§ 60 The Fire-Resisting Envelope Applied Over the Wax
After that, the wax being completed and the figure braced together, he puts it where fire can be applied to it174 on two andirons of wood, stone, or iron like a roast, arranging so that it can be raised or lowered; and with moistened ash, specially fitted for that purpose, by means of a paint brush he covers the entire figure so that the wax is quite concealed, and over every hollow and chink he clothes it well with this material. Having applied the ash to it he replaces the transverse rods, which pass through the wax and the core, just as he has left them in the figure, because these have to support the core within and the mould without, which is the casing of the hollow space between the core and the mould, where the bronze is to be poured. When this armature has been fixed, the artificer begins to take some fine earth, beaten together with horse dung and hair, as I said, and carefully lays a very thin coating all over which he allows to dry, and so on time after time with other coatings, always allowing each to dry until the figure becomes covered with earth raised to the thickness of half a span at the most.