Rubber Stamp Materials

There are several materials you will need to make a rubber stamp:

  
RUBBER

You need rubber, and it has to be solid rubber, not foam.  The two most common sources are erasers and rubber specifically intended for carving.  Some people use gasket material for plumbing fixtures, which is dirt cheap at Home Depot, but it's very hard to work with and not recommended for the beginner.

The rubber needs to be flat on top and bottom, so a new eraser is called for.  It helps to pick the right eraser, since many are crumbly or otherwise poorly suited.   You'll find that light, solid colors are important; dark colors or elaborate patterns make it harder to see the image you've inked onto the surface to guide your carving.

You may be tempted to just run right out and buy some erasers and get started.  Resist that temptation and buy some rubber intended for carving instead.  The rubber texture and quality truly is better for this task, it removes the size limitations that erasers impose, and the cost per square inch is about the same as erasers and sometimes less.

You might be able to find some rubber intended for carving locally.  If you have a Hobby Lobby or an A. C. Moore nearby, you can buy Speedball Speedy-Carve, which is 1/4" thick and pink .  Letterboxers commonly refer to it as "the pink stuff", and it is universally regarded as excellent for rubber stamp carving.  Speedy-Carve comes in a clear cellophane wrapper...
Speedy-Carve

...and sometimes that clear cellophane-wrapped rubber is in a bag that can hang on a pegboard.
Speedy-Carve in a bag


(the label on the cellophane is still there, it's just on the back side)

Speedy-Carve used to be called Speedy-Stamp.  No idea why they changed the name.
Speedy-Stamp

"4" x 6" Carving Block (20 sq. in.)"  Forgive them for their poor math skills; it's still a good product.  They fixed the math error with the bag:
Speedy-Stamp in a bag

With Speedy-Stamp, the package labelling was printed on the rubber itself, which was irritating if you needed to use that side.  The labelling could be easily wiped off the rubber with a bit of acetone or nail polish remover.  Or, you could just carve your stamp on the other side.  Other than the labelling, though, Speedy-Stamp and Speedy-Carve are the same thing, and quite excellent.

Now, before we go any farther, a warning about Speedy-Stamp.  For making a rubber stamp, the carving surface of the rubber must be perfectly flat.  Any spot that's not flat will cause problems:  if it's a recess, it won't print; if it's a protrusion, it'll hold the surrounding rubber up off the paper so it won't print.  There are two defects often found in Speedy-Stamp blocks.  One looks kinda like a pink pimple.  You can sometimes plan carefully so that particular spot gets carved out anyway, or you can simply use the other side.  It's also possible to clean up the surface with acetone to remove the pimple; more on that on the Rubber Stamp Blank page.

The other defect is more serious.  In general, the last 1/8" at each end of the 4" x 6" block is unusable because it tapers off.  It probably has something to do with how they mold the rubber at the factory.  You can put a straightedge on it to check it out:
End of Speedy-Stamp Block

You don't want to be trying to make a stamp out of that area of the rubber; trust me on this.  Sometimes you can use the other side, but usually both sides have the same problem.  Just cut 1/8" off each end and throw it away as soon as you open the package.

So, the 4" x 6" block is really 23 sq. in. of usable rubber.
You used to be able to buy Speedy-Stamp at Michael's, but they don't carry it any more.  They do carry the Speedy-Stamp Stamp Making Kit (discussed on the tools page) which has a piece of Speedy-Stamp in it, but if you already have the tools that would be an expensive way to buy rubber.
 
Michael's now carries only Speedball Speedy-Cut, which is 3/8" thick and ivory in color.  Don't buy Speedy-Cut; sure, it's cheaper, but after you've spent a couple of hours carving, quality and durability will be far more important to you than the few cents saved on the rubber.  Speedy-Cut doesn't carve well, and worse yet it doesn't hold up well.  I have found stamps made of Speedy-Cut in letterboxes that were crumbling and falling apart, and one had even hardened into something that could be mistaken for rock.

If you find a Utrecht art supply store, they carry something called Easy Cut, which appears to be the same thing as Speedball Speedy-Cut -- interesting, since Utrecht carries Speedball products.  Avoid this stuff for the same reasons as the Speedy-Cut.

At JoAnn Fabrics you can buy a MasterCarve "Artist Carving Block", which is 2-1/2" x 5" x 3/4" thick and white and comes in a package with a blue label.  Exactly where you find it in the store varies; sometimes it's in the rubber stamp section, but sometimes it's sold alongside the modeling clay a couple of rows over.  Apparently that's why it's so thick; it's intended not only for carving rubber stamps but also for carving flexible molds for clay.  3/4" is much thicker than necessary for making rubber stamps, which makes your finished rubber stamp rather bulky and it takes up a lot of space inside the letterbox, but those are relatively minor issues.  They advertise that it "cuts like butter", and that's true; MasterCarve is a pleasure to carve.

