Harriet Tubman stamp - updated

I’ve been very remiss in posting projects. I’m Sorry!

Here’s a recent one. My niece and my cousin were chatting about Harriet Tubman being considered for the $20 bill and how that was put on hold for REASONS. (we won’t go into that here)

As they (and I ) think it’s sad that it’s not happening soon, they found that some folks are making Harriet Tubman ink stamps sized just right for “fixing” the $20 bills in circulation, and as making them requires both 3-D printing as well as laser etching, they called yours truly.

The project files were posted on Thiniverse by some nice guy (I’ll dig up the link if you need) so it wasn’t TOO much work. In fact the SVG provided was kind of … messy … (a kajillion extra nodes, and hundreds of paths) and so I did what was probably far more Inkscape work than was needed and boiled it down to one path with a manageable number of nodes while maintaining the detail needed.

After that, it was just a matter of fabricating. The 3-D print of the handle was easy; I think it will be prone to breaking with too vigorous stamping, but I told them to be careful.

The ink stamp printing was a first for me and, wow, am I glad I have a booster exhaust fan. That rubber smell is pretty tough. I found some recommended sheet rubber from Amazon, worked well enough.

I dialed in the settings lifted from fine folks on this forum, and engraved/cut, and that was that. Super glue to attach the handle and the stamp and we were done.

I’m now looking for other reasons to make stamps, the result turned out better than I thought it would and it was a lot of fun.

Let me know if anyone wants further details.



Sorry, after all that, I didn’t have a $20 on hand to try it out. Irony!

Just to head off any concern: stamping paper money is a completely legal and harmless bit of civil disobedience. As long as the denomination remains clearly discernible and the image isn’t offensive (both true in this case) then it’s fine.

I do hope that this raises awareness to my fellow Americans as to what a bad-*ss superhero Madam Tubman was.

UPDATE: I was super busy for the last few days and didn’t notice that this post had a lot of activity (relative to my other posts; “low bar”, yea yea…)! I’m working my way though the comments now but my immediate takeaway was that there might be some value to posting my file and some production notes over in the Free Designs category, which I’ve done. I’m very happy to share this and I hope some of you find it useful. Thanks!

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I love everything about this. Please post once you get a 20 in hand.

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Definitely one of the better stamp engrave results I’ve seen. I’ll keep an eye out for a Tubman Twenty. :smile:

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I just did a stamp a couple weeks back and got some permanent ink this week! woohoo!

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Very nice!

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Outstanding idea. :hearts::sunglasses:

That stamp came out great!

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Very cool!:sunglasses::partying_face:

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I thoroughly approve!!!

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Stamp came out great, but… Time to be that guy again.

We have crept into the ‘little bit pregnant’ zone.
I thought keeping focus off politics was reasonable to prevent brawls.
Now we have politics with a side of civil disobedience.
Doesn’t matter if I agree with it or not. It is cracking a door best kept closed.

Hate me for saying this if you must, but if the door is open for politics, then this forum will go crazy train like the rest of the Internet rather fast.

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I do hope not, I can only count on being saved from myself a certain number of times in a week. :smile:

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Great stamp!

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I’ll be the other guy then. You’re right to want to hold the line against political dust ups, but I think no politics were harmed here.

There was no editorializing. Just a statement about admiration of ms Tubman and the fact that the bill wasn’t changed.

We’re not even a tiny bit pregnant. Yours and my posts are the most political part.

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I love the blue dragon in the back :heart_eyes:

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It’s actually against forum rules to ask for files.

Since when? I’ve had people ask me for files, ask for settings, PM me to see if they could sell my files. It’s a community and I asked if the original poster was willing to share their information. If it’s against the rules and admin will correct me.

There’s really no reason to have a community if we’re not here to help each other succeed. If I’m having good success with a certain material I would be happy to share that information with anyone who is having a hard time.

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This is from the Glowforge FAQ:
If someone shares a print that they’ve made, please respect their sharing and do not ask for the source design or artwork. Designs take work and have value, and when you ask someone to give you that value for free, you undermine their work.

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what @hansepe posted is correct.

everything you’ve mentioned except for asking for files is encouraged. we share information all the time and this community is very giving and sharing in that respect. but the one exception to that is asking for files. there is a forum section for people to share files if they wish to, but it needs to be voluntary. asking for settings is fine, asking for help in creating is fine, asking for the source files is not.

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It’s not their source material. It was downloaded from thingiverse. My request amounts to help with illustrator. But even if it was theirs, I would still ask if they were willing. Anyone can say no.

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if you do, it will still violate the rules that GF has set up for their forums. their admins have chimed in on this before as well, it’s not a grey area.

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And they are welcome to chime in this instance also. Thank you for pointing out the FAQs to me.