Getting the spacing and alignment right with letter stamps

[UKRay]

This week I've been making a bunch of guitar straps with the name of a band on 'em. I found it irritating that the letter stamps I've been using (Tandy's 1" western style stamps) are not made so the spacing is correct if you butt them together. The letter i is a good case in point. I found myself 'shuffling the i stamp over to make the spacing correct and then shuffling the next letter over to look right with the i.

Okay, that is the problem, so how do you guys get over it. I have seen a whole lot of work where the person clearly hasn't even tried to make the letters look right but it does make the work look amateurish and I'm not having that!

(I suspect there is a technical printer's term for getting the letters to look right but can't remember what it is - CelticLeather, can you help here?).

Timbo came up with a great gadget for putting letters round a circle on his water bottles - perhaps someone smarter than me (or with a better memory) can find a link to this tutorial as it would be a useful one to re-visit.

Another issue is getting the things to line up properly. No matter how hard I try I can always manage to get one letter that sits a tad higher than the others.

Surely there must be an easy way to get around this - anyone got any ideas? gadgets? suggestions?

Ray

[celticleather]

Ray

The technical term is 'kerning', and (for instance) describes the way that the bottom of a capital A should tuck under the top of a capital W in a word like RAILWAY. Despite my printing background, I've yet to find a completely foolproof way of getting it right every time with the Tandy lettering. I usually look at the letters side-by-side, with the printing side up, and try to make a mental judgement of how much closer they need to be.

Having clouted the first letter, I then leave the stamp in the impression, line the next letter beside it vertically, remove the first letter stamp and move the second letter back horizontally to where I judge it needs to be, and hope for the best!

If I'm trying to centre some lettering in a given space, I work out what will be the middle letter (or space), and strike it first, in the centre of the area. I then work backwards from the centre letter for the first half of the lettering, and forwards from the centre for the second half. For instance, the word LEATHER will have T as its centre letter. I strike T first, followed by A, E, L to the left, and then H, E, R to the right. This works ok, but allowance has to be made if the word contains the letter 'I', which is narrower, by moving the centre letter an appropriate amount left or right.

If someone comes up with a better method, I'm ready to learn!

Terry

[pete]

I had the same problem with letter stamps. I got some play-dough, smoothed it out and got a ruler. Pushed the ruler slightly into it and used the edge as a guide to place the letter like you would letters on a scrabble rack.

Pushed in the letters and saw how they lined up butted against each other. Some were fine, others were crooked, etc.

Now I want to take them to a grinder and "square them up" but I haven't the energy right now. Plus, wouldn't you think that you should get accurate stuff when you pay for it!!!

pete

[stelmackr]

Ray,

This is what I do to emboss letters into leather. The file was too big to upload so here is a link to it:

http://www.pslac.org/download_area/Typography_in_Leather_Article.pdf

Bob Stelmack

Editor, RawHide Gazette

www.pslac.org

[hidepounder]

Hi Ray,

Almost everything I make has lettering on it and I have figured out an easy way to deal with "kerning" (learned a new word today!). The very first thing I did once I learned this new technique was to box up all my letter stamps and put them away....FOREVER! Occassionally I will get the box out when I need something heavy to use as a weight...that is the best use I have ever found for letter stamps!

I think the letter stamps always looks amatuerish. It is so easy to open a word processor and type in the lettering and apply a font that looks right, enlarge to the size needed and print it out. Hand cut letters just look a lot nicer and a lot more custom. If you apply a piece of packing tape on the backside of your printout you can trace the lettering directly to your leather. I usually trace them onto a piece of tracing film and then trace them on....I get a little clearer impression when I transfer that way. A trick I've learned is that the "blockier" the font, the harder it is to carve. Softer more freehand style letters are easier to do and it's harder to see that they are not cut perfectly.

I realize of course that hand cut letters take a lot more time and that definitely affects price, however I am absolutely convinced that the end result is so much nicer that I cannot justify using stamps. I know you all have heard me rant about this before, but I just couldn't resist putting my two cents worth in again. Give the lettering stamps away to the grandkids to play with on scraps!

Free advice is usually worth what it costs.....

Bobby

[Russ]

Wow, three great posts with great advice for a problem that drives me bananas....play-dough, leatherpress machine, and carving. I love this place.

[somewhereinusa]

I'm by no means an expert, but I have had some success height wiseusing a piece of tape across the top or bottom where I want them toline up. Use the tape to line up the letter not the whole tool. If youlook the top of the letter isn't the same distance from the top of thestamp. Letter spacing is another matter. With some careful planning Isuppose you could do the same thing, but I find that side to side ismore forgiving than having a crooked line.

[UKRay]

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that beautifully carved letters always look better than stamped, my customers simply won't pay the price - sorry Bobby, but it is a fact of life...

This leaves us with very few options:

1. Whack the first letter into place and shuffle the next letter 'till it looks about right and then whack again.
   
2. Switch to letterpress - great idea Bob, but a tad expensive to set-up and a bit long-winded for everyday rush-rush production.
   
3. Measure and grind 'till the durn things line up properly - probably the most effective.
   

I do like the idea of a strip of masking tape to get the letters in a straight line - nice tip. Thanks. Sadly it falls down when you need to run the letters down a guitar strap (rather than round a belt).

Who orders these alphabet sets for Tandy? Isn't it about time they were redesigned so they work properly?

[gtwister09]

Ray,

One of the major problems with the idea of reworking them is that it will still require different spacing for certain letter combinations (kerning pairs). If you open a font and look at it's metrics specifically its kerning pairs (for capitals only in this case), you will see different numbers for every combination. For instance an "A" and a "W" require a whole different kerning pair than say an "A" and a "X". For instance common ones for the "A" might be Q,T,U,V,W, and Y. In some instances you might have a slight tightening for an X. These numbers are how far you need to move the letter from the edge of it's bounding box. The bounding box is equivalent to the edge of the square portion of the letter stamp.

Here's an example of what I am talking about. The negative numbers denote a tightening between the two letters.

Regards,

Ben

Edited August 26, 2009 by gtwister09