MasterCarve

There is a downside to the ease of carving, though.  The stuff is really soft, soft enough that physical damage is a real concern.  Many letterboxers have noted that the stuff seems to "pill", like little bits are sloughing off of it while trying to stamp with it.  Whether or not any of this is a problem depends on the type of image carved and the intended use of the stamp.  If the stamp will be used a lot and the image includes lots of fine detail, especially thin black lines or dots, MasterCarve would be a poor choice because the tops of the rubber ridges or peaks that print those thin black lines or dots will get rubbed off with use.  However, if the image mainly involves large inked block areas and the stamp will end up in a letterbox hidden in some remote area that won't get found very often, MasterCarve works just great.  It is apparently unaffected by age or weather, which is good.

It's usually not too difficult to find a coupon for 40% or even 50% off a purchase at JoAnn Fabrics.  Go into the store and ask to get on their mailing list and you'll start getting coupons in the mail.  You can also sign up for their e-mail list and they will send you links to coupons you can print for yourself.

Here's a trick:  Buy a block of MasterCarve (3/4" thick) and use a knife or boxcutter or cheese slicer to slice it into two blocks 3/8" thick.  The surfaces you create won't be perfectly flat and true, of course, but after mounting you use acetone to make it flat -- see the Rubber Stamp Blank page.  Result: you double the number of square inches of usable rubber in a MasterCarve package and thereby cut the cost per square inch in half.  You also make your rubber stamps less bulky.

There is another popular locally-available item for carving, and that's a large white eraser that's sometimes available at Dollar Tree:
Dollar Tree Eraser

These erasers are big, about 1-1/2" x 3" x 3/8" thick and come three to a package for a dollar.  They carve pretty nicely, similar to MasterCarve -- and, like MasterCarve, there are concerns about physical damage with fine details on the stamp surface.

In some stores these erasers come and go depending on the season; in other stores they seem to be available all the time. 

Right next to these on the rack are similar packages of erasers that are made of the same stuff but much smaller, eight to a package.  In general it's a better idea to get the larger erasers -- you can always cut them into smaller pieces.  But if you have a need for something that small, the little ones work.

Some people have also found something called a "Big Mistakes" eraser, basically a gag eraser that's huge.  There are at least two different types, one looking like a giant Pink Pearl eraser with tapered ends while the other is a simple rectangular shape.  Here's one this author found:
Big Mistakes Eraser

I can't really recommend this thing, even though it only cost $1.  For one thing, even though it's rectangular, it's not well-formed -- there isn't a truly flat side on it!  I ended up cutting some of the worst areas away, and then doing an acetone scrub (see the Rubber Stamp Blank page) to create a flat surface for carving.  The color is darker than I'd like, making it difficult to see an image while carving.  The rubber feels gritty, almost like there's sand in it.  It's rather tough to cut.  And it seems to crack easily if bent.  But for all this, I have to admit that the stamp I made came out fine and seems to be holding up well.

If you can't find any rubber locally, you can order rubber online from any of several arts and crafts supply companies.  In fact, you can get either Speedy-Stamp or MasterCarve in different shapes and sizes online.  You can get MasterCarve in 4" x 4" x 1/2" thick, which is a bit better than 3/4" thick but still not as thin as you'd like.  You can get Speedy-Stamp in a great big 6" x 12" sheet, and you can get MasterCarve in a great big 9" x 12" chunk (still 3/4" thick).  One big sheet is better than little sheets for a couple of reasons:  first, obviously the day you want to carve a stamp that's bigger than 4" x 6" square, you're going to need to find a big sheet.  But even if all you carve are regular size stamps, you can cut more of them from a large single sheet with less waste.

At the opposite extreme, you can get a box of 27 chunks of MasterCarve, each 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x 3/4".  Don't do that.  You'll just be forever frustrated at never having the size or shape piece of carving material you need.

Forget driving around town and just order some carving rubber online.  PZ Kut from Stampeaz is highly recommended, and the price is low enough that, even including the cost of shipping, it'll probably cost less per square inch than any good rubber you find locally.  PZ Kut is 1/4" thick and comes in either white or orange.  In general, people who carve rubber stamps with a gouge will prefer the white while razor knife carvers will prefer the orange.

The orange is really orange, obnoxiously orange, it hurts to look directly at it.  If you have some on hand, be sure to take it outside and look at it in daylight!  There's a purpose to the color, however: when you make a slit with a razor knife on the surface of white PZ Kut or Speedy-Stamp or MasterCarve, you can't see where you just cut.  The cuts are invisible unless you stretch the rubber a bit to open up the cuts.  But with the orange PZ Kut, the cuts are readily visible because they make the orange appear a lighter shade.  This can be really helpful, especially on extremely detailed designs where you're making zillions of cuts and can't remember which places you've cut and which you haven't.  The orange color does nothing for a gouge carver, though, because the gouge removes a sliver of rubber as it passes and leaves behind a groove that is difficult to see.

