Making and Knowing
A minimal edition of BnF Ms Fr 640

[TOC] | [diplomatic]

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Porosity and little holes which are in the mold

It oftens happens when you cast two or three molds one after the other using the same dish, because the last casting comes from the bottom of the dish and is thicker, and then often the last cast which comes from the bottom and which is the thickest of the dish, may easily become porous. Cast thinner and neater, as long as you blow very strongly on the soaked sand while casting in order to clear the little air bubbles.

at left top margin

When the sand is casted thick, it often becomes porous

Thing that cannot be released from the mold

You must cut it inside the mold in order to burn it. Cut it with scissors at once, that way blood doesn’t flow on the mold, and doesn’t make dirty. Because this dirt would be removed with difficulty when reheated. Then place your mold into a furnace, or something similar, in order to quickly dry the mold which must be removed before the forming of crusts or molds.@

at left middle margin

+ When you mold small lizards, and when you want to peel away the first molded part, start to peel away the heads, you will know its place thanks to the needle. Don’t peel away the legs before peeling away the entire body, to avoid that the naked body, moving,doesn’t remove the legs from their place, which would not be easy to put back into place. When you remove the small needles fixing the legs, block the legs or press the legs with something, that way while removing the needles the legs won’t move; finally, you can fix the legs again with wax.

Various animals entwined

You can entwine a snake with a lizard, each one biting the other, or a snake eating a frog, or a wall lizard or something similar. But since these interlacings cannot be stripped, cut what’s possible, and allow the rest to burn. To make the mouth of the snake, which must stand high, hold a wall lizard, which is small and would need to be held in the air, because the snake’s head is higher, put under the wall lizard a mound of earth suitable to support it. And if you place the mold in a furnace, the animal drying quickly, it will quickly shrink, then it will burn more easily. These interlacings are also made to mask wounds or defects on the animal which happen when we catch them. Do not forget to join with wax, applied carefully with a hot iron wire, all the parts of the animal which are one on top of the other, or those which are not well pressed on the slab of clay, so that the soaked sand does not remove them. Do that in order to

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