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Stamp Process Info - was: Is this list always quiet?
Hello, my name is Rodney Grantham and my experience
with various stamp making processes goes back over 30 years. The least expensive method is to carve rubber erasers, but requires a lot of skill and patience. Liquid photopolymer is fast. Dies can be made in about 15 minutes exposed through a negative transparency you've created on your computer, and exposed with ordinary black light fluorescent bulbs. Photopolymer can get a bad name since it's clear and doesn't look like red rubber. Also, there are so many durometers and formulations designed for flexo, pantograph masters, pad printing and ADA signage. Folks try to use these and do not get good results. We use and prefer liquid 40 durometer photopolymer for making both custom stamp dies and printing plates for wooden tokens. The image quality of photopolymer is actually better than vulcanized rubber since it's a first generation die. Liquid photopolymer should be only be exposed with fluorescent black light bulbs, like the F20T12BLB, available even at Wal-Mart. Avoid incandescent blacklight bulbs. Heat from these bulbs lowers the viscosity of the liquid photopolymer and it continues to "move" during the exposure making a poor die. Vulcanized rubber stamp dies in today's environment are best suited for mass production, like art stamps. Vulcanized dies are made from a zinc, magnesium or hard photopolymer masters. This master is impressed under heat and pressure into a matrix board. From this matrix board, many hundreds of vulcanized rubber dies can be made. Gum rubber is relatively cheap, usually less than 2 cents a square inch. Vulcanizing time cycles of about 4 minutes, makes this the material of choice for multiple stamp dies of the same image. The down side is the cost and time to make the master and matrix board. Hard sheet photopolymer can be processed by hand, but it takes about 5 minutes and needs to be air dried at least 4 hours. Another vulcanizing process uses engraved matrix boards. Folks with an engraver can engrave their design in hard board and vulcanize the rubber directly. Back in my early graphics experience we made stamp dies using a Linotype and Ludlow for lettering, and zinc engraving for illustrations. Most newspapers of the day were printed letterpress and used that technology. Using foundry type for stamp dies ruins it for printing and most print shops considered it a bad idea to use it for making rubber stamps. The folks at Brother make a system that incorporates a stencil created in their machine. It's quite fast. The down side is the cost of the machine and you have to use their mounts. Laser engravers are getting more affordable. However to get any volume, a 50 or 100 watt engraver is recommended. Also, the fumes must be vented which also adds to the cost. The advantages are stamp dies are made very quickly and pre inked rubber is available. Pre inked stamp dies made by vulcanizing, whether salt leech or the gel process requires more equipment and very accurate temperature control. There are many choices and there is no good or bad process. Each material has it's own features. Hope this helps Rod Grantham http://www.granthams.com/ |
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