dry transfers

[e-paw]

Has anyone ever tried to apply dry transfers to "raw" unpainted or sealed plaster before? It sounds strange but here's my plan. I have a plaster tunnel portal that I intend to install on my layout, but it needs a little something extra. so I was thinking, ( I know It's a dangerous thing ) It has a large keystone at the top of the archway that would be the perfect spot to carve a date or railroad initials. The problem is that I don't trust my handwriting, My 1 year old's is probably neater. I'm hoping that I could rub on some dry transfers and use them as a stencils to scribe in the lettering. But I don't know if the transfers will stick to the unpainted plaster, so I was wondering if anyone had tried anything similar. Now to choose a font...

[Mr Fixit]

Ok e-paw

First to the design and font of the keystone and its date and or name.

I would suggest that you do a search for photos of railroad tunnels from the area you are modelling.

Given you are from Pennsylvania I suspect that a railroad such as the PRR or Reading might be the builder of your tunnel.

I would expect to see something like PRR 1884 with the name above the date and centred on the keystone.

The font would probably be something like Times Roman as I dont think Railroad Roman font was current by then, but they are very similar so most would never pick it.

Technique; can I suggest that depending upon your computer skills you could design the keystone and the entire stonework design on your computer firstly in correct direction for reading, then when everything is ok, you reverse the design and print it out using your computer.
Once the reversed design is printed in the correct size and just using black ink you then have a ready made transfer which by using a household iron [with a disposable page or two for protection of the iron] you can then transfer the design onto the plaster tunnel portal. I am assuming that the plaster is reasonably dry, you can then carve out the stonework design using the photos for reference.

Mark