01-28-2017, 10:40 AM
Anyone who has ever tried to stamp a tidy-looking inscription using loose hand stamps will understand the word “exasperation.” Lee Valley to the rescue with a Hand Stamp Spacing Guide. http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.as...3456,43461
Why would I want one? Here’s the story: I like to make small wooden gifts for people and often wrote the recipient’s name with the year and my initials someplace inconspicuous. A couple years ago I developed a persistent tremor in my dominant hand. Handwriting became impossible. I bought a set of hand stamps as an alternative, but struggled with consistent spacing and alignment. Woodworking suffered too: hand tools increasingly became an exercise in frustration and surprise; power tools became an unwise adventure.
About a year ago my problem was diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease. Bad news, but the better news is that some symptoms can be relieved with medication, at least for a while. That includes the tremor I experience. It took several months to get things under control, but now I can again do most things I used to do with hand tools. I am slowly regaining my confidence with power. However, the handwriting remains too chancy to try on a finished piece. Meanwhile, my sisters’ grandkids are having kids of their own, one after another it seems, and there are wooden toys to be made and inscribed.
So, I was delighted to see the Hand Stamp Spacing Guide appear in “What’s New?” on the Lee Valley website a few weeks ago. Got one in my next order, just in time for this little car for my nephew’s grandson.
The guide consists of a 6” rule with scales for 4 spacings and a magnetic slider that holds the stamp and slides on the rule. It works very well. The main complication I found came with stamping centered inscriptions. Getting them precisely centered required a little straight-forward process development. Glad I tried it out first on some scrap, though.
I blackened the impressions with India ink for visibility on the walnut. Any eruption around the impressions disappears with a few strokes of a very fine-set smoothing plane.
I also shimmed the slot in the slider that holds the stamp. My “3-mm” stamps have a shank a full 0.250” square or 6.35 mm. The slot measures 0.262” or 6.65 mm wide, more allowance than really needed for easy insertion and removal. I found it was still easy to use if I shimmed the opening with tape by a much as 8-mils to reduce variability in spacing.
BTW, the little car was largely a spokeshave project patterned after the classic Creative Playthings VW from the 1950s. My kids had some of these, produced, I think, in Finland in the 1970s. It’s a simple wood-shaping exercise, but I’m very happy and thankful to be doing anything back in the shop again. Every day’s a gift.
Why would I want one? Here’s the story: I like to make small wooden gifts for people and often wrote the recipient’s name with the year and my initials someplace inconspicuous. A couple years ago I developed a persistent tremor in my dominant hand. Handwriting became impossible. I bought a set of hand stamps as an alternative, but struggled with consistent spacing and alignment. Woodworking suffered too: hand tools increasingly became an exercise in frustration and surprise; power tools became an unwise adventure.
About a year ago my problem was diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease. Bad news, but the better news is that some symptoms can be relieved with medication, at least for a while. That includes the tremor I experience. It took several months to get things under control, but now I can again do most things I used to do with hand tools. I am slowly regaining my confidence with power. However, the handwriting remains too chancy to try on a finished piece. Meanwhile, my sisters’ grandkids are having kids of their own, one after another it seems, and there are wooden toys to be made and inscribed.
So, I was delighted to see the Hand Stamp Spacing Guide appear in “What’s New?” on the Lee Valley website a few weeks ago. Got one in my next order, just in time for this little car for my nephew’s grandson.
The guide consists of a 6” rule with scales for 4 spacings and a magnetic slider that holds the stamp and slides on the rule. It works very well. The main complication I found came with stamping centered inscriptions. Getting them precisely centered required a little straight-forward process development. Glad I tried it out first on some scrap, though.
I blackened the impressions with India ink for visibility on the walnut. Any eruption around the impressions disappears with a few strokes of a very fine-set smoothing plane.
I also shimmed the slot in the slider that holds the stamp. My “3-mm” stamps have a shank a full 0.250” square or 6.35 mm. The slot measures 0.262” or 6.65 mm wide, more allowance than really needed for easy insertion and removal. I found it was still easy to use if I shimmed the opening with tape by a much as 8-mils to reduce variability in spacing.
BTW, the little car was largely a spokeshave project patterned after the classic Creative Playthings VW from the 1950s. My kids had some of these, produced, I think, in Finland in the 1970s. It’s a simple wood-shaping exercise, but I’m very happy and thankful to be doing anything back in the shop again. Every day’s a gift.