Modular woodblock printing

[ChristyM]

Your prints are lovely and your modular design is incredible. Thanks so much for sharing with us.

[FlorenceTurnour]

Thank you for your enthusiasm!

[FlorenceTurnour]

@evansd2

What’s the open time on the ink? That is, once you ink the stamp how long do you have until you need to print?

The open time is long enough I do not have to hurry, even doing all those colors and separate blocks. I guess half an hour at least, without noticing in the print that you didn’t print right away.

The drying time is forever and a day, especially if it’s humid at all. On paper it dries completely in about a week, and on fabric, I wait at least 2 weeks before planning to stitch on it. Longer if I want to iron it first. There’s additives that you can use to get it to dry more quickly, and I bought them, but chickened out so far, since it’s got cobalt in it and I don’t want to poison myself. I do tend to get ink all over everything.

[FlorenceTurnour]

Hi Ellen,
If you want actual stamps, use rubber or foam. Rubber and foam want to transfer the ink, and you can use dye or pigment stamp pads. Wood does not really want to transfer the ink, and will not work well with a stamp pad.

For woodblocks, I print face up. this means the inked blocks are face up on my table, and I lay the paper on top and rub the back with a wooden spoon until the ink has transferred. The ink I use is made for this; it’s somewhat sticky, and transfers to the paper with pressure. (Good choices: speedball permanent fabric block printing ink ($), or Cranfield Safe Wash relief ink ($$$)).

For stamps, this stuff is great:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017IHVSLM
you can cut and engrave it and then stick it to this stuff to make it into a cling stamp (you should be able to find the EZ Mount cheaper somewhere, but on Amazon you have to get 10 sheets of it):
https://www.amazon.com/Crafters-Companion-EZMOUNT02-10Mount-Mounting-10-Count/dp/B0070GIDA6/

For the orange rubber:
Engrave Speed: 310 | Power: 93 | LPI:450 | One Pass
Cut Speed 130 | Power Full
Here’s a great blog post about it: Mastering Rubber Stamps on the Glowforge - Danielle Wethington
I think the EZ Mount is not laserable material. I looked into it once, and I don’t remember what evil substance was in there, but I do remember I decided to snip it out with my scissors.
Definitely make stamps. It’s SO much fun.

I also made some chunky foam stamps to use with acrylic paint. Here’s my post about it. Also SO much fun.

Mixed Media tools: Foam stamps

This is a tester foam stamp for use with acrylic paints in mixed media artwork. I engraved and cut it out on the Glowforge. [IMG_6430] Worked like a charm. [IMG_6429] I used EVA foam, which I got in a roll from Michaels (in the cosplay section, not near the fun foam). It came in 6 mm, 8 mm, 10 mm and 12 mm thicknesses. Despite the math, the Glowforge sees the 12 mm as thicker than half an inch, so to avoid the hassle, I went back to the shop and got the 8 mm thickness. It’s still thick enou…

Not that the wood ones are not fun, you understand, but they are not stamps per say.

[eflyguy]

Just a side note to support the above. I needed a one-time use stamp, which I made from draftboard. I wasn’t going to buy a sheet of rubber or similar for one use. it’s really tricky to get a decent result but it worked for my needs after a few tries - I had to clean off and re-stamp a couple of times to get the result I was looking for.

[FlorenceTurnour]

Thank you everyone for your kind comments! I’m still gluing, but I’m excited to start printing soon.

[FlorenceTurnour]

gettt the rubberrrrr ->>>worth it<<<-

[eflyguy]

Like I said, it was a one-time use. Not worth paying for.

A single post-mark on an ammo box.

Keepsake letter box

7.62 ammo can but decorated pretty much all with the GF. Acrylic for the chevrons (The service that offers overnight letter delivery to soldiers in-training uses envelopes likes old-fashioned air-mail, with the red and blue chevrons around the edges.) The logo on the side was her battalion at BCT - “Rough Riders” (I think I used 5/32 PureBond ply for that.) Wording is draftboard - still undecided on whether to color that. The Army “stamp” is acrylic, engraved and filled. The other postmark “sta…

[FlorenceTurnour]

OK one more thing, if you put a pad (like a towel) under the paper and then put the inked block face down, you can get a pretty good impression with wood (though I was still using block printing ink when I did this). It works well with fabric; that’s what the Indian block printers do. Here’s me trying to explain to my friends what I did with my rubber mallet:

[ellencadwell]

Hi Florence. Thank you for such great info. I really do appreciate it. Guess I’d better buy the rubber for them for what I want to do.

I used to have over a $1,000 worth of rubber stamps, plus all the scrapbook and card making materials, and that was 20 years ago! I gav a them all to my daughter. I definitely don’t want or need that many now, but it would be nice to have some I want.

[FlorenceTurnour]

And you can’t beat stamping with stamps that you MADE yourself.

[jwgregory]

Wow! You are very talented!

[dklgood]

Welcome to the forum.

[jrbryant1]

That is quite impressive! You did a really incredible job!

[jwgregory]

Hello dklgood…
I do not know how to use the forum interface well at all… was that comment directed at me?
I do see a little purple circle with my avatar and the reply arrow next to it.

[dklgood]

Indeed it was directed at you, a newcomer. I hope you read tons in the forum and return here often for help/inspiration/encouragement.

[jwgregory]

Thank you!

[julesweissman]

Genius!!! Thank you for sharing this!

[charid.designs]

Truly amazing! And the peg board reminds me of Tertris

[bdandreson]

This is remarkable. Your finished artwork is beautiful, but I am especially impressed by the system you have designed and implemented. I love that kind of stuff…