manual punch press

[Frodo]

I had a 3'' x 3'' stamp made,  would not stamp by hand

so i found this press online, does anyone know anything about this press?

will a press work on something as big as 3'' x 3'' ?  

[wizard of tragacanth]

Many of us own a version of that one, obtained from Harbor Freight. I use it for my 1" maker's mark. Don't know how well it would work for a 3" stamp.

It may work but you would have to make sure that your leather is well cased and you would have to really lean into the press with all of your weight... I'm guessing.

You may need to go with something more beastly, like a 6-ton shop press. The problem with the shop press is that you have no feel for how hard you are stamping.

The shop press is only about $20 more than the arbor press. HF has frequent sales, so if you are not in a hurry, keep an eye out.

Oh, and If you are on their email or snail-mail mailing list, I think that every month they will give you a coupon for 20% off of any one item.

https://www.harborfreight.com/6-ton-a-frame-bench-shop-press-1666.html

nick

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by wizard of tragacanth

[chrisash]

Its a big ask, but if you have a length of steel tube to extend the handle it might work

Dont forget to make the surface slightly wet first and then when it returns to original colour try the press, don't saturate the leather just one or two wipes with a wet sponge

[Matt S]

3" diameter (roughly circular) stamp makes for 6.75 SQIN of effective area. Most makers' marks in in the region of 1 SQIN, so you'll need nearly 7x the force that most people are using, all other factors being equal. What are you stamping (chrome/veg), and what condition is the leather (wet/dry) and stamp (hot/cold)?

I reckon you'd be able to do it with a 0.5T arbor press but as Chris points out you'll probably need a cheater bar.

I used to use my 6T hydraulic press for stamping, and would have great difficulty achieving a repeatable impression, or even stopping myself from ploughing straight through the leather. Nowadays I use my heated embossing press, which is basically a cheap arbor press with an electrically heated plate. Works very well every time. Largest plate I've embossed with it was about 8 SQIN, and that's really the max I can do without a cheater bar.

[Sturme]

4 hours ago, wizard of tragacanth said:

Many of us own a version of that one, obtained from Harbor Freight. I use it for my 1" maker's mark. Don't know how well it would work for a 3" stamp.

It may work but you would have to make sure that your leather is well cased and you would have to really lean into the press with all of your weight... I'm guessing.

You may need to go with something more beastly, like a 6-ton shop press. The problem with the shop press is that you have no feel for how hard you are stamping.

The shop press is only about $20 more than the arbor press. HF has frequent sales, so if you are not in a hurry, keep an eye out.

Oh, and If you are on their email or snail-mail mailing list, I think that every month they will give you a coupon for 20% off of any one item.

https://www.harborfreight.com/6-ton-a-frame-bench-shop-press-1666.html

nick

 

I agree with wizard, go with the 6 ton harbor freight, you can then get some 1/4 in 10 inch plates to open up more area on the press, that's what i have done. I can even do some die cutting on it now. just make sure to square and level it up when you build it. well worth the price at harbor freight.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Sturme

[Sturme]

i just seen that that is a half ton arbor press. i would not recommend any arbor press under 1 ton. I love my arbor now that i have it set up. but when it comes to large stamps i find my 1 tons falls a little short.

[wizard of tragacanth]

The Harbor Freight Arbor Press is rated at 1-ton and may work with a cheater-bar.

The A-frame shop press definitely has the power but I just don't know how you would modulate the pressure. With no feedback, you can't know when to stop.                                                                                                                                                                       It would work for cutting dies of course. For stamping, maybe you could rig up a dial gauge that would tell you when the press has been moved half a millimeter? I don't know.

I like Matt's solution of the heated press, however, it sounds pricey. The Tandy version is $500 but I'm sure there are cheaper ones out there.

nick

Edited October 2, 2019 by wizard of tragacanth

[Matt S]

13 hours ago, wizard of tragacanth said:

I like Matt's solution of the heated press, however, it sounds pricey. The Tandy version is $500 but I'm sure there are cheaper ones out there.

This is the sort of thing. Not that expensive. Not top quality but they do the job fine. I've got two. One of them has a quick-swap facility, which probably gets 10 times the use of the other. Really handy for marking clients' branding/name, sizes, and whathaveyou. I set the temperature different depending on the type of leather, and can even do foiling on the odd occasion that I want to do that. Heated stamps are fast, reduces the pressure needed, makes a very permanent, crisp mark on on chrome or veg, and doesn't leave a tide mark like it can if you dampen a bit of veg.

Largest plates I've done with these presses is a tad under 8 SQIN. I'd say that's right at the limit of what these small, cheap units can do (frame starts flexing out of square) so a 3" diameter stamp should work okay, especially if you bolt the thing down and extend the handle and remember not to do a full 200lb gorilla impression. If you really want you can get them with pneumatic rams and dwell timers for maximum consistency but I think that's overkill for what I use them for.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32958298255.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.680826aciT5Dgl&algo_pvid=abd1ae58-406c-43b6-9c66-2180bcb237a5&algo_expid=abd1ae58-406c-43b6-9c66-2180bcb237a5-3&btsid=1808401f-4f49-486b-9522-670f7790e272&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_52

[Stewbeans22]

I have a Howard imprinting J-100-A i got from @dfrensdorff on the forum and it works amazing. My makers mark is only about 3/4" square therefore the small frame of the stamp is definitely enough for imprinting my stamp. I can say this, trying to put my stamp on a piece of leather cold versus hot is a completely different experience. Cold I have to put WAYYYYY more pressure on the arbor handle than if it were hot. 

With all that said you might want to figure out a way to heat up the stamp. As @Matt S  stated hot/cold, wet/dry. All this could make a difference. 

Now, as far as applying pressure, I would take into consideration the amount of surface area of the stamp that is actually contacting the leather. Hopefully I can translate this to text from the way my goofy brain works...... If you heat the stamp as I said before it makes it easier to imprint. As for the 1 ton arbor press, I think you might be ok considering as I said how much surface area is in contact with the leather, you might try making some sort of an adapter to transfer the pressure of the 1" surface area of the press shaft to the 3 sq/in of surface area of the stamp. If you use just the press shaft to the stamp, the stamp could deflect and you not get the same amount of pressure across the stamp. 

Go check out CHARTERMADE on youtube. He has a clip in a video where he uses his arbor press and talks a bit about it. Look at the 14:30 mark of the video if you dont want to watch the whole thing. Is technique is very simple and effective.

Also attached are a couple of pics of my hot stamp and my makers mark for reference.