Microscopic mass formulae

By assuming the existence of a pseudopotential smooth enough to do Hartree-Fock variations and good enough to describe nuclear structure, we construct mass formulae that rely on general scaling arguments and on a schematic reading of shell model calculations. Fits to 1751 known binding energies for N,Z$\geq 8$ lead to RMS errors of 614 keV with 14 parameters and 388 keV with 28 parameters. The latter is easily reduced to a 20 parameter form at 423 keV.