Quickly molding and reducing a relief to a hollow mold

Make an impression in colored wax of the relief of your medal. And you will get a hollow mold, in which you can cast en noyau a relief in sand. In this, you will cast your hollow in lead or tin. In this, you you will cast your wax relief. And then on this wax, you will make your hollow moule en noyau, in order to cast in it the relief in gold or silver or any other metal you would like. But to make this process go faster, if you are in a hurry, make the first impression and the first hollow out of the inside portion of the bread loaf, prepared as you know, and which will cast neatly. And inside this, cast in the melted wax which will give you a nice relief on which you can make your noyau.

Work of gold, very light and hollow

Cast a lizard or any medal you would like in silver, of low quality, then gild it lightly and once the first gilding is done and dried up in the fire, burnish it, brush it with a wirebrush. Apply another layer of light gilding, repeating the whole process. Do this three or four times or even more depending on how thick you want your gold to be. Then, in the most discrete place you can find, make a small opening, and submerge your entire work in some good aqua fortis, which will penetrate into the silver through the opening and will corrode the silver without damaging the gold. In this way, you will have a lizard that is hollow until the tip of its nails or any type of work that is so light that when you blow into it, it moves. But be advised not to apply a thick layer of amalgamated gold in one go, or apply layers that are too thin each time, because this will block the finer details, but if you proceed as I have said, i.e. lightly and in many goes, and cleaning it well, then you will be fine.

at left middle margin

If you want the aqua fortis to corrode well, you must cast in low quality silver.

Chiseling

Lead is so fat and soft that one cannot hammer it harshly, one should have a light touch. Other big metals are easier to work with. With a graver called an onglete, you make and retool the finest of details. With the ordinary graver, you make the larger ones, and with the chaple, you can remove the bits that have run, and with the … soften … some lines you flatten or raise the lines.