Rubber Stamps Home

You have those great rubber stamps you use to create your art, but have you ever wondered how they’re made? It’s an interesting process, and could give you a deeper appreciation for your craft.

The first step in creating rubber stamps is for an artist to draw a design. In order for stamps to be economical many designs are combined so that as many stamps as possible fit on a single sheet. They are arranged so that there is enough room left between the images to allow for trimming. This sheet is then photographed to make a film negative. This photograph is made into a metal plate called a master. This master is made by etching the metal. This etching can be done by the manufacturer or sent to an engraver who uses chemicals to remove material to whatever depth the manufacturer needs. The deeper the etch is, the farther away the surface of the stamp is from the base where it is mounted. Sometimes these are called “deep etch” stamps.

Once this master plate is made, it’s placed in a vulcanizer with a piece of rubber used to make molds from the etched master plate. Heat and pressure are applied which softens the rubber. The softened rubber makes a negative or reversed image of the metal plate and is called a matrix board.

Rubber used to make the final stamp that you get at the craft store is cut off of a roll and trimmed to match the size of the matrix board. The matrix board and this cut rubber, separated by a release sheet, are then placed in the vulcanizer and heat and pressure are again applied. This rubber also softens and takes on the images in the matrix board, which produces rubber stamps that will create an image that exactly matches what the artist drew. Once process is finished, you have a sheet of unmounted rubber stamps. From there the stamps are trimmed either by hand or a saw, and mounted – if that’s what was planned for them.

To mount the stamps, mounting foam is applied to the back of the rubber stamps, and then they are attached to a wooden block. A stamp is “indexed” by using a copy of the stamp or a printed sticker with the image of the stamp, which is then placed on the top of the block to let the crafter immediately know what the stamp will look like. From there it’s sent to the store, and you can get it and use it to your heart’s content.