DIY 3D-Printed Ink Stamps
Learn how to design, model and 3D print your own custom ink stamps!
My adventures in 3D printing have taken me from DIY cookie cutters to the next logical place: DIY 3D-Printed Stamps. As an avid crafter, I am beyond excited about my newfound ability to make customized crafting tools using the 3D printer.
Making 3D-printed stamps is not as simple as designing a model and hitting "print." In order to imitate the rubbery material of a stamp itself, as well as the wooden handle, I needed to use two kinds of filament. For the handle, I used regular ABS, which is a hard plastic and common 3D-printing material. For the stamp, I used a special flexible filament called NinjaFlex. This rubbery material is perfect for printing flexible or softer objects. Given the inherent qualities of the material, it requires a specific extruder for your printer. Here at SparkFun we use LulzBot 3D printers, so I picked up their special FlexyStruder Tool Head. If you are thinking about buying a new tool head for your LulzBot printer to interface with flexible materials, I would actually recommend the Aerostruder Tool Head as it can print both felxible materials, like NinjaFlex, and normal hard plastics like ABS/PLA.
I had to work through a few small challenges in this project. The first issue I encountered was the natural texture of the 3D print on the stamp face. The grooves between the fine lines held on to the ink, and when I would press the stamp to paper, the texture came through clear as day. In order to combat this, I came up with a surface melting technique. I put my clothing iron on high, covered it with a piece of parchment paper, and pressed the face of my stamp against the iron face through the parchment paper. This effectively removed the linear texture from the stamp and offered a smooth surface. I lightly sanded the surface to give it a bit of tooth to hold onto the ink.
I also found that using a 100 percent infill for the rubbery part of the stamp gave it a stronger structure that was easier to work with when using it in practice. With a 20 - 50 percent infill, the stamp was kind of wobbly when I pressed it against paper, and I was getting results that were not as sharp as I hoped. With the higher infill, the stamp was more rigid and stable against the paper and the results were crisp.
I have so many ideas for different stamps I can barely pick which one to make next. Let us know what you think about this project in the comments below!
Interested in learning more about at-home 3D printing? Check out SparkFun's 3D printers and supplies.
