Posie, I've done a fair amount of carving letters in stone of all types so I may be able to help. Engraving in concrete or hypertufa will take a bit of practice but you'll soon get the hang of it. The sooner (but not too soon) you can do it, the better. It'd be easier to carve (engrave) the lettering when the mix is green or not fully cured. You'll need to do some experimenting to find that "best time" to carve the letters.

You said you want to engrave hypertufa and that will present some unique challenges. Such as what you use in your mix, vermiculite, perlite and/or peat moss. These will tend to want to pull out of the cement matrix and leave holes or pits when you carve, unless you use something such as a razor knife and change blades often so it cuts well. If you use a more traditional concrete mix with just sand as your aggregate you'll find the carving easier and looks better too. The letters can be smoothed when using this mix. You can use just about anything to engrave your letters too. It just needs to be fairly sharp and easy to sharpen as it will dull quick from the mix.

Lettering and layout can be done with your computer and using any font in the size you need to fit your stone. I like serif fonts as they have that Roman look to them and are the main types of fonts used for lettering. However just about any font/letters can be carved in your pieces.

I'd recommend searching the web or used book stores for things about carving letters in wood. The basics are the same for all materials. Carve into plasticene clay or plaster for practice. Learning to carve what you want will be much cheaper that buying lettering sets (unless you're going to go into the business) and you can do ANY size you want or need, you are not limited to size of the letter sets.

One tip I can give to you is the depth of your letters should equal the width of the letter at that point where you are carving. This means the depth will vary in the letter too. This will more apparent when you enlarge the letters. Practice practice practice.

Concrete made with cryogenic perlite carves wonderfully both uncured green and even weeks later and leaves a nice finish.

Posie, this is what I saved a couple of years ago. I haven't done anything with it yet, but it sounded do-able!
Concrete 'Engraving' Experiment
Posted by treasure 8 VA (My Page) on Wed, Aug 7, 02 at 18:53
A few days ago someone was looking for an easy way to engrave concrete stepping stones. I had an idea, I tried it out, and it worked. Here's what I did:
I typed the words I wanted to engrave on my computer in a large font then rotated the words so that they appeared in mirror image and printed it out.
I layed a piece of plastic over the wording and painted the letters with Gallery Glass liquid leading. I roughly filled in the lettering by squeezing the tube directly on it then drug the leading where I needed it with a toothpick. I let the letters dry then applied a second coat. Note - it took about 10 minutes to paint the lettering.
Once the letters were dry, I poured some mortar over them, let it sit overnight then peeled the plastic off. Voila, engraved concrete! For a stepping stone I would use regular concrete mix. Here's a pic of the experiment, still needs to dry, the two lines running through the capital letters are from wrinkles in the plastic. If you try this, make sure there are NO wrinkles in the plastic

Concrete 'Engraving' Experiment
Posted by: treasure 8 VA (My Page) on Thu, Aug 8, 02 at 15:16
Thanks for all the compliments, I'll try to answer all of your questions here. The plastic I used was just a gallon sized zip-lock baggie. I think it would be better to use a piece of plastic drop cloth. What I mean by "regular concrete" is Quickcrete concrete mix, the kind with rocks in it. It would be stronger than mortar. This piece is only about 1/2" thick, it was an experiment so I didn't see any need in making it thicker or using a form. I thought about using hot glue but I've burned myself with one of those glue guns before so I opted for the liquid leading instead. I also think silicone caulk would work. I found in one of my other experiments, lol, that you can thin down the silicone caulk with mineral spirits and it works just like liquid leading, only it looks dull so I scrapped that experiment, lol. One of the great things about this is that the plastic and leading pulls off in one piece so you can rinse it off and use it again. Please feel free to use any of my ideas. Hey, IMPROVE on them and let us see the results.

Of course, the picture has gone to the black hole of oblivion!

Phyllis, That's an interesting way of doing lettering. Just some questions to tax your memory, LOL sorry.

Do you remember how deep those letters were that were done? Did they show up well? Were they painted to enhance them?

The reason I ask is, lettering is supposed to be easy to read and if people have difficulty reading it some effectiveness is lost. The deeper a letter is made the more shadow there is and is more readable at a distance. Thats why the Greeks and Romans incised their lettering in a V, no matter where the sun is a shadow is cast making the lettering stand out. Thats why I asked if they were painted to increase the contrast.

As I said this sounds interesting and I may give it a try myself. I know this was a while back but any rememory you have will help. Thanks for saving it.

Rockhewer,

I was thinking about the depth issue also.

What I'm wondering is if a person wanted to do lots of lettering projects, if this would be a way to make your own letter "stamps".

The method of outlining and then painting the letters is one often used in cake deorating (well, a long time ago it was). I would bet there are materials out there -including the thinned caulk - that could be used to continue to build up the letters. Then it add more depth to the overall project.

Doh, or just transfer the reversed print to a piece of plaster and carve a stamp head. Or carve a "Pink Pearl" eraser and stamp the topside of a fresh stone...

If you have something like a "Dremel Tool", there are now cheap, imported diamond tipped engraving bits available that make short work of carving into even fully set concrete. I use them all the time for touch-up and sometimes to "sign" my work.

Wow! You folks are all so helpful and I do apprciate it. Now, if Spring ever comes so I can work out of doors I'll have the info I need. You people are so smart! Maybe I can sneak my work into the basement without Hubby knowing ! Thanks again!

You know, Posie, if you get REALLY good at this, we'll invite you back to talk to our Garden Club about it!

Phyllis

For what it's worth, I found two sets of upper case letters for stamping in concrete at Michaels craft store. They were located near their stepping stone kits. One set is about 1" and the other is about 3/4" and both seem to give a 1/4" depth letter. I haven't tried them yet as I'm waiting for the weather to warm up so I can work outdoors.

Hi fleur, I did a search at Michaels online and I dont know if I found what you're speaking of.

Some more questions though LOL,

Are they a rubber stamp? Can they be put in sequence to form words or do they need to be stamped singly? Are they just an alphabet or do the come with more letters? And finally are they reasonably priced? Thanks.