25 Apr 2016

3d printed makers stamp



At work we just bought a small 3d printer from formslab. (well it is actually some time ago now I just newer got around finishing this post)

I was already considering having a stamp made but coming up with a great logo is not that easy. I played around with the letters A and L to make something simple and good looking. I came up with five variations. I like 1, 3 and 5 the best so these were chosen for printing.







Making the 3d shape in Creo. As I have never stamped leather before I don't know if the corners on the letters needs to be rounded or if there is any others trick of the trade when making stamps. Luckily I can experiment without having to worry about cost.



Saving a .stl file to import to the 3d printer software.


Supports are added and we are ready to print. Total use of resin is 10,7ml and with a cost of 1 kr(0.15usd)  per. ml the toalt cost is a mere 10,7 kr (1.6 usd)


A 10 min soak in isopropyl alcohol.




Removing the stamps from the supports is very simple. Depending on how many there are you can either just break it off or use a pliers to cut them off.


As the attentive reader would have noticed the stamps are all wrong. They should have been inverted to create a negative stamp.I knew this but I forgot! Good thing it didn't cost me anything.

The result is this:




It is simple to flip the pictures horizontal to see who they would look. I perfer these two:


After further consideration I decided that I liked the one with the L inside the A the best.

Using the stamps also gave ideas to make them better. With a round stamp you have no way of knowing which way is up. This makes it very difficult to stamp the logo parallel to the edge.
Therefore I made the new stamp square as well as adding a thread for a M8 screw.












The resin is somewhat brittle so after a few wacks with the hammer it broke. Thicker material thickness will solve this.


2 comments:

  1. That is really cool, man i need one of those printers....

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    Replies
    1. Yeah a 3d printer is so much fun. Unfortunately I don't work there anymore so now I will have to settle for InstaMorph (its not possible to makes stamps though)

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