Need Advice Stamping

[SmokeyPoint]

Dwight, hopefully you don't mean a real hammer. That's how you damage your tools and possibly your eyeballs. A maul or mallet of wood, leather or poly is what you need. You can use anything from a cheap, lightweight rawhide mallet to a 3-lb poly maul, but there are advantages to the "right" weight for the tool you're stamping. The leather mallet has almost no weight, so it will require a tap-tap-tap-tap to get a good impression, so you're controlling the impression depth by the number of light taps. You could find, especially just starting out or on a bouncy surface, that you get bounces in the tool resulting in the ghost impressions mentioned - they'll look blurry. A heavy maul can do an impression in one strike, but will wear your arm out in a hurry and you need to control impression depth by the swing of the maul. And then there's the size of the stamp. Hit a seeder with a 3-lb maul and you've turned it into a punch. Hit a large, wide meander stamp with the leather mallet, and you'll need four or five taps to get a crisp impression.

I use a medium (2 lb) poly maul on the larger stamps, a small (1 lb) on smaller stamps. I use a leather mallet on certain specific tools. You really need to play with the tool you're using and see what it takes to get a good impression with minimal work on your part. The poly mauls are expensive compared to others, but they're worth it.

Edited December 23, 2015 by SmokeyPoint

[SmokeyPoint]

Avion, for your original question - a craftool pro basketweave should give you a usable impression. I own a couple and they work just fine. Don't stamp your wallet until you have the process down. Practice on scrap pieces. Look around your hide and cut off the chunks around the edges that have folds, scratches, whatever and stamp those. Figure it's going to take you 4+ square feet of stamping before you even approach consistency for a product. More if you suck at it. Less if you're gifted. Case properly - try this: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19121 or follow the tandy leather tutorial videos. Then stamp away. Try for straight lines and consistent, crisp impressions. Initially you won't achieve either, then one, then the other, then both.

You'll need to burn some leather and elbow grease to become proficient at this.

[Nuttish]

I echo posts about the stability of your work surface.

In addition to marble countertop pieces, you can score a piece of broken headstone marble from a graveyard or monument company — they're upwards of 3" thick sometimes. You can smooth up broken edges with a bastard file.

You can get a 9x12x3 B grade granite surface plate for a machine shop on eBay for less than $100 including shipping. Probably substantially less if you look around a bit.

There are lots of used lithography stones for around the same price shipped.

These will all be as stable as it gets if your bench is solid.

Check out Fine Woodworking for simple woodworking bench plans.The laminated 2x4 tops are cheap and extremely stable.

Like I've said elsewhere on the forums, you can make a cheap and super nice maul out of a length of 3 or 4" HDPE rod from McMaster and a piece of turned hardwood chair leg for the handle. Forstner a centered hole big enough for the leg, insert leg, screw leg in from the sides with a few wood screws. If you want a taper, turn it on an engine lathe, keeping in mind that HDPE flows, so you have to work carefully lest it slip out of the chuck. Not good. What is good is that you don't care about precision, so rechucking the thing as you work is no big deal.

[Dwight D]

WOW!

Thanks for all the geat advice,!

I was lucky to have a good work bench to start with, I have always hated wobbly work surfaces.

i was also luckey to find a treasure trove of granite counter top, so that helps.

I guess my best bet is to get two mauls, on for light work ans one for heaver work.

Thanks again!

Cheers

Dwight