159v - - - - - Cleaning files
Sometimes they get fat from the grease of lead, which is naturally fat, or also filings corrode them. And you will be able to clean them with hot charcoal or a wire brush made from brass.
Carnation
Mold a carnation like a rose, marigold, and all other flowers as discussed, that is to say cast the flowers in one mold, and the leaves in two parts in order to solder them onto the flower, this is the better way. But you could mold the flower and the leaves together in one single closed mold. I tried one which came out well from the mold. But the sand must be very thin, and you must blow very strongly.
Figure at left middle margin
Molds
Try to make one side as thick as the other, that way the two parts will be equally reheated. You can open this kind of mold in order to clean it, when you mold some animals, like crayfish, which burn. When your mold is reheated, do not wait too long before casting again, because it gets damp and loses its strength.
Unmixed plaster
If you reheat plaster as a stone it would crumble into water, but if you grind it before reheating it, it will not crumble into water, on the contrary it will harden in water, if it is good plaster like the one from Paris or from Spain which is as hard as a stone, and which is found through poor and dry earths, and which looks like white salt. German people use this plaster to make statues for their fountains, even if the statues are varnished they will not be damaged with water. On the contrary harden this plaster with water. When this sand is unmixed it sets much sooner. Oil very lightly your shapes of metal or of other materials otherwise you will not be able to strip plaster from the mold. And dip your mold into hot water in order to open it, if it does not open in hot water, it could open into boiling water.
It is sometimes even necessary to boil the mold in hot water, as you would with wax if you were afraid it would not strip well. Cold water draws oil out to the surface of the plaster that has sucked it in and thus it strips.