A set of Medieval stamps I have recently made,George Wilson

[george wilson]

These are a et of textura quadratta 14th.C. stamps I made completely by hand. These cannot be made on any kind of milling machine,or other machine that I have. You could not see what you are doing due to the burrs thrown up by milling,anyway. The outside surfaces were filed away. Inner parts were chiseled away,or punched down,as described below.

They are about 3/32" tall. The "X" is not defective. It just was made that way in the time it came from. There are a few other odd looking letters,but they are proper.

In the upper left hand corner,you can see 2 special punches I made. One is a small trapezoid. It was used to punch down the negative spaces in letters like M,N,Q,and several others. It was the aim of manuscript makers to have their letters on a page to look like a woven cloth. Thus,they can be a bit hard to make out until you get used to them.

They are made from 3/16" W1 steel square rod. W1 was probably used on just about every set of alphabet or number stamps out there until recently. A few custom made stamps are 01 now.



We have a home jewelry making business. My wife runs it mostly,but I make the tooling,and some of the more complex models.

I wanted to make a line of medieval rings with phrases such as " I protect this woman" around them. Such rings were popular in those times.

Of course,you are viewing the letters in reverse since they are stamps.

They have been used on a few other pieces we make. To make the rings,it is necessary to make 11 sizes,so I haven't finished making them yet.

I've thought about making an Irish set up,but the old Irish alphabet did not use all of our current alphabet!

To my knowledge,there is not another such set of stamps anywhere else.

[Chris Vandiver]

Fascinating!!

[Jonathan McCullough]

You file and chip away at these in the annealed state and then harden them to, what, about 61 Rc for use in gold and silver? How do you prevent scaling from ruining the work?

[george wilson]

They are hardened,then drawn to a dark straw color. Too hard and they'd chip.

It isn't necessary,but I protect the tips by coating them with PBC No-Scale. Brownell's Gunsmith Supplies sells it.

[Van Huskey]

George, you continue to amaze me...

[george wilson]

Thank you,Van. I want to point out that the + sign means "AND" in the old context.

[Sean Miller]

George, the punches look great. I have been fascinated by punch cutting and casting type for a while now. I am about ready to try my hand at cutting a few punches myself.

There are five great videos of Stan Nelson cutting a punch, striking a matrix and casting type from the matrix on Youtube. They contain a lot of useful information. If anyone is interested in seeing how the punches are cut, here are the links to Stan Nelson's videos. The first video shows him making the punch. In the second video, he tempers the punch and strikes a matrix.

George, I would be interested to know if your procedure for cutting the punch differs from the one shown in the videos below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExllUeGtvc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyiCPzERIGA

Sean

[george wilson]

I watched the video. I've never seen anyone make a letter stamp before,though I made a number of type matrix making tools years ago for the Printing Office in Williamsburg.

I have no master letters to smoke and apply to the punch face. I just file off the sides of the blank punch until I get the letter's correct height established. Then.I just file out the letter freehand,without any pattern on the metal. Until I made the Medieval stamp set,I never even used counter punches. Since so many of the medieval letters are very similar,just a few counter punches were needed.

The video was instructive,and interesting.

[Leigh Betsch]

Just for giggles here's a pic of a punch I made. I know, I know it's not in the same league as the hand made ones George makes but it's the best I've got.

Milled the letters into graphite and then EDM'ed it into the hardened O1 punch. 30yrs ago in vo-tech school.
Oh yeah the neander part comes when you smack it with a mallet!

I use it nowadays to put my "mark" on the wooden hand planes I make. So sometime in the future someone can say "Gee must be the initials of the hack that made this thing!"

[Ray Gardiner]

Congratulations George, beautiful work (as always) I can imagine how hard it must have been doing reverse medieval typeface letters freehand. I would be looking in a mirror all the time to see what it going to look like.

Sean, thanks for the video links, very interesting... I always wondered why letters were called upper case and lower case, now I know it's because the typesetter had two cases containing letters, one being used less often (the capital letters) was the upper-case, the lower case containing more commonly used "lower case" was closer...

