Arbor press and name stamp?

[calharkins]

I bought a name stamp. The results I am getting with it are less that spectacular. I called the company back and talked to a guy. He said, oh that stamp is too big and that font is not good for marking. I said, well thats great, why did they send me that, I told them I was a newbie. He said, oh yea, we will remake it for you. Yea, and pigs are gonna fly sometime soon. I never got the new stamp. Surprise!

Any way, could an arbor press be used to press the stamp into the O-1 steel? Anyone got any other ideas? I hate to waste $90.00. That would buy a lot of steel and micarta .

Thanks in advance for your advise.
Cal

[chris moore]

call them back and complain. that's just bad business

[Teknition]

You left a some important info out that will allow people to give you some advice, for example what size hammer are you using, how big is the stamp, and how are you attempting to mark the steel. I assume you are trying to stamp the steel before it is hardened, if not you might as well forget it. Practice on some scrap steel until you get it to mark the way you want.

You can try a larger hammer, say a 3 or 4 lb maul, make sure the support under the blade is solid and has sufficient mass that it wont move or bounce, for example an anvil. If you still aren't happy with the mark you get you can chuck the stamp in an arbor press, hold some tension down on the stamp against the blade with the press and whack the top of the press shaft with the maul.

[DaveRuhlig]

My recommendation is get a BFH and watch your fingers! If you're stamping before HT you should be fine.
-Dave

[Ray Rogers]

I'm not sure but didn't you post about that stamp before you bought it? In that post, if I am correct, you said what the stamp would say and it seemed like a lot of text. That seems right considering they guy said the stamp was too large. The more detail there is in the stamp the more difficult it will be to get a good impression.

The others have been telling you about annealed steel, if it's annealed it will stamp more easily. True enough, but O1 won't be all that co-operative even if annealed. Most smiths do their stamping while the blade is hot. That's the only time the steel is soft enough to make stamping even remotely easy and it isn't all that easy even then. Plus, you only get one shot at it.

An arbor pres isn't going to solve that problem either except that it will give you a safer way to hold the stamp while you hit it really, really hard with a really, really big hammer. How many times to you figure that stamp will survive that kind of abuse? Not many. Putting that stamp in my 25 ton hydraulic press wouldn't make a clean impression in cold steel.

In summary then, your stamp is probably too large and complicated (spreads the force across too much area) and you need to try it with the steel hot. Aside from that, I think you also said in your other post that you weren't interested in electro-marking. I think you are starting to see why most of us use it rather than a stamp ........

[calharkins]

Ray, the post you are referring to is before I decided to make my own blades. The steel has not been heat treated. The stamp says "C.R. Harkins" in a script type print. The letters are about 1/8 inch high and the stamp is about .72 inches long. I have been using a 3 pound hammer. I guess I could heat the blade and then try to stamp it. Wish I had gone to the electro-etch. Looks like I still may .

[Ray Rogers]

OK, I wasn't even sure that other post was yours but sounds like it was. Your stamp doesn't sound as large as I first thought but, even so, you can see stamping is not easy. It just gets harder as the stamp gets bigger.

You may also know that Randall knives are made from O1 and their logo is stamped deeply into the blade AND it's a fair sized mark. I've never seen them do it but I have seen the marks and the only way I can imagine that mark being made is in hot steel with a hydraulic press.

Don't feel bad if you decide to get an electro etcher. You may want one even if you get the stamp working. The etcher is just sooooo much more flexible and simple to deal with. And, a good etch isn't much easier to remove than most stamped marks ....

[Pete Parsons]

cal,

I got tired of trashing 25%-30% of my blades because I couldn't hot stamp perfectly on the first and only try.

if you are handy enough, try a jig that will use a 3 ton bottle jack in a closed system similiar to a hydraulic forging press. Hard to explain...see pic attached. Make sure the steel is annealed. Place annealed blade on the "anvil" and pump the jack handle. Takes a little practice (it's easy to make the stamp too deep and crack the steel) and some common sense safety precautions (goggles, etc), but with a little practice on some scrap...even a large stamp will give a very good impresssion.

I used a bottle jack press for awhile with good results then I bought an etching system when I started making folders. Ray is right...you can't beat the etcher in my opinion.

Ray is also wrong...putting a name stamp in a 25 ton press will make an incredible impression in cold steel...then it will go through the steel, start to bend, shatter and send chunks of the name stamp at you hard enough to hit you in the chest and knock you down...ask me how I know

I hope this helps.


-Pete
www.ParsonsMontanaKnives.com



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