The Dollar Tree eraser provides a similar indication of where it's been cut -- but only if you shine a light on it from the right direction.  It's better than nothing, though; when you need to see where you've already cut, you can just move the stamp or the light around until it becomes visible.

The way a gouge carver will use white PZ Kut or any other white rubber is to first apply a uniform coating of a light-colored ink, such as orange or sky blue.  When carving with the gouge, a sliver of rubber is removed, leaving the bright white groove plainly visible against the ink-tinted surface of the rubber.  This method also works with the pink stuff or even the orange stuff, but white provides the best contrast.

If you're new to carving you probably don't know which carving style you will adopt yet.  You can't go too far wrong getting a piece or two of the white PZ Kut to start out because it can be carved well enough with a razor knife.  It's every bit as good as any other carving medium out there for carving with a razor knife with the exception of the orange PZ Kut.

The orange and white PZ Kut are available in a Grade B for a lower price if you're willing to work around some imperfections in the rubber.  The imperfections in the rubber can usually be cleaned up with acetone, as described on the Rubber Stamp Blank page.

Both white and orange PZ Kut are firmer than either Speedy-Stamp or MasterCarve.  They have also proven to be tougher and more resistant to physical damage than just about anything else used for stamp carving.  They cut smoothly and easily despite their firmness; the orange especially seems as though it has a lubricant built in so the razor knife slides smoothly without binding.

The orange PZ Kut has one other trait of note: a pencil won't write on it.  I generally only write on the rubber with a pencil to mark where I'm going to slice off a piece, but you can't even do that.  A standard ball-point pen writes on it just fine, though, and the ink can be rubbed off later.  If you really need to write on the rubber with a pencil -- say, for example, you draw your image with a pencil before carving -- you most definitely will not like orange PZ Kut for that work.  A pencil will write on the white PZ Kut well enough, but you'll probably like Speedy-Stamp much better for pencil drawing; you can write on the pink stuff with ease.

If all this is too many choices to think about, here's a great way to make up your mind:  Stampeaz offers a sampler pack of four types of rubber -- PZ Kut orange, PZ Kut white, MasterCarve, and Speedy-Stamp.  All of these are good products; you will be able to carve good stamps from all of the rubber in the package, and you won't be able to buy it cheaper individually.  Once you've used up that supply, you'll have a very good idea which type rubber you'd like to buy more of.

There's also E-Z-Cut from Blick (3/8" thick, white), which I have never used but others have reported satisfaction with.  Note that Blick also offers something called Soft-Kut (1/4" thick, gray).  I have tried Soft-Kut; it is horrible stuff to try to carve rubber stamps with, you're fighting with the knife constantly trying to get it to move through the rubber.

Don't purchase any linoleum products such as Nasco Softoleum.  Linoleum products are described as intended for "soft block printing", whatever that means, but it's certainly not a rubber stamp.  Linoleum is not suitable for rubber stamp carving.


FOAM

You'll need soft, squishy foam rubber between 1/8" and 1/4" thick.  Old mouse pads are perfect.  Another possible source of foam is kitchen cabinet liner material; you can buy enough to make a zillion rubber stamps for just a couple of bucks.  You can also use those foam pads intended for applying makeup, although that will limit the size of your stamps to about 1-1/2" x 2".  You need to be sure to find some good quality foam, because cheap foam can rot and fall apart with age.

I have made many stamps using "doorhangers", the colorful foam things you can buy at any Dollar store or the "Fabric and Crafts" department at Wal-Mart.  However, I no longer recommend using that stuff because it's really not soft and squishy enough.  You want a foam that will squish when you apply a reasonable stamping force on it.  The doorhanger foam will squish some but you have to push pretty hard, harder than should be necessary to make a good stamp impression.

Another possible source of suitable foam is foam insulating tape intended for wrapping pipes.  This stuff is black, 1/8" thick, 2" wide, and you can buy a 30-foot roll for a few bucks -- enough to make zillions of rubber stamps with some left over to perhaps wrap some pipes.  It's peel-and-stick on one side, but the stickiness isn't strong enough for stamp making, you'll need to apply glue anyway.  If 2" isn't wide enough for your stamp, you could simply apply two pieces side-by-side -- or you could use a mouse pad for this one and use the tape for the smaller stamps.

Note:  One brand of foam insulating tape is made by Armacell and is called AP/Armaflex.  I do not recommend this particular brand.  It works, but it's definitely not as nice as competing brands of similar tape.

