brass door knocker and patterns: Being an engraver I try to make items to be engraved. In this case a brass door knocker with 2 nicely proportioned engraving areas. My metal projects usually begin as wood projects. Before I can make any sand castings, I must make the patterns. I usually work with a good grade of plywood, car body putty and a lot of elbow grease. In this case 2 patterns are needed to make the finished door knocker castings. The image shows an early prototype made from these patterns. I usually make a few castings and tweak the patterns to fix any problems. This may happen quite a few times but when done the extra work is worth it. When the patterns are finally just how I want them I make permanent gates and sprues part of the pattern plate. They are then painted and sealed for long life and I am ready to make many door knocker castings.