How to Make a Maker Stamp for Leatherworking

@coloneldan, it’s not real complicated:
The stamp was cut into the end of a Delrin Rod (scrap ends ordered off of eBay). I got 1.75" X 5-6" long pieces.

Design stamp in Adobe Illustrator: will need to cut this on the ThunderLaser since it is only laser with adjustable bed. Starting with AI makes things easier: I had poor luck importing the curved text from my initial design efforts in Inkscape.

I used a 12 pt font for my name, slightly larger for “Maker”.

Make image a large black circle (2"+) with white text. My stamp was about 1" x 1.3" inside that black circle. A ratio of 1.6:1 would be closer to the “golden mean” and might be more aesthetically pleasing. YMMV.

Important: You need to mirror the image before printing. Should end up something like this:

Plan to raster the image (not vector). I think Thunder S/W uses “scan” and “cut” nomenclature respectively. I used 20% for power and 400 for speed (FWIW, @Webdevel used 20/500).

I used a woodworking 2-screw clamp to hold the rod vertically. Used a small spirit level to check that top was level. Had to lower bed quite a bit to set laser height properly.

I used the “frame” option to manually place the “home” so that stamp would end up centered on the end of the rod. Got close enough, but not perfect. If the Thunder had a Center Home option rather than upper left, that’d make centering much easier, but I used what I already knew rather than digging through the manual.

Took about 11 minutes to raster out the image.

I then used a Dremel to taper the rod edges back from the stamp - this prevents the round edge of the rod from becoming part of the stamped image. Got pretty close to the outer rim of the oval.

The Delrin leaves a powder residue when cut on the laser, so a good wash/scrub cleaned it up pretty easily.

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