Best way to flatten coasters after stamping?

[BDAZ]

Anyone have tips on flattening 4" leather coasters after casing and stamping? I have many hundreds to produce.. Possibly just drying under weight? I also have a 20" heat press I use for laminating linings. But don't want to hurt the embossed image.

 

Thanks!

 

Bob

[Northmount]

Don't want too heavy a weight, and don't want to place anything with a texture on the leather.  So a piece of poly and a book works fine.

[JayEhl]

I have about a 1' x 2' piece of granite I got for free as a castoff from a local counter top maker.  I've not done this for coasters but have used it press down glued projects by placing it under the slab with another piece of scrap leather on top of my project so as not to mar my project.   Worked fine.

[Rahere]

And a cookpot of water on top if more weight's needed. Best done while still cased, I think, but does that argue for towelling beneath to absorb water?

[YinTx]

Best way is to prevent the stretch in the first place, usually by attaching something to the back, like tape.  Not sure if it is reasonable to do hundreds in this manner... but perhaps you could think of something else that would work in this instance.  If I had to do hundreds, I'd probably have an embossing plate made, the few $$ it cost would save tons of time.  After all, a basket stamp is not much different from an embossing stamp. Might result in less distortion on the coaster also.

YinTx

[fredk]

My thoughts;

1. whatever weight you use, use plain clean white paper on top of the coaster, not used paper, not brown and especially not newspaper

2. absolutely no heat

3. wot he says;

1 hour ago, YinTx said:

. .   If I had to do hundreds, I'd probably have an embossing plate made, the few $$ it cost would save tons of time.  After all, a basket stamp is not much different from an embossing stamp. Might result in less distortion on the coaster also.

I got a basketweave embossing plate from Bunkhousetools, aka duckcreektraders.  It wasn't too expensive.

https://www.shop.bunkhousetools.com/Embossing-Plates_c4.htm

I've also bought from this chap in Russia

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224174509500?hash=item3431d78dbc:g:d3IAAOSwE3JcWFyb

Maybe one of them would make you a plate?

 

Edited June 24, 2021 by fredk

[BDAZ]

I have purchased plates from the Russian. He does wonderful work and I use them often.  I 3D printed my own plates for this project (an example attached) . The plates are 3" in diameter on a 4" coaster. 

I did test placing the still cased coasters under a scrap piece of kitchen granite with an additional 10 lbs of scuba weights on a stack of 20 and allowed to dry for a few days and that seems to have done the trick.

Thanks all for the suggestions!