Creative stamping 101

LESSON ONE
Introduction to tools and rules
I am going to start with the recommendation that you go to www.paintingcow.com and order (if you don’t al-
ready have it) the “Designing with Stamping Tools Home Study Course -- Lesson One Tools and Fundamen-
tals”. I cannot offer you a better foundation for creating and tooling stamping designs than what is offered in
that lesson. You will need the information covered in that lesson to better understand what I will be teaching
you in these classes. You might call it the “school book” for this free class.

In this free class I will not go into great detail about creating designs. What this class will be about is the pro-
cedures for completing designs. Of course, you can use what you learn to create other designs, but the funda-
mentals of good design will only be touched on throughout these lessons.

In order to get you started and to give you a hint as to the benefits of having those instructions I offer the fol-
lowing exert from that course as the beginning lesson of Creative Stamping 101 of the Paul Burnett Free
School of Leather Ornamentation.

Layout Tools
The main key to developing a good design is accuracy. Sometimes this is hard to accomplish just free-
wheeling it. You will need to carefully layout the design. This will require some special tools. This tools
are not expensive and can be acquired from any store that sells school supplies. There is one except….
Wing-dividers. You can purchase inexpensive divider but they often will not hold their dimension. So, it
is better to invest a little money and get a good tool. Leather suppliers and hardware stores sell them.

Here is a list of the tools that you will find useful. Let us look at these tools to see how they might be used.

Wing-dividers have multiple uses. It is the best thing I have found for determining the center line of a belt
strip. You will also use them to set the dimensions of repeat tool impressions. You can also mark border
lines with them.

Pocket ruler are suggested because they are small. I use them mainly for measuring the width of my tools
and measuring short distances and for setting my wing-dividers. Of course, if the need arises for longer
measurements you can always use a longer ruler.

Compasses are used for laying out circles….usually large one. I use a circle template to layout smaller
circles.

Protractors are used to find angles. These are used mainly in circle designs.

The stylus is use to make layout marks and perhaps a short straight line...in that case you will use it with a
straight edge of some kind. Could be a triangle, whatever size you need, or your ruler or another template
edge.

A Cheap T-square is used mainly to insure that impressions stay in proper alignment. If you have to work
within a box they come in handy along with Triangles. I use them mostly when doing belts or straps. I
buy a plastic one and cut it off at the 4 inch mark. This not only makes it easier to work with but I have
found that there is not much need for straps wider that 4 inches.

Throughout this course I will always explain which of these layout tools will be required and how you are
to use them.
 Making Good Impression
Your first concern will be the moisture content of the leather….which I refer to as leather humidity. In stamp-
ing work the way we moisten the leather is a little different from the way it is done in traditional carving. In
carving leather it is important to have moisture in the core of the leather piece to be tooled. In stamp work it
is best to have the core free of moisture and only the top grain wet. In traditional carving you want to wait
until the leather returns to its natural color before tooling. In stamp work impressions are best made in wet
leather. Therefore, you only want to put enough water on the leather to wet the top grain and begin tooling
right away. Should it start to dry out apply a little more but not so much that the core gets wet….just enough
to wet the top grain. The amount of moisture that is applied to leather also depends on the thickness of the
leather to be tooled. To moisten a 9/10 ounce strap will take more water than a 3 ounce wallet back.

Stamping impressions are usually made with a great deal of force by the mallet. In thick leather this will
sometimes cause the edge of the impression of raise a bit by the force of the tool cutting into the leather. This
is good in most cases. What you don’t want to have is leather that is so dry that it presses down the leather
before making the impression. That is why we have only the top grain wet. You need the core dry so that it
will resist the tool a bit and stop at the core. If you have a difficult time understanding this then do this ex-
periment. Wet just the top grain and make an impression with one good strike of the mallet. Wet it again put-
ting enough water to get the core wet as you would if you were going to carve it with a knife. Wait for it to
come back to its natural color again and let it dry a bit more, then make your impression and you will see that
it causes the leather to recess some before making the impression. The impression will probably not be as
deep. This can also cause problems when dying the project.

You want to make deep impressions. Of course, when you are tooling thin leather great care must be used to
prevent it from weakening the leather or making a hole in the leather. You will discover that it is much easier
to tool thick leather than it is thin. Normally a tool is held straight up and down in order to get the full
impression of the tool. On certain occasions you my wish to lean the tool, either to one side or the other or
away from you or towards you to make a partial impression.

In traditional carving many tooling processes are done by walking the tool. When walking a tool, you cannot
have any downward pressure on the tool or it will not walk. The opposite is true with stamping. You need to
apply downward pressure with the hand holding the tool as you strike it in with the mallet in order to keep it
from bouncing and making double impressions. Do not make repetitive light strikes with the mallet, but one
firm strike once you are sure your tool is placed correctly.

