3d Printing embedded text plates - 3d printing (no AMS) more than 1 layer

I don't have a multicolour filament dispenser for my 3d printer and have been trying to find a way to make embedded text in some things that I've been making.

Most examples of multicolour 3d printing without an AMS for 3d printers extends only to one layer of deposited material, which is very flimsy. There are ways to modify g-code in a 3d printer to force the printer to pause at certain points so that you can change colours, but this is very time consuming and difficult to do reliably, so I decided I would try a different approach.

For this, I actually made my own font and it happens to have the lettering thickness of 0.8mm which is a multiple of the printer extruder nozzle (this is important) of 0.4mm. In order to achieve the cleanest prints, it is best to ensure that the things you are building have thicknesses that are multiples of the extruder nozzle and the layer height.

The pictured plate above 'REQUIESCAT IN PACE' (latin for Rest in Peace), was first printed as the black portion on the 3d printer, face down, meaning that the plate was mirrored so that when the print is finished, the lettering was backwards. this is important so that the finished surface is flat and flush. I then removed the build plate from the printer and placed on my cutting mat.

this is the contrasting colour I used with a 3d pen to inject the material in the spaces where the letters would be. I was careful not to touch the black panel with the 3d pen nozzle, because that would melt it and would create imperfections in the final surface. The material is soft when it comes out of the extruder, so with a thimble on my finger, I smooshed the blue filament onto the plate to ensure that the material would fill the gaps completely. Then after letting it cool, I just pull it off the print bed and start sanding.

this is the blade in which the finished panel will be glued into. I sanded the panel down so that it had a more uniform thickness and was shallower than the space in the blade, so that the panel would not catch itself on the sleeve mechanism of the hidden blade itself.

here is what it looks like after sanding and before gluing. It looks pretty good, I think. I am looking into ways to reduce the gap lines, maybe by making the indent angled, so that it sits more flush, but when glued and properly clamped, that is mostly mitigated anyway. The problem with that is that the text panel is still only 0.4mm thick which is two standard layers....this was actually the optimal thickness for smooshing the text colour into the gaps.