Patternmaker's letters

[Pete O]

I guess it's time for a progress report on this, although it is steeped in disappointment. I spent a lot of time casting letter blanks in body filler putty and finishing them to some sort of standard for casting. Given that i don't have anything like the proper tools for carving, I got results that I was prepared to try a pour with. I finished the rest of the pattern and glued the letters in place to spell out the two machines, my name, town and the year 2019.
Today was going to be casting day as the weather forecast was excellent, with rain throughout the rest of the week both sides. I spent about four hours experimenting with ramming the mould for the nameplate, each time getting some kind of variation on this
   

I worked on the mould each time, shaving a little more draft onto the areas that consistently hung up, until I eventually got an almost clean mould, just a few small areas of sand that came away with the pattern but were small enough that I decided they could be fettled out before painting.
   
then the other half of the mould failed as I tried to put it in place. I abandoned the casting business for the day and went and spilt firewood.

I'm having a rethink of how I'm approaching this casting, I'm either going to pour it in two halves, or machine the other half from stock, and screw the two parts together. Time to back away and do something else for a bit though.