Recent scholarship in the history of science has brought a new emphasis on practical domains of knowledge production in the early modern period. The work of Pamela Smith has put into focus the value of artisanal implicit and explicit knowledge, what she has called “artisanal epistemologies.” Other authors, like Eric Ash and Tara Nummedal, have explored the blurred boundaries between technical, entrepreneurial and political domains of early modern science in significant case studies. In more radical interpretations, Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer and Peter Dear questioned the traditional hierarchies based on the strong dichotomy between theory and practice. Very recently Pamela Long, adapting Peter Galison’s notion of “trading zones,” has described the existence of sites, like “arsenals, mines, workshops, and cities,” where artisans and practitioners of specific crafts interacted on equal terms with learned individuals and natural philosophers. This paper will explore some of these notions, considering the case of an early Stuart mining and assaying project, developed in the years 1607-8, after the discovery of a large silver ore deposit in Hilderston, Scotland. In particular, it will look at the different activities taking place in connection with the project, including ore assaying and testing, administrative supervision and natural philosophical writing. These practices - belonging to technical, institutional and intellectual domains - help to identify mining enterprises and mints as significant sites of experimental knowledge production, bridging distinctions between rigid disciplinary and social demarcations.