In general, the bigger the stamp, the thicker the foam needs to be.  The foam is there to ensure that a stamper applying reasonable pressure will cause the entire surface of the rubber to be pushed into contact with the paper.  Presuming the stamping conditions aren't absolutely perfect -- the paper laid on a perfectly flat desk -- the foam needs to be soft enough and thick enough to get the job done.  Thin foam is usually adequate for stamps under 1" square, but if your stamp is 4" square it'll work better with thicker foam.  If all you have is thin foam, there's no rule that says you can't use two layers.


WOOD

You'll need a stiff, hard backing, which will serve to distribute stamping pressure across the face of the stamp as well as provide a handle for the stamper to grab it with.  The simplest idea:  Go down to Home Depot and buy one 1" x 2" oak board, one 1" x 3" and perhaps even a 1" x 4".  Or stop by a cabinet shop, furniture shop, or high school shop class and see what scraps you can pick up.  Cut pieces off these boards to make blocks suitable for stamps.  You might want to purchase a miter box or miter saw to make the saw cuts nice and straight; a miter box is cheap, less than $5, but a miter saw is better.  If you get a nice miter saw, you can use it to cut the block both ways to the exact dimensions needed rather than being limited to the board sizes.

Yeah, I said oak.  Really, any hardwood will do, but not softwoods such as pine.  Technically, pine might work, but when you're trying to cut the small blocks of wood you need for this job you'll find that it splits and splinters so much that you'll be throwing half of it out and the pieces you end up using won't look very good.  There are also reports of pine warping and splitting later, making it difficult to get a good image from the stamp.  Just go ahead and buy hardwood boards; the cost difference is minimal for the tiny amount of wood you'll be using.

If you're pressed for space inside a letterbox, the 1" boards (3/4" thick) might be too bulky for you.  You can use thinner material, but be aware that it'll make the stamp a bit less handy to grip and the stamper will be more likely to get ink on his fingers.  You also need to make sure that the material is stiff enough for the job.  Wood works well, any thickness from 1/4" on up, but make sure you get a piece that's flat and won't warp, split or crack with age or a bit of stress.  Good quality wood paneling (for wall covering) is often made of three layers of wood bonded together to form a sandwich about 1/4" thick, and one small leftover piece from a redecorating project is enough to make dozens of rubber stamps.  Sometimes the boxes that cigars come in are made of really fine plywood, three or five layers in less than a quarter inch of thickness.  I've even used blades from a ceiling fan; sometimes the fan comes with five blades and you only use four.  You can use metal if you have something suitable.  I happen to have a stock of 1/4" thick hard plastic which works well.

The hard backing is an opportunity to do something really nice and pretty.  You can use some really nice wood, walnut or cherry.  Or you can use some inlaid wood or some marquetry.  Sometimes you can find some old object made of nice wood that has some pretty design but is damaged or otherwise ready for the trash, and you can cut pieces out of it to use with your rubber stamps.  Clean them up, apply a new coat of polyurethane, whatever.  You could pay a trophy store to laser-cut a design in a piece of fine walnut for you -- perhaps the same design as the stamp itself!  Letterboxers don't usually go to this level of effort for a rubber stamp that ends up in a Tupperware container in the woods (and may turn up missing later on), but if you have other plans for your rubber stamp it's something to consider.


PRINTABLE LABELS

As you'll read on the labelling page, you may choose to apply a label to the back of your stamp.  You can buy sheets of label material that you can run through a printer and then peel-and-stick them onto things.  In this case you won't be running them through the printer, you'll be stamping images on them, but they still work fine.  You can buy labels in sheets of small labels in various sizes and shapes, but for this job you want the single big sheets that you cut to size.

Obviously, applying a stick-on label won't work if you've created a stamp with a knob or handle on the top.


CLEAR LAMINATION

After applying the label, you'll want to apply a clear cover over it to protect it.  The easy way is to just use a roll of 2" wide clear packing tape.

 If you happen to make any rubber stamps that are larger than 2" in both dimensions -- so the 2" wide clear packing tape won't get it -- you can pick up a package of Self Adhesive Laminating Sheets.  Avery makes a pack of ten 9" x 12" sheets (product number 73603), and Staples sells the pack for about $8.  This is enough to cover 120 3" x 3" stamps!


ACETONE

Acetone is a solvent.  You'll find it's very handy during the rubber stamp making process, so it's a good idea to have some on hand.

Acetone is the primary ingredient in fingernail polish remover, so you might already have some on hand.  If not, you can purchase acetone at any place that sells paint, including Wal-Mart, Lowe's, and Home Depot, in metal cans up to one gallon.  It's not expensive, and once you have some on hand you'll probably find it useful for other projects as well.

Acetone is highly flammable, and it's also no fun to breathe, so take appropriate precautions when using.




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