[Oscar56]

Two prototype stamps. Around 4 inches across.

Printed the lotus flower one and have to make it shorter. Made it 1.5 inches tall but it can be 3/4" and be fine.

 

[difalkner]

Cool! I never thought about using a 3D printer for that.

 

[MadMark]

How does the material feel? Slightly flexible? What temp? Where did you get that special filament?
Way cool!
I was toying with making wood block "stamps" with the laser burning down the negative. This looks bettah!

 

[Oscar56]

Thanks gents.

The TPU just came in so haven't tried it yet. I purchased it from Amazon for ~$30 a roll. That was cheapest I found. There were a lot more expensive ones on there.

I test printed the stamps with PLA to make sure my designs worked. Have to tweak the lotus flower design.

I am using CURA settings for default TPA material.

 

[Oscar56]

Just finished printing the butterfly in PLA. Need to tweak design as well. Antennae are way to delicate. They will not survive multiple stampings with a rough hand.

 

[MadMark]

What are you going to do for backing and a handle of some sort? I've seen simple curved blocks, like a short piece of hand rail, as well as the classic vertical handle.
As a wood worker, I immediately wanna start in cutting, routing, and turning!

 

[Oscar56]

I am also playing with this as well. They are not small. These stamps are palm sized. I am using the cylinder backing for the lotus flower for its handle and a short handle for the butterfly to see what works.

 

[difalkner]

Do you have to sand or otherwise level the bottom so it will press evenly on your paper or card?

 

[MadMark]

I would think the build plate bottom would be the smoother side.

 

[Oscar56]

I'm trying both but both are doing really well. I sanded the lotus flower and used the build plate for the butterfly. Both in PLA but did great so next step is print in TPU in the next few days.

I have a wood working project I have to do so this is now on the future to do list.

 

[Oscar56]

Well, finally threw the filament onto the printer. Man is it flexible. We'll see how the default settings for TPU work out.

This is the stamp I am printing.

 

[Oscar56]

Printed TPU feels just like rubber. The default settings worked fine 228C. They are really bendy with 20% infill. It is really stringy because it is so stretchy.

I did an experiment printing with the design down on the platform and design up and then sanding flat. At least with this material, for me, design down on platform is the way to go. Way flatter for the ink pad to coat evenly.

 

[Oscar56]

Need to model 3 or 4 stamps before pulling the TPU from the mylar bag. Everything I have seen is the filament loves to suck in water.

 

[MadMark]

Not water, INK! Use that thick ink for the POM stamps (plastic single word stamps, paid, copy, etc.). Let it soak in and you'll get thousands of impressions without reinking or needing an ink pad.

 

[Oscar56]

These are for my wife and her mixed media art. She uses special inks.

Here is the next batch I will be printing sometime this week.

I still have to come up with some steam punk models.

 

[difalkner]

Pretty cool, Oscar.

 

[Oscar56]

Another experiment:

Playing around with a technique to make super fast stamps using Blender 3d.

A black and white shader to capture the shadows on a 3d model. I am lighting the render scene with an HDRI (image) so I can rotate to change the shadow direction and amount. It is analog so just the way I like it. Kentucky windage.

The shader nodes are in image below.

Once I have the image I can add a border with a 2d graphics program and then resave the image and import it into Blender to create a height map image.