11

Make a custom rubber stamp

TUTORIAL

Beautiful, unique, personalised rubber stamps in a couple of hours

Make a custom

rubber stamp

ubber stamps are great fun and

really useful for great for crafting,

decorating, authorisation, event

‘pass out’ verification, and all kinds

of short-run print jobs. With widely

available access to laser cutters and

free design software (Inkscape), you can go from

concept to stamping in just a couple of hours.

NEGATIVE THINKING

You’re starting with a flat rubber surface and burning

away everything except the ‘printing area’. So,

your image needs to be created in negative form.

Everything in black will be ‘engraved’ away by the

laser. Everything in red will be a cut line (used for the

stamp outline).

Everything in white will be the rubber ‘left behind’

that will transfer ink to the paper.

If it’s not horizontally symmetrical, your stamp

image needs to be flipped horizontally so it will print

the right way round. Lettering should be at least

2–3 mm high or it won’t be resolved.

Create your image, bearing in mind the above

design parameters. Save it as a PNG or JPG file.

IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Open Inkscape (inkscape.org). Select File > Import

and choose your image. Leave the import settings

at default.

Now define a perimeter cut line for the laser cutter.

Click on the rectangle tool (or press F4), and drag a

rectangle around your design to define the total area

of your stamp.

Open the ‘fill and stroke’ pane (SHIFT+CTRL+F).

Change the stroke paint colour to red (255, 0, 0) and

the stroke style to ‘solid 0.2 mm line’. If you want

rounded corners on your outline, drag the top-right

(circular) drag-handle of the rectangle downwards

until satisfied. To fill with black, set the fill colour to

black (0, 0, 0). If that makes your graphic disappear,

choose Object > ‘Lower to bottom’ to push this black

rectangle to the background. Then Edit > ‘Resize page

to selection’ (SHIFT+CTRL+R). If you haven’t already

done it, now horizontally flip your image, you can do

this by pressing H.

You should now have your chosen graphic in white

within a black (rounded) rectangle surrounded by a

thin red line.

Now save your file at full size and then you’ll scale

it. To scale your stamp to the exact size you want, Edit

> Select All (CTRL+A), then lock the aspect ratio of

your stamp by ensuring that the little padlock between

the width and height adjustment boxes is in the

‘locked’ position (click to toggle it). Change the scale

of your stamp to suit your application; e.g. set width

to 40 mm. The height will scale automatically. Then,

Edit > ‘Resize page to selection’ (SHIFT+CTRL+R)

and save your scaled SVG file with a new name (e.g.

MyStamp_30x30.SVG) without overwriting the original.

R

Alex Eames

@raspitv

Alex Eames loves

making things and

regularly blogs/vlogs

about this at RasPi.TV

He makes a living

designing and selling

RasP.iO products.

raspi.tv

Some laser cutter

software uses

different colour

schemes for engrave

and cut lines, so

check which you

need before you

design your artwork.

QUICK TIP

Below

Lettering should be at least 2–3 mm high or it will just be a

blurry mess. The largest here is just about acceptable

You’re starting with a flat

rubber surface and burning

away everything except the

‘printing area’

”

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