Patternmaker's letters

[Pete O]

I plan to make a casting with raised lettering, a cover for the horizontal spindle on the frankenmill to keep the swarf from the vertical spindle out of the NT40 socket. Wondering what others have used for raised letters on a pattern, I'm considering getting hold of a bunch of those fridge-magnet letters but wondering if there's something better that's not too hard to come by. And cheap. I think they'll need to be about 3/4" tall font.

[awemawson]

I get mine from :

https://www.johnwinter.co.uk/

But it's a year or two since I did - they are cast in type metal

[Highpower]

I don't think fridge magnet letters have any draft on them do they?

[Pete O]

I've a feeling that there was some draft on the fridge letters that we had when the kids were small but not sure. I've decided against the fridge letters anyway, they tend to have too chunky a font. Other things like cake decorator's silicone molds tend to have some kind of comic-style font. I managed to get hold of some pricing for a set of patternmakers letters and they don't fill the 'cheap' requirement. I've started carving a set in MDF, with a view to taking a soft mold off them and casting positives in auto body filler. Still open to suggestions, it's going to take a lot of carving to produce what i need in 2 different font sizes.

[awemawson]

3 D print them

[Pete O]

(06-04-2019, 01:47 AM)awemawson Wrote: 3 D print them

That would certainly be the 21st century way to go about it, but I think a 3D printer might blow the budget on this little job. I need 23 characters, 48 in the pattern with several multiples. I think it would be prohibitive to get them 3D printed commercially. I managed to find one website with a price for a set of pot-metal patternmakers letters, the set was $100 US or thereabouts. I can't justify that on this little task.

[awemawson]

There must be a forum member with a 3D printer at least on your continent if not actually in your town,

Probably best to produce a full alpha-numeric alphabet as one sheet that you can use to take a soft mould from, then you can have as many as you want in the future.

If you can provide stl models I'll print them for you but postage to Aus might be expensive

[Pete O]

That's a very generous offer Andrew; I don't know what an STL model is- presumably that's the graphic program that the printer reads? I'm fishing about amongst my acquaintances for someone with a 3D printer or access to one, have a school principal mate coming for dinner shortly and I plan to subtly probe...

[arvidj]

Pete,

At least a place to start ...

Go here ... thingiverse ... and do a search for 'font'. If you find something that meets your needs someone with a 3D printer should be able to work with you to get you going. 

Arvid

p.s. Yes, I have a printer and depending on how quickly you need them it might be an option.

[Pete O]

Wow that 3D printing is a whole world of it's own, one into which I have never delved, so thanks for the tips. I'm currently about a third of the way through carving an alphabet in MDF so I can pour a soft mold over it in which to cast useable pattern letters in, say, auto body filler or the like. It's coming along reasonably well so far so I'll persist with it and see how it goes. I need two different font sizes of capital letters as well as some numbers and punctuation marks so it'll take a while but if it goes as planned, I'll have a re-useable set of soft negatives as well as a re-useable board of positives. I'll post some pics when i have some more progress.
If this turns pear-shaped I'll explore the 3D print option further. Thing is, I could buy a complete set of proper patternmakers letters that are made for the purpose, shipped and useable for a few hours wages; having chosen not to spend the cash I'm reluctant to ask anyone else to put time into it on my behalf.