In most cases you will want your impressions to connect in the recessed areas. In many cases this connect-
ing point will be your key to keeping impression in proper alignment. Sometimes they may just barely touch.
The only time you will want the impressions to be disconnected is perhaps when making a string of matching
impressions and you will need to make a minor adjustment to keep them symmetrical. (I will discuss this in
the “Borders” section of this lesson).
Try to keep the recesses on the same level.
Connect your impressions Not like these examples

A good Impression

Especially in the recesses

(I made upper impression light for clarity)

But like this
 VISUAL CONFIRMATION

The next important key is to visually confirm the When working against a border or
center line make sure that the
placement before striking the tool. Once struck, you corners of the tool are aligned and
have to live with it and sometimes that will mean that equal distance from the border or
centerline.
it can not be corrected or disguised. I have on occa-
In this case the first im-
pression was slightly off
the centerline, the next
followed. When opposing
impression were con-
nected the were off center

sion created a new design disguising a stamping er-

ror, so it’s not all bad, sometimes. One of those
“happy accidents” previously mentioned.

Make sure that impression line up You will often happen to

visually...center over center. If you visually check both the
are not properly aligned your nega- front and back of a tool in
tive space becomes distorted and order make your impres-
will spoil your design. sion correctly.

VISUALLY CHECKING THE BLIND SPOTS

In a lot of cases you will have to make visual confirmations side to side and front to back...in
other words…. Check the tools placement at several different points. Often times the design
will allow you to check an impression with a very light imprint, sometimes just with a light
pressure with the hand. This can only take place if the lighter impression will disappear once
the final impression is made. This type of check is very important when trying to align some-
thing up over a point where the layout mark is concealed by the placement of the tool. I call
this visually checking the blind spots.

Another helpful hint, is to mark your tools center points so that you can get better alignment
when the tool is to be centered over a point. This will not be necessary for all your tools but
the ones that are used over center point and lines. You will discover those tools as you pro-
gress through this course. I will point them out to you. Some tools have a visual center point
so they will not need to be marked.

In many cases you will not be able to use guide lines

because there will be no way to make them disap-
pear. Therefore you will have to depend on your
ability to visually align with only your eyes. I call
You can make light impressions with slight hand pressure to
find the correct placement of the tool. I may take you several
attempts to find just the right placement. Once found you can
then strike for final impression and usually the previously im-
pression will disappear. This works over dots as well as lines.

this measuring with your eyes. A good example of

this is running a border with a veiner.

Mark tool center line on tool

Side views of G538

I have found it a good idea to mark the center lines of my tools

in some way that I can know its location. Some I mark of the
top of the tool face and others are marked on the side of the
tool face, some are mark both places.
 CREATING A PROPER LAYOUT

A vital key, and possibly the most important, is creating a proper layout. What is essen-
tial in this process is an experimental piece. I cannot stress the importance of working out
your design on a scrap piece of leather before attempting a particular project…..even when
you are working from a design that has already been worked out for you such as you will find
in this course. You need to get the feel of the design and how the tools work. Your tool might
not be the same exact dimension as another of the same manufacturer and number, much less
different manufacturers. Many tools are hand made and therefore vary in dimensions. In
every case throughout this course you will be told how to make the proper layout, but you will
still have to determine that that layout will fit with your tools and make any correction to the
layout that determination my reveal. The time to do that is on a practice piece….not your
project!

One final caution. Layout lines should not remain in your final design. Always make your
layout line light. I might also add they are made when the top grain is the wettest. If you let
the leather return to its natural color you can very well burnish in a layout line….actually
change the color of the leather….therefore never able to make it disappear.

The only sure way to know where to place you tools in a com-
plex design is to work it out on an experiment piece of leather.
By doing this you can know your dimensions and have refer-
ences for setting the wing divider for multiple impressions.

I will explain how I worked out this design so that you will get a
better idea of what I am talking about. Then you should try
it of a 4 1/2” x 1 1/2” piece of leather.

I made a light center line, then mark the center of that line.
Using my circle template I marked the four 90 degree marks of
a 7/8” circle as that is what I need for the V708 to make a cir-
cle. I knew that the D606 was 7/16” wide so the set my wing
dividers at half that distance (7/32”). Next I placed one side of
V412 in the V708 impression and using my preset wing divid-
ers, I determined where the other side of the V412 would be at
7/32” on the center line. This told me the correct placement of
the D606 where the V412 would interconnect with it. I then
connected another V412 reversed impression to connect to the
center line. I now have all the dimensions I need in order to
make repeat layouts along a belt or strap.

In the next lesson we will develop and complete a belt pattern.