Regards
Ray

[george wilson]

Thanks,Ray. I guess even an OLD GIMP like me can still put it out. (I have a reason for saying that). I do wonder what another might be doing when he's pushing 70,and fairly racked up? We don't last forever.

Leigh,it would be great to have an EDM machine. I am always afraid to buy used ones,because I know nothing about them,and am worried about some expensive(or unavailable) part being needed. I have passed up several where I shop for used machines. Electronics and computers are weak areas for me I can wire in receptacles,reverse a motor,etc.,but nothing too complicated.

There was 1 a few months ago that was just for burning broken taps out. It was 110 volt,too. I couldn't see the money when I seldom break a tap,and mill them out with a carbide end mill when I do. Milled out quite a few for others,like the gunsmith and blacksmiths when I was the toolmaker.

[Leigh Betsch]

I often think about having an old edm in my home shop also but anything I could afford would have obsolete electronics and I would never be able to fix it myself. They are oily stinky machines, the edm process is done under the surface of a tank filled with oil. The tap burners are a bit different, they just smoke an electrode thru a tap with high amperage and oil flushed thru a enter hole in the electrode . And then there is the graphite machining, makes the dust involved with woodworking look sterile. Even with good dust collection you look like a raccoon when your done machining graphite electrodes, white around your eyeglasses and dust mask, the rest black. One shop I worked in wouldn't even cut graphite, used all copper electrodes or jobbed out the graphite work.
But I still dream about it, you an do some very precision work that you just can't do any other way.......

[george wilson]

These,and my other tools and instruments,and other things,will hopefully be enjoyed by another,upcoming craftsman. The pencil I made was for a talented young craftsman. I have many such tools,dating from who knows when,that some craftsman made,and that I treasure. They will be passed on,too.

When you are old and started from an early age,which you really need to in most cases,to become successful,you can look back on your work and ask "Did I make the World a little bit better place to be with the work I did?" Rather this,than saying "It's not what you did,it's what you will do",and then not really doing much at all in the end.

Leigh,your time making tools is not a loss. Make them well and leave a legacy.

[Sean Miller]

George, you can use a laser printer to create a master letter. Find a digital font that you like or one that you have designed. Print it out on a piece of paper with a laser printer. Cut a piece of Reynolds Baking Parchment and tape it over the letter you printed. Run it through the laser printer again. The toner will be bonded together but will not stick to the parchment. Coat the end of the punch with thinned varnish. When the varnish has dried to a sticky stage, apply the letter to the punch. The varnish will pull the letter off of the parchment. When the varnish has dried, you will have a very nice image to use as a guide for filing the letters.

Sean

[Leigh Betsch]

your time making tools is not a loss. Make them well and leave a legacy.

A statement a craftsman can understand and appreciate.

[John Shuk]

To put it simply: George, you are so cool!

[john brenton]

Do you ever get tired of being so awesome?

[greg Forster]

very interesting; something I never gave much thought to. Was making stamps considered a required skill for early printers?

[george wilson]

I don't know if early printers were required to make their own type,but I heard about 2 that did: In the early 20th.C. in the hills of North Carolina there were 2 rival newspapers. I cannot recall their names. Apparently the printers were too poor to buy type. They actually made their type out of briar roots by hand carving them. Probably looked pretty crude. The printers would then debate each other furiously! A Hill Billy feud on paper!.My old father in law had read these when he was young. He told me of them back in the 60's.

It is my understanding that these early English styles of letters were easier to make type for as well as easier to form with a flat quill pen. Plus,as I mentioned,early manuscript pages were supposed to look like a cloth texture. They were hard to read,but only the highly educated were expected to be able to read them anyway. Much was written in Latin. Church was in Latin. The masses were taught the bible by looking at the biblical scenes in the stained glass windows of the church. They couldn't understand the sermons in latin.

It was another way of controlling the masses and keeping them in awe of the powerful so they wouldn't revolt or make trouble. Very repressive. Think if you couldn't read,lived in a dirt floor hut from hand to mouth,and could only stare at the majesty of the church windows and sculptures. What would life be like? We can't even get down to that level mentally,today.

We are still controlled by the powerful,but in different ways. Income tax was supposed to pay for WWI. Wha hoppen?