Machine Custom Stamps for the Holidays
Stamps can be used to add custom touches to leather goods, printmaking, cards and invitations, wrapping paper, or packages for your business. With the holiday season in full swing at Bantam Tools HQ, members of the team have been using our desktop CNC machines to make custom stamps using our Bantam Tools Milling Machine Software’s built-in SVG support. Here are some best practices for creating your SVG design, choosing your material, selecting your end mills, and setting up your job.
Let’s dive in!
Creating Your Design
Our SVG editor of choice is Inkscape because it’s free and easy to use. Although, if you’re an Adobe fan, you can totally use Illustrator to create your file. For this blog post, we’ll be using Inkscape. To make our stamps, we used the workflows outlined in our Classic & Advanced SVG Workflows guide. If you’re new to the world of SVGs, definitely take a look before continuing.
To create your SVG design there are three options:
Grab clip art and import it into Inkscape
Make your own design from scratch
Draw you design, take a picture, and import it
Whatever method you choose, you’ll want to arrange your stamp’s design so that it looks backwards. This ensures that your design will be facing the right way when you go to use your stamp. On the other hand, if your design is symmetrical, like this snowflake stamp, then you don’t need to worry about formatting the design so it’s facing backwards.
Choosing Your Material
The material you choose depends on the material you’re going to be stamping. For instance, if you’re doing leather embossing, a metal stamp is the way to go. Typically, brass is used for this. However, if you’re planning to stamp your design on paper or cardboard, linoleum (aka lino) is an excellent choice. In addition to being used as a floor covering, this material is popular with printmakers and artists because it’s easy to carve by hand. Because it’s incredibly soft, it mills like a dream on a CNC machine. We carry a number of sizes in our store. If
End Mill Selection
The end mills you need will vary based on your designs. When working in your vector graphics editor, pay attention to how large elements in your design are the spacing between them. Doing so will help you optimize your mill time. Avoid using dulled tooling because it will result in torn material.
Pro Tip: If you’re machining a variety of materials using your Bantam Tools milling machine, we’d recommend designating specific end mills for specific materials. For instance, we don’t use the end mills we use to cut aluminum to cut circuit boards. This helps ensure we have sharp tooling for milling softer materials and allows us to keep a better eye on when a tool needs to be replaced.
Setting Up Your Job
Thanks to the built-in SVG support in our Bantam Tools software, setting up your job is a breeze. But the workflow will look slightly different from the typical SVG workflow. Here, let’s walk through this together.
Files
If your goal is to just start milling, here are design files we’ve used to make stamps of your own. Tag @bantamtools on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook to share with the rest of the community.
At Bantam Tools, we build desktop CNC machines with professional reliability and precision to support world changers and skill builders. For the latest Bantam Tools news, sign up for our newsletter. If you’re interested in adding a Bantam Tools machine to your workflow you can order directly from our online store or request a quote.