Arbor Press modification for leather stamping

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#1

I recently started using Delrin to make stamps.

Arbor Press purchased locally at Harbor Freight and modified at a local machine shop. On sale with coupon —- $38. Modifications cost $40.

Samples of impressions. Stamps are either .5 or one inch in width. There is lots of experimentation when making a Delrin stamp. Some of the stamps were great after engraving and others were very bad.

I had the most success with Delrin stamps that were only 1/2 an inch in width. The GF did a phenomenal job engraving and cutting the smaller stamps compared to the larger stamps. The stamps in the pictures are just a small amount of what was made with the GF.

The red X’s represent a bad engraving and the green circles represent a bad stamping with the Arbor Press.

Cutting and engraving Delrin with your GF creates a MASSIVE amount of dust inside your machine. After every engraving project—- I turned off the machine, made sure it was unplugged and used a plastic vacuum cleaner brush accessory to clean my machine. I also vacuumed the circuit board on the left side of the GF.

I can not give you engrave/cutting settings because this post would have to be placed in Beyond the manual. I did find settings with another GF community post.

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Forum link to another Arbor Press I own

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#2

That’s quite a hefty tool! I can see a few of your stamped leather items (featuring, not surprisingly, dogs) and they came out super cute.

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#3

I really like your stamps. Can’t go wrong with dogs. :blush:

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#4

@cynd11 With the new plates almost 37 pounds!!! Three years ago, I did not even know an Arbor Press existed. Now I have 2 of them and they are both modified, This weekend I am purchasing a floor model press. This one will also be tinkered with and it will be for stamps that are 3 inches and bigger.

@davidgal2 You are 100% correct. The GF is the absolute best tool for creating all types of animal companion art.

#5

Have you tried leather embossing with one of those heavy duty manual roller type paper craft machines? (Cuttlebug/Bigshot/Fiskars etc)
It works really well on cased leather, even with the premade embossing folders for paper (just use one side). You can engrave a larger pattern sheet in thin Delrin, some people have even successfully used thin wood cutouts, tho those tend to break fairly quickly under the pressure. At least one person made acrylic work in a limited fashion.

Here’s an old video about it

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#6

Wow—- two things I have learned from your post. A machine like this exist and Delrin is available in sheets.

I am not a scrap booker so that world and all the tools are new to me. I do own a cricket expressions if that was the one that was the original.

Thank you for taking the time to post this!!

To be honest the last thing my home needs is another big tool “floor arbor press “in my home or garage.

A few years back Eric jokingly or maybe he was not joking had an idea for a business

He wanted me to open up our home on weekends so people could come rent all of the tools I own

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#7

You’re welcome!

If you have a friend who has one of these paper craft roller machines it’s likely they’ll have at least one embossing folder - perhaps they’ll let you test the process to see if you like it. They’re a LOT smaller than a floor sized arbor press!
I’ve seen artists using them as printing presses, too, so multi-functional for even non-paper-crafters.

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