Making a die to stamp leather

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

I wanted to experiment this week to see if I could make a die to stamp leather patches. Are there material suggestions you folks might recommend? Thought I might try 1/2" cast acrylic. I've heard of Corian but never tried it, I don't see it listed in my sign supplier catalog. If I could make dies in house it would open up a lot of possibilities to me.

Thanks,

Bob

[Dan Hintz]

Corian works well. Also consider HDPE.

[Mike Null]

Actually 1/4" acrylic works very well. I've made several dies for a couple of customers. Put another 1/4" piece behind it for support in the press.

Go to your local kitchen remodeler and ask if he has some scrap Corian or similar--he will. (sink cut outs are usually scrap) I would use acrylic as Corian engraves very slowly and cutting is very difficult.

[Henri Sallinen]

I've seen Corian/Delrin/POM used in these kind of leatherstamps.

[Chris DeGerolamo]

I've even made a few from plywood...

[Braden Todd]

This is an awesome idea. What kind of a press do you need to achieve a permanent design?

[Keith Outten]

Bob,

If you search our archives you will find one of our Members who has considerable expertise laser engraving leather stamps. He has provided lots of pictures of his work and they are impressive.

If you can't find any Corian scraps contact me, I may be able to help.
.

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

OK, thanks for all the good suggestions. Should give me plenty to play with this week.



This is an awesome idea. What kind of a press do you need to achieve a permanent design?

Braden, you can scratch wet leather with your fingernail, so with that in mind, I'm waiting on a call back for a 100 ton electro hydraulic shop press. I'm not kidding, I've always been that way, lol. I will be able to mint my own coins.

Bob

[Scott Shepherd]

Just be aware, some tanning methods allow for the stamps to work awesome, some methods won't hold the stamp. I think Veg tanned will hold the stamp and the "chromate" or whatever it's called type won't. They will stamp great and look great and over time, they will revert back to being flat, or less embossed at least, where the veg tan will stay the same over time.

Just a general note. The leathers that look awesome and you'd love to use, will be the wrong type :D

[Mike Null]

Bob is correct about wetting the leather. Vegetable tanned cowhide works very well. My two customers both use presses they bought at Harbor Freight. http://www.harborfreight.com/20-ton-shop-press-32879.html

There was one design that I vector cut from 1/16" acrylic then cemented it to the 1/4" backer--much faster than engraving.

[Bert Kemp]

I stamp Veg Tan leather all the time as well as engrave it. Dampen the leather slightly before pressing the stamp in it. After its completely dry you can dye it what ever color you want it. Then use leather sheen to give it a nice polished look. You can also dye the leather first but I think it works better to stamp then dye.

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

Thanks for all the good responses. I made a decent looking die from 1/4 acrylic. I guess I don't have enough "press power" to get it to work very good. That will change later this week when my new hydraulic press arrives. In the mean time, I'll round up some Corian, HDPE, Delrin, POM, etc.

Bob

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

To further this discussion for future reference I have discovered an interesting product called Tough-Cast 65D. It seems that many leather embossing die makers use this product or something similar. It would involve some extra steps, making a silicone mold of your master, then using the two part resin to make the die. I've read where using this stuff for leather results in a die that's even superior to a metal die. Might be fun to play with.

Bob

[Tristan Ranatza]

Thanks for all the good responses. I made a decent looking die from 1/4 acrylic. I guess I don't have enough "press power" to get it to work very good. That will change later this week when my new hydraulic press arrives. In the mean time, I'll round up some Corian, HDPE, Delrin, POM, etc.

Bob

What are you using for a press right now? I was thinking of getting a 20 ton air hydraulic bottle jack for doing stamping and such.
I was looking at Home Depot for them and they are not that expensive, only 35 dollars for the manual jack and 91 dollars for the air jack.

[Bert Kemp]

Harbor Freight 1 ton arbor press works find for smaller stamp up to about 3 inch's in Dia.

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

My new press didn't arrive last week so I haven't been able to try out my new dies. I've been experimenting making dies out of different materials. Tried extruded acrylic and cast acrylic, not seeing much difference in the engraving. Delrin, cool product, takes about 5 passes to get much, leaves behind laser grid lines, might need to defocus and look for better settings, stuff seems fairly indestructible. HDPE, not much luck, need to find better settings, melted like candle wax. Also waiting on the Tough-Cast 65D to arrive to make dies using two part polymer. All this experimenting is probably a waste of time because it looks like acrylic makes a decent die, but I won't know how it wears until I go into production.

Bob

[Mike Null]

I think you have arrived at the same conclusion I did. Acrylic is a good material for this project. The other good thing about acrylic is that I generally have plenty of scrap.

Years ago I made mold patterns for spin casting from acrylic and to avoid the striations on the on the bottom of the engraving I used Post Script fills as a background so there was no plain black area. At that time I was using an Epilog and didn't have the Y axis engraving option the the Trotec has. That may also solve this issue.