Quick
Rubber Stamping Primer
Written
for new rubber stampers who want to learn about the different
ways to buy and use rubber stamps. This primer is not designed
to give all the information needed to start mounting your
own rubber stamps or cutting unmounted rubber stamp sheets.
We do, however, have the information needed on this site
in our techniques pages.
Mounted
Rubber Stamps
Rubber
Stamps purchased off the shelf are generally purchased mounted
with a cushion between a block of wood (called the wood
mount or handle) and the rubber stamp die (the molded rubber
image.)
Rubber
Stamp Image Depth & Detail
Rubber
stamps are pressed into molds. Those molds are not all the
same, nor is the rubber all exactly the same. One of the
most important differences in rubber stamps has to do with
how deeply etched the image is or the distance between the
part of the stamp that touches your paper and the base of
the rubber. The more deeply etched the rubber stamp die,
the less chance of getting stray ink marks on your paper
from open areas in the image or rubber surrounding the image.
Our
stamps are all deeply etched. If you own rubber stamps that
are not deeply etched, you may find that you get better
images by using dye ink pads and being careful to keep the
stamp flat when inking and not rocking. Likewise, keep your
stamp flat when you stamp, without rocking the stamp. Dye
ink pads are generally felt ink pads and don't squish as
much as pigment ink pads with a foam cushion. This helps
to keep excess ink from getting into the un-raised portions
of your ink pad. If you want to use pigment ink with stamps
that are not deeply etched or have large blank areas, you
can avoid the stray marks by using the narrow end of an
individual petal from a ColorBox Petal Point Ink pad and
ink only the raised areas, avoiding any large blank areas.
This is a particularly useful technique for large rectangular
border images.
Unmounted
Rubber Stamps
Mounting
rubber stamps on wood is a fairly labor-intensive process.
Many manufacturers prefer to sell their stamps unmounted.
Luckily many stampers prefer to buy unmounted rubber stamp
dies. They are cheaper, take less room to store (unless
they are permanently mounted), and are lighter and less
expensive to ship through the mail. With some exceptions,
most companies do not provide mounts or mounting supplies
for the price of the unmounted stamp. Additionally, the
image may or may not come trimmed and ready to use. We do
trim all of our unmounted rubber stamps purchased individually,
but most companies do not. We have tips on trimming your
own unmounted rubber stamps in our techniques
section. We also sell Kai Scissors,
which are very sharp and ideal for cutting rubber stamps
from sheets.
Using
Unmounted Rubber Stamps
Some
stampers permanently mount their rubber stamps on wood.
Others temporarily mount their unmounted rubber stamps on
Acrylic Mounts. Depending on
the method, a cushion may or may not be used between the
unmounted rubber stamp die and the mount. We describe several
different mounting options in our techniques
section.
More
about Acrylic Mounts
Acrylic
mounts are generally not available through your general
craft store and may not be available at a local rubber stamp
store. More and more rubber stamp stores are selling unmounted
rubber stamps and a few of those carry acrylic mounts. Acrylic
mounts are generally between 1/4" and 3/4" thick
and come in various sizes. It is easiest to use a mount
that just slightly larger than the rubber stamp die. If
the rubber stamp does not completely fit onto the mount,
it will not stamp properly. Also, if the mount is far larger
than the rubber stamp, you'll need to take extra care when
inking your stamp, not to ink the mount and be careful not
to let the weight of the large mount cause the stamp to
rock when stamping. Using a 4-inch square mount for a 3-inch
square stamp is not likely to cause a problem. You will
probably find it awkward to use a 4-inch square mount with
a long narrow stamp, such as a one line word stamp or a
very small stamp, less than 2 inches.
Storing
Unmounted Rubber Stamps
Rubber
stampers have come up with clever ways to store and index
their unmounted rubber stamps. Some use the larger CD cases
that come with most music CD packaging. They create an indexed
cover with the stamped images and organize them either by
company or by image type. Other stampers keep a rubber stamp
journal of their images that they can look through to see
what images they have and provide an index number by the
stamp image . With this method, the unmounted rubber stamp
dies can be kept in any kind of numbered filing system.
Stampers using reposition-able adhesive or EZ Mount cling
cushion can store their stamps on a plastic page our storage
board kept in a 3-ring binder. Images can be indexed by
stamping them onto separate pieces of 3-hole paper so that
they show the images for the corresponding storage board.
Unmounted
Rubber Stamp Sheets
Rubber
stamps are pressed into sheets with many rubber stamp dies
or images on them. By sellling an entire unmounted rubber
stamp sheet, the manufacturer can provide an even lower
price per stamped image than individual unmounted rubber
stamps. This is because the manufacturer won't be stuck
with certain images that don't sell as well as the most
popular images and the manufacturer won't have to expend
the labor to trim the unmounted rubber stamp sheet. Customers
generally trim their own stamps from the unmounted rubber
stamp sheet. Depending on the thickness of the unmounted
sheet, special scissors will probably be required to do
a nice cutting job. These special scissors were originally
designed to cut bonsai trees, and are very sharp. There
are tricks to properly trimming stamps from a sheet of unmounted
rubber stamps. We provide some hints on our techniques page.
We can also trim sheets for a small fee.
We have
other primers available on our web site. Some are small
notes about a product, while others are more detailed. Feel
free to send us additional rubber stamping techniques and
product information.
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