11

FORGE

YOU’LL NEED

Computer with

Inkscape or

Adobe Illustrator

Sheet of odour-

free laser-cutting

rubber

Small piece of

3 mm acrylic

sheet

Small scrap of

wood

Access to laser

cutter

Ink pad

STAMPING TECHNIQUE

Press the stamp firmly (but not too hard) onto the ink

pad. Remove and press the stamp onto the paper. On

a brand new stamp, it may take a couple of iterations

until the ink properly wets the rubber. You’ll get better

results if you don’t press too hard, but pressing firmly

with a slight rolling action seems to work well. Practice

is good. Be prepared to waste some paper and ink

learning the best technique.

LET’S BURN RUBBER
Test your laser cutter settings on a small image
or a scaled-down version of your stamp to save
wasting lots of material. The settings on our K40 are
Engrave: 25% power and 200 mm/s, Cut: 25% power
at 8 mm/s. Yours will be different, but this gives a
starting point for experimentation. Air Assist will help
here as the rubber will likely want to flame.
Once engraved and cut out, a blast of air or dabbing
with a paintbrush will remove any dust or debris.
Then, using the same cut file, cut a piece of
3 mm acrylic (17% power, 8 mm/s) with the identical

Above

Once completed, you

can start decorating

and customising

everything. Making

multiple copies of a

stamp for different

colours avoids

messy cleaning

Below

The acrylic is stuck to the rubber stamp with double-sided

tape. Wooden handle to acrylic is fixed with a hot glue gun

outline to your stamp. This will act as a firm backing,

providing even pressure across the stamp. Stick the

rubber stamp to the acrylic using either a thin layer of

glue or double-sided sticky tape.

Then cut a suitably sized wooden handle 2–4 cm

long, with cross-section smaller than the acrylic

surface area. Sand the handle edges so they are

not sharp or rough. Attach one end to the top-side

of the acrylic using glue or tape (a hot glue gun is

very quick).

Now your stamp is finished and ready to try

out. Enjoy!