Making and Knowing
A minimal edition of BnF Ms Fr 640

[TOC] | [diplomatic]

- - - - - folio image: 165r - - - - -

To repair

If in your cast, there appear some little hole, fix it with black or gray filling gum wax.

Lake

If, once it is ground, you let it dry without keeping it in water, it will dry out & you will have as much trouble grinding it as before. La

Stretching a canvas portrait

If it is crumpled & creased from being rolled up, moisten it from behind with a wet sponge & you will stretch it very evenly without spoiling it.

Plaster for molding

When it is long to set and dry, it means that it is too fat and moist, which is what makes it shrink away from the fire and crack. This is where burrs come from. The one that comes from lean earth is better. You must not store your moulds made of fat plaster for a long time, because they resemble fat earth, which when drying, cracks. The best is to reheat them soon after they have been made and cast. Moulds made of good plaster can be stored a long time.

at left middle margin

It is necessary to oilit well, because it is more difficult to separate the two halves of these moulds than when it is mixed.

Dragon’s blood

It is imitated with lake that surpasses it in beauty if, with this distempered in oil, you glaze on gold or silver. Distempered in varnish, it dies.

Repairing snakes and lizards

You could make some marks according to the form of their scales, making some bigger ones and some smaller ones, according to the shape of the neck, the body and the tail. If there is something broken, you can attach it with small iron or steel nails, and glue it with some mouth glue, then cover the whole thing with gray or black wax. But it is necessary to let the glue dry for one day without touching it.