, eyes very close to the snout, and the mouth wide open where it has double canine teeth on each side coming out of a reed of flesh that covers them and turns back. It also has a reed of flesh in the throat like a dog’s penis from which comes its stinger. Other snakes have a double row of teeth.
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If you want to mold snakes with open mouth, you must cut off the head & leave it inside, because it will not be able to be stripped.
Molding turtles
Casting snakes & herbs and flowers is a strange matter, since the cavities that are between the two shells require several pieces. To cast in sugar without making a casting, they are molded from plaster, as works for anything you like.
Plaster to cast with wax
When you want to cast in wax in a plaster mold, you must know this secret, that there is need that your mold be in hot water. The animal will never come out as clean as in metal, because wax grips. But to rough out an animal as close to natural as possible in order to fix it afterwards, you have to remove all the scales, because the wax will permeate them & will not be able to be stripped off. In molding the animal, take off the scales for wax, but on the contrary when not molding with wax rub them against their grain so that they raise up, because then these animals sc. those not molded in wax and prepared in this way will show better. Do not wait to strip off your wax until it is cooled down at all. But while it is a bit hot, after you have molded the first casting of the animal, uncover it halfway so that it be stripped in so doing. And having as much in one mold as in the other, make very many large castings holding on to the animal in order to fortify them … stripping, & afterwards you’ll cut it.
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+ Alabaster … which is plaster in any case, is very hard, but it shrinks quite a bit. It is good for making medals. But it must be very finely strained.