Once a lettered billet is made and forged out to a suitable size it can then be cut into short sections, as they did with the candy in the video, they can then be re forge welded together end on end to form a ribbon with the lettering across it's length. If you have a bit of plastercene (coloured modelling clay) at hand you can try it out with that....it then becomes obvious! lol

( there may well be other methods of a more elegant nature that other could describe )

I remember one maker telling me that though the original billet for a letter was short and squat; when he had it draw out to the size he needed it ended up being 16' long and all of it had the letter present in cross section.

I remember one maker telling me that though the original billet for a letter was short and squat; when he had it draw out to the size he needed it ended up being 16' long and all of it had the letter present in cross section.

That totally makes sense. Let's say that the original letter block has a 1" square cross section, but the finished letter needs to be 1/16" square. Ignoring scaling loss, drawing 1" x 1" out to 1/16" x 1/16" will increase its length by a factor of 256; that means a 1" starting length will end up at 21' 4".

But thats at the end, right?
 

Let me put it this way- the way you're describing it is if your looking at the end of a pencil (like the top of the eraser) like the candy, when cut down in sections towards the point you see the lettering.

But the barrels look like the lettering is along the weld seam, like if you carved the pencil along the side, and placed it against another pencil also marked, and those 2 markings make up the letters. Does that make sense, or am I seeing this all wrong?

 

It's a twisted bar. You're effectively looking at the cross section.  

You can also section your pencil and glue the pieces side by side to get a new rod with the cross sections now showing on the sides

And then wrap that rod spirally around a mandrel to make a tube.