How do I get a Logo into Pull-Up Leather?

[MacB]

Hi,

I intend to get myself a logo and I would like to stamp it into my projects. into veg leather it is no problem, but how do i get it into finished dyed or Pull-up leather? With heat? and if so, with which temperatur?

thanks in advance

[bikermutt07]

Yeah, you will need to hot stamp it. I have never done it. So, make sure and do a test piece first. That will help you work out the temperature setting for the particular leather that you are using.

[Matt S]

My experience echos Mike's -- small surface area is key to getting a good impression on a pull-up leather. I use 2mm oily cow pullup for several of my products and I find it needs a firm pressing and a fair bit of heat (more than bridle or "tooling" veg) to get a good mark. I have a couple of 5x1.25" embossing plates with around a 30% fill, which is right at the limit of the pressure my cheap Chinese embossing press can do -- I have to brace one hand against the back pillar, the other applying pressure to the handle and about a 5 second dwell. In comparison I can put something the size of a Tandy 3D stamp into bridle leather cold -- though I cheat, using my 6 ton shop press.

[MacB]

ok.. thx... right now I use plastic cookie stamps :-)))

Background: My Wife and I made those little pen Holders and some Pencases and we needed a logo real quick.. so we came up with the first 2 Letters of our first names (as a gentleman, I let my wife use hers first) so right now it ist KABO (Katja-Bodo) and the letters are 8 by 8,5 mm each. It turned out, that the format ist ideal for small and large projects and now I wanted to make a brass plate for hot stamping ... it might not be a "Logo" in the classic way, but our friends understand it and maybe it will be as simple to remember as nike, puma, gucci

 

[Nuttish]

12 hours ago, MacB said:

Hi,

I intend to get myself a logo and I would like to stamp it into my projects. into veg leather it is no problem, but how do i get it into finished dyed or Pull-up leather? With heat? and if so, with which temperatur?

thanks in advance

Heat, pressure, and dwell time.

Our pneumatic stamper is always set at around 145ºC because that's what Crown Roll Leaf foil calls for and it works fine with or without foil. Pressure and dwell for foiling leather will just require a lot of experimentation and note taking. The shop air gets regulated down to 80-100 psi. Dwell will never be more than half a second. Pressure and dwell for blind impressions is a lot more forgiving - you just want to avoid cutting the grain if your die has sharp lines or fine typesetting and avoid discoloration. For oily chrome tan, I strike the die on the impression multiple times, sometimes holding it for a few seconds, until I get nice results.

Blind stamping shop dyed veg tan is tricky because it nearly always discolors to some extent. If the grain is firm enough, I'd just use foil. 

I can post some pictures of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc  die strikes on some Chromexcel at 143ºC/100 psi if you want.

 

[Matt S]

I like that -- very simple but striking and memorable. I don't know about cookie stamps (my biscuits come with "custard cream" written on em) -- what are they made from? My stamps and embossing plates are various metal alloys so they can usually be heated. Even just a little will help make a deep, strong impression, but I guess that's no use if your stamps are plastic. Some of my plates bolt to a purpose-built embossing/foiling press with an electrically heated pressure plate. Others I MacGyver under my £50 shop press with a heat gun and IR thermometer. Something you might try is to warm the leather directly with a hair dryer or heat gun before stamping -- I saw this technique used to deep sculpt car interiors around cast plastic shapes in a video once but I've never got around to trying it out. The temperature would probably have to be kept reasonably low to avoid discolouring the area around the stamp.

At some point  you should consider having an embossing plate made. There are several options available, the traditional choices are brass or magnesium and they aren't usually very expensive -- a lot of Chinese suppliers will make a custom stamp 20 x 20mm (3/4 x 3/4") for around £20 (US$35). 

[Nuttish]

26 minutes ago, Matt S said:

I like that -- very simple but striking and memorable. I don't know about cookie stamps (my biscuits come with "custard cream" written on em) -- what are they made from? My stamps and embossing plates are various metal alloys so they can usually be heated. Even just a little will help make a deep, strong impression, but I guess that's no use if your stamps are plastic. Some of my plates bolt to a purpose-built embossing/foiling press with an electrically heated pressure plate. Others I MacGyver under my £50 shop press with a heat gun and IR thermometer. Something you might try is to warm the leather directly with a hair dryer or heat gun before stamping -- I saw this technique used to deep sculpt car interiors around cast plastic shapes in a video once but I've never got around to trying it out. The temperature would probably have to be kept reasonably low to avoid discolouring the area around the stamp.

At some point  you should consider having an embossing plate made. There are several options available, the traditional choices are brass or magnesium and they aren't usually very expensive -- a lot of Chinese suppliers will make a custom stamp 20 x 20mm (3/4 x 3/4") for around £20 (US$35). 

Letterpress plate makers can make foil stamping dies from .ai or .svg files out of magnesium, copper, and brass. Magnesium is cheap and perfectly suitable. They charge by the surface area and will cut the plates apart on cutting lines in your art using a bandsaw, so you can easily gang your art to get multiple dies. $35 plus shipping would get you 10 square inches of 1/4" magnesium next day turnaround cut however you want from Owosso in Michigan. See here. That's potentially a lot of dies.

Then there's the question of how to stamp them. I'll post some pics of a homemade stamping machine I made out of an arbor press if anyone wants. If you already have an arbor press, it costs less than $50 all in to make if you have access to scrap materials, a drill press, and taps/dies.

 

 

[MacB]

hey guys, thx! The letters are plastic, so heating won't go.. that's why i want to get a brass plate. I live in austria and getting one of those magensium plates is not so easy.. and pretty expensive (about € 100,-).

@nuttish - I would be very interessetd in some photos you mentioned above - the blindstamping and your homemade stamping machine. I will get myself an arbor press sooner or later anyhow ..

Thx in advance

[Matt S]

2 hours ago, MacB said:

hey guys, thx! The letters are plastic, so heating won't go.. that's why i want to get a brass plate. I live in austria and getting one of those magensium plates is not so easy.. and pretty expensive (about € 100,-).

Leprevo in Newcastle, England offer a mail-order plate service, which I have used before: http://www.leprevo.co.uk/embossing.htm

Priced per area -- minimum size is 20 SQIN, which will make you a plate 100x125mm for around £50+postage+VAT -- this fits a lot of little logos and the plate can easily be sawn apart. I used a normal coping saw.

Even with plastic stamps, gently heating the leather rather than the stamp may work. Have a play on some scrap.

[MacB]

6 hours ago, Matt S said:

Leprevo in Newcastle, England offer a mail-order plate service, which I have used before: http://www.leprevo.co.uk/embossing.htm

Priced per area -- minimum size is 20 SQIN, which will make you a plate 100x125mm for around £50+postage+VAT -- this fits a lot of little logos and the plate can easily be sawn apart. I used a normal coping saw.

Even with plastic stamps, gently heating the leather rather than the stamp may work. Have a play on some scrap.

Ahhh.. I've heeard about that site from Ian Atkinson.. thanks.. Didn't find the Link anymore...