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You will see that it will torment it & heat it very well and soon
render it very liquid & ready to cast and be clarified, as it should
be. When it is in this state & that it is very white and polished,
shining like quicksilver, prepare yourself to cast. And to this
effect, have some lean delicate sand, in a
terrine or another vessel, that you would
like to help yourself to. Make a pit in your sand, then, with your
pincers, take your well reddened mold & place it
in this pit of sand. Cover immediately the opening of your mold
in order that no ash & dust enters inside, & then
enclose it with sand up to end of the gate & the vents. This done,
uncover your mold & throw on top of your well melted
silver, the size of a pea, or thereabouts, some
of this metallic grain, which will immediately spread through
all your silver & make it boil & turn. Cast as soon as
you have put in this substance, for it is this that is the secret to
making the silver run, since its crust heats it & clarifies
it. You can cast silver finer than the alloy from the capital
and like the realle, but you must add this
grain in.



With all of this, do not let yourself forget to put, before all things,
a little borax in the melted silver, for even though
goldsmiths do not put any in, however it is good, and I have
seen it practised well. Next, one puts in the crust of the substance at
two different times & then the metallic thing. Then make sure that
it be placed at the end of your forge.



If you want to blow the ashthat is around your mold when
you hold it between the pincers, hold it with the opening at
the bottom, & blow.



When silver is well melted you can uncover it and blow with the
small bellows, not continually like with gold, but only
to cast out the charcoals in order to put in the substances that
make it run.


Whitening of cast silver



Because one commonly casts in base silver, & especially the
Germans, and that such an alloy readily makes chappe
or crust, which is contrary toour some
goldsmithsfrom France are usually quick
to whiten their works, especially for big quantities, because they only
use common bullitoyre, which is tartar &
common salt, nearly as much of one as the other. But I
have seen an excellent German working thus. Having, in my
presence, cast a little lizard with an alloy of
teston, he made a greyish noi crust.
And to clean it from it, he boiled it in the above mentioned
bullitoyre of tartar & pulverizedcommon saltand mixed with common water, in the
fire of his forge. Once taken out, he brushed it. And
because it was not as clean of this crust as he fancied, he burned some
tartarin some paper until it was
black & no longer smoked. Then, he wet the aforesaid tartard with the water of bullitoyre ,
composed of salt & tartar, & covered all his
lizard with it. Then he put it between the live of
charcoals of his forge & blew a little. When the
lizard was red, he took it out, let it cool, then reheated it
in the bullitoyre, next he brushed it in
clear water. 

+

Note that the bullitoyre for silver is never good
in a crucible because the water, taking the form of the
ftartar, evaporates. But the vessel
for boiling, being of copper, is excellent for the whitening of
silver & for the mixture which colors gold.



He heeded to not let his water of tartar boil so much that it
poured out on top, because then its strength goes away. Therefore, when
this first fury of boiling comes, remove it from the fire & put it
back. He held as a secret this burned tartar put on top for
base silver.

