looking for laser engraving onto rubber stamps?

[Rodney Gold]

Laserbits in the USA sell sheets of stamp rubber , as does Trodat/Trotec (europe based)- You get 2 grades , the laser friendly variety and the cmmon garden variety

Engraving rubber stamps with a laser is , imho , a not so profitable business , it’s slow , its messy , it’s smelly and there is a lot of work involved to make one stamp which cant be sold for enough money to justify it. The polymer based systems are far cheaper for multiple stamps than the laser can be. We have 6 lasers and in the 8 yrs I have been doing lasering , I have done a handful of stamps for ourselves only.
Perhaps things are different where you are in terms of profitability.

[Kevin Flowers]

John
you can get the sheet rubber from Grafityp ad on UKSB home page.

Kev

[Vitor Brito]

quote Rodney Gold:

Perhaps things are different where you are in terms of profitability.

I can’t know for sure how are things in UK, but at least here i think rubber stamps are hugely overpriced, (which i don’t regret) :lol1:
i started to only answer to customer requests without any AD or stamp shown in the shop, but shortly found that i could make a lot of money with each rubber sheet. Yes it’s a bit messy(not that much if you use air assist (fullpower and full extraction), yes you have to clean the laser parts after each job complete ( i always engrave a few at a time),

i made an arrangement with a few stationery/bookstores around here, and the end of each day i’ll engrave their rubber’s then clean machine to start with clean machine in next morning.
I wouldn’t buy a laser only for doing stamps, there are loads of other less expensive machines to do that but i already had purchased and this way i’m actually just filling the space that regular engraving doesn’t fill, and making money from that otherwise empty times. I’ve given this a bit of thought and for a small shop that doesn’t have all the time fullfilled for engraving like probably Rod’s company, yes it is a very nice(profitable) way of filling that time, if i get enough engraving to other materials then maybe instead of buying another expensive laser, then i might think in buying another machine for stamps and unload the laser for those jobs.

My 0.2p

Vitor Brito

P.S. I buy my rubber sheets from Local Trodat Suplier

[Martin Forsyth]

I have been making a few rubber stamps here and there.

It is smelly, and messy, but I find it ok.

Just clean your laser afterwards!