CLICHEE MEDALLIONS. Large medal lions are sometimes made in France by a pro cess called en cliche. The metal of which the medallion is formed is used while in a pasty state, between solid and liquid. Such medallions, unlike more elaborately wrought coins and medals, have a device on one side only, on which side alone they are intended to be seen ; they appear to have been devised it France, where large and cheap medallions are more prized, and are more extensively pro duced, than in England. In the time of Na poleon, it was customary to make large medal lions en cliche°, bronze them, mount them into the lids of snuff-boxes, and protect them with convex glasses.
The medallions are made in the following way. The metal employed is fusible metal, [ALLOY] which melts at a very low tempera ture. This being melted in an iron vessel, a little is taken up in a ladle, and agitated until it assumes a pasty consistency. Sufficient to form one medallion is poured on a piece of clean paper, placed in the bottom of a box en closed on all ; a stamper is made to fall sud denly on the mass, and impress a device upon it, which device remains when the metal cools.
The device is produced in one of two ways. In one case the original medallion, which is to servo as a copy for those to be made, is used as a model from which a mould en cliched is made, and this mould is fixed, face down wards, to the bottom of the stamper ; while in the other case a die is engraved, and this die itself is fixed to the stamper. It is obvious that the same results are produced by both means. The box contains a little simple me chanism for regulating the descent of the stamper, and to prevent the semi-liquid metal from splashing about. The medallions are made one by one, and removed as fast as made.
The medallions are generally finished by bronzing. The back and edge are brought true by turning in a lathe ; and the medallion is then subjected to some one of many differ ent routines of processes, any of which will impart a bronze-like colour to the surface.
The dies or moulds for clichee medallion, may be formed of iron, brass, copper, wood sulphur, or plaster. The Italian figure caster: often employ a kind of clichee method in pro ducing moulds for small casts.