Friday, 18 July 2025

New Stamping Stump

 For years the little bit of stamping that I did happened on the top of my workbench; i.e. desk. It’s not the ideal position and can be quite tiring.

 Well, I finally made a stamping stump for myself. As you can see, it is very crooked. The ends were not cut as straight as I requested and I do not have a working band saw to straighten the stump with.



I made a wider base for stability and put it on casters so that it can be moved around easily. I ended up using several pieces of wood as “shims”. We’ll see if those casters (vintage plastic ones) will last, otherwise I’ll have to replace them with heavy duty ones.

 Metal bands were added to prevent further splitting. The cracks you see happened during the 2 year drying stage. The top surface is almost level even though it doesn’t appear to be.

 I have different stamping blocks and patterns that will be used. Here are two basic blocks. I used the steel one to make some test patterns. The rubber one is used for straightening without causing marks.






Using some simple hammers I made a raindrop pattern on one side and a rough texture on the other side of a piece of scrap copper.





Using a patterned plate I stamped a piece of soft copper wire next. I didn’t even bother to take the time to straighten the wire. That probably would have been a good idea though.

 





I did not anneal the scrap copper sheet or the wire, or tape them in place, but those are definitely something to be done for better impressions. I’m looking forward to playing more with the different stamping blocks and patterns over the next little while. My goal is to be able to bring more metal pieces to shows and other locations soon.

 Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day.