Low Odor Gray Laser Rubber - A Starting Point

McMaster has a brush border that I used to make the skirt for my xcarve

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So do you prefer the Laser Rubber outcome over your Lino stuff? Aesthetically speaking?

Yes to everything. It still looks a little rough when stamping - which is nice, but it doesnā€™t require as much pressure to get nice coverage. Everything about the process is easier with the rubber. I suppose if I were going to do heavy duty printing/stamping, the lino would be a better choice.

Thanks! I will check them out. It occurs to me, there is room in the store ā€˜partsā€™ section for a shop vac extension to ease cleaning of the exhaust path back there.

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Now I wonder if there are different grades of rubber, so that maybe there can be less cleanup. Where did you order it from, if I may ask?

I was gifted it by a friend I met several years ago who runs a laser business in Denver. Originally I had ordered linoleum because I had/have no idea what I was doing. I asked her if there was a place in Denver where I could purchase some(there is not) on short notice and she gave me a few sheets due to the lack of places to purchase it in person. She rarely uses it she said, so by giving me a few sheets it would see use :smiley:

Itā€™s ā€œLow Odorā€ Laser rubber and Iā€™m not too concerned with the cleanup. I worked in a frame shopā€“oh my godā€“almost 20 years ago in high school and they had a laser for making rubber stamps and they did NOT use low odor rubber. Maybe it wasnā€™t invented yet, but iā€™ll take the low odor stuff over the stinky red stuff. I couldnā€™t smell this stuff at all while engraving it.

This is what the edge of a sheet looks like:

You can try these places

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Hey man, if youā€™re in the Denver area you might consider meeting up with the other forgers. We are a good bunch, maybe even better in person!
Are you on the map?

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Thanks @aj_stewped. Cheaper than https://www.johnsonplastics.com/laserbits so thatā€™s encouraging. How are you cutting it? Does it cut easily? Sorry for all the questions, Iā€™m very interesting in exploring this process. Especially like the idea of ā€œmulti-plateā€ lino-prints. (I use printer language since itā€™s what I know)

Absolutely I would love to meet up with folks! No, Iā€™m not on the map yet because Iā€™ve just been a lurker over the past 2 years. I will check that link out.

I am planning on making a journey over to Plasticare next week, so Iā€™ll be up north-ish, wink wink, nudge nudgeā€¦

What do you mean by cutting? With a knife or withā€¦ THE LASER! The rubber cuts easily with an X-acto blade since itā€™s so soft. I havenā€™t tested a multi-pass cut on the laser yet, but it did cut in 1 pass with the settings above.

Sorry for the delayed responses, i was at a mini-comic-con yesterday and no time to login to the forum.

Whoa, youā€™re super close to me!

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Alright! A forger on this end of the metro hemisphere!
The rest of us who have met up are scattered up north, Boulder, Erie and Ft. Collins. There is a plastics vendor in Louisville who sells scrap at half price once a month, so thatā€™s where we have gathered for a beer.

I have met 7 owners now, and welcomed 5 of them into my home to get a look at the pre release. All of them friends now.

Plasticare has great reviews, I need to check that place out.
Let me know when you are going and Iā€™ll plan on it! :sunglasses:
I look forward to meeting another of our ilk!

BTW, your comics are great!

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Yeah, Iā€™d love to meet folks!

I donā€™t know what a good price for scrap is, but the Plasticare place sells it for $1.50 / lb, so Iā€™m hoping to find more lucky pieces.

Iā€™m planning on Wednesday for the trip up there. Work for you?

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At this point, itā€™s likely to be just you and I at Plasticare, I dunno. Itā€™s a long drive from up north.
But @dwardio was just asking about another meetup. What time frame?

I forgot to say ā€˜thank youā€™ re: my comics - was in a hurry to respond, so thank you very much!

Howā€™s about between 10:30 and 11 am? Itā€™s approximately a 30-minute drive from my place, straight up 85. Miss that lunch traffic.

Meeting one fellow laser pal is better than none :smiley:, but itā€™d be cool if other folks could make it.

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Wednesday, closer to 11 fits my attitude better. Maybe we grab lunch somewhere?

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Works for me! See you there and we can figure out lunch on the spot unless you have a place in mind over the next couple days.

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Sorry, I thought about ā€œcuttingā€ query being unclear after the fact, but yes, I meant with a knife. i.e. is it easy to make the stamp. Thanks for answering already. :slight_smile:

No worries :smiley: If you look at the picture at the top with all the rubber dust crumbling into my hand, thereā€™s a slight ridge around the whole stamp because i didnā€™t align the cut line perfectly, so I had to trim all that with the X-acto blade.

So I was trying my first rubber stamp and saw all the complaints about dust. Wanting to keep my GF clean, I thought Iā€™d try a little different approach. I first cut out the block of rubber to the size of my stamp rather than having the GF create any more stinky rubber smell than necessary. Then I folded up a piece of cardstock into a makeshift tray. Then did the engraving. As you can see, the tray did a pretty good job of catching the dust. There wasnā€™t any noticeable dust by the front door (although my stamp is much smaller than the one above) ā€¦anyway, thought Iā€™d share.

IMG_20180919_192621

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Well thatā€™s a clever thing! :+1:

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