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 technqiues
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 unraised
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 trimmming 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 repositional
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 the 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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