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The Yongle Bell was cast by means of
China' s traditional method of pit shaping and pottery moulding. No
characters cast on the bell were left out by mistake and the lines
were well spaced, manifesting the effects of refinement and
neatness. First of all, the special clay mould material was
filtered through water over and over again, so it was finer than
water-glass sand. Clay moulds were made by scraping, divided into
pieces and dried in the shade. Characters were written on Xuan
paper (a kind of high- quality paper for traditional Chinese
painting and calligraphy) after typesetting planning. The Xuan
paper was pasted on the mould and the characters were copied out
and then carved by engravers. When the moulds were combined for
casting, each mould had to be preheated to effect "surface pottery
moulds." When the surface strength of pottery moulds was increased
in the process of casting, no damage would be caused to the cast.
The inscriptions on the Yongle Bell to-talled more than 230,000
characters. Not a single character was cast in a wrong way. This
alone was astonishing.
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