Cork Coasters and Rubber Stamps

My only knock on rubber is man, does it make a mess! I had to clean my machine after each rubber engrave.

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Oh and also: really good thinking, speeding up your workflow with a stamp. So tempting to laser everything, but stamping is so much more efficient. Gold star!

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Salt.

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Thanks for sharing. I’m glad to hear that you got this down to a science. Keep up the awesome work!

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Great job on them! (Prefer the lasered look, but understand the limitations. Cool compromise with the stamps.) :slightly_smiling_face:

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I would love to know the settings for the stamps! :slight_smile:

We use the gray rubber that can be found on Amazon (low oder I think).

Settings:
Speed: 220
Power: 70
LPI: 225
Verried Power
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It will make a mess. So I tend to run 2-3 small/med. stamps and then clean up the GF (I like to keep it sparkling!)

After the stamp has been engraved, carefully carry the whole rubber sheet to the sink and rinse off with cold water. Then, using an old toothbrush, scrub with soap and rinse again. Dry. Bam!

Leave a little room around the outside of your stamp and you can cut it out with a sharp pair of scissors. I have been using double sided tape and some craft foam to build the pad. Work nicely and you can always pull it off and adjust if needed.

Enjoy!

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Here is a picture of coasters we did for a project a few weeks ago for a monthly subscription box called Bonding Bees. We designed the image, cut the stamp on the GF, and hand inked well over 2,000 coasters. With out our GF, we would not have been a part of the project…so, thanks GF!!

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Great looking coasters! :grinning:

Thanks! Tried similar settings before you got back to me but they were close to yours. Worked like a charm!

So was this the material you got from Amazon?

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What did you use for ink? Did you use a stamp pad or did you use a brayer roller? I’m looking to make some coasters for a wedding.

Sorry for the delay in getting back with the info. It’s been busy weekend.

Here is a link to the rubber sheets we got on Amazon: Gray Laserable Rubber.

As for the ink, we have found several standard ink pads that work well. Most of them can be found at JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby in their ink stamp section. A few brands we use are:

  • StazOn (dries VERY quickly and sticks to everything including leather. Can be found in a lot of colors).
  • VersaFine (Drys slower than StazOn, but is very forgiving and very consistent).
  • Ranger Archival Ink is another one that drys quickly, but the stamp pad makes it difficult to get an even coating on the stamp. Not my top choice.

All of the inks above are water proof/resistant once dry.

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Thank you for the information.

I just tried out these settings and got a nice engrave, thanks. Need to play with cut settings another night.

I haven’t used the stamp yet, the glue is drying, but it doesn’t seem like I needed to beef up the lines with the outer gradient. I’ll find out soon.

I tried a couple of glues to stick the stamp to a block, but the thin rubber edges really want to curl up. My test stamp is clamped all the way around with chip clips and binder clips… I think I need to find a good double-sided tape for this job.

I have had great success with just using off the shelf double sided tape to stick the rubber to whatever block I am using.

As you start stamping, you might find it difficult to line up your stamp with the exactly where you want it on the coaster. Especially on larger coasters. To help with this, we found that clear, large stamp blocks work great. We have used this one before - Inkadinkado Clear Stamp Block. Amazon has them and so do Hobby Lobby and JoAnn’s.

Trace your coaster onto the clear stamp block with a Sharpie, position your new stamp based on the trace, and then you can see through the block to align everything when you go to ink. The Sharpie and double sided tape can be scrubbed off later with warm soapy water when you are done with the project.

For smaller stamps, a wood block works just fine.

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Those look good. You could probably make your own clear stamp blocks with clear acrylic, too.

Oo, forgot to ask before I cut - do you have the 40w or the 45w?

We have a Pro.

With some of the updates, we have actually called the power back to 65 and have better performance. Power set at 70 almost over cuts/engraves now.

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Thanks!