considerable difficulty with the compositions of u s pat no 4 064 083 it is believed possible to form even larger blocks with larger molds the machinability was equivalent to that of the materials disclosed in u s pat no 4 064 083 and its dewaxability by heating was considered somewhat better examples ii and iii are compositions which are very suitable for use and illustrate the use of additional ketones in place of stearone because of current economics the compositions of examples ii and iii are not preferred tests that were conducted prove that the ability to pour and solidify large blocks of material successfully without shrinkage is markedly improved by blending a fatty acid with the ketone and it was found that a ratio 1 1 of fatty acid to ketone works well almost all of the time nevertheless the best ratio for any specific combination depends on the specific acids and ketones used the preferred composition of example i shows a ratio favoring more ketone stearone but other combinations can reverse the ratio typical properties are ring and ball softening point of 151 u00b0 c 304 u00b0 f a melt index of 6 and an acid number in the range of 4 8 the composition of this example had fair machinability but was considerably inferior to machinability of the compositions of examples i v in general ingredients such as waxes other than fatty acid solid fillers or resins other than ethylene vinyl while reducing machinability are included in compositions for cost savings when the lower level of machinability is acceptable the optimum amount of ethylene vinyl resin in the compositions of the invention is frequently around 10 higher amounts increase the cost but.