Marly,

I attempted to carve POP like you have with your signature stamp but the end result wasn't satisfactory. The POP seemed too hard, or maybe I wasn't patient enough.

When I saw your foam stamp my first thought was to use a small glue gun tip or soldering iron to burn out the lettering after transferring to the foam. Have you tried this?

peak

Yes, Peak, I have used a soldering iron to melt the foam but the fumes are way too toxic for my liking! I might try it again in the summer when I can work outside with a fan blowing the smoke AWAY from me!! lol I want to get one of those knife tips for a soldering iron. I wonder if I could rig something up to get multiple use from my blades and my soldering iron. I'm thinking.. wire wrap tightly around a blade tip and the tip of the soldering iron. Of COURSE I'd do that when it was still COLD!! lol lol

Marly

Marly, Did you know that spray paint will melt your foam? Just cut letters out of painter's tape and stick on the foam and then spray away the exposed foam. I am liking your stamp idea!

Jo

Jo... I tried that idea on a scrap of foam AS SOON as I read that suggestion in another thread. I used an enamel spray paint and it didn't melt at all!!! I was so bummed out! What kind of spray do you use? And do you use this same type of foam that I have here? It sure would make things a lot easier to be able to just MELT away all the extra foam!

Marly

Your foam looks like a highly compressed foam, but it should work. Just your normal spray paint melts it. It has a solvent in it and I think it is acetone that causes this melting. Maybe your paint is a different kind? You can also use MEK. That stuff will melt any plastic, just be careful of it. Paint it on with a natural bristle brush cause it will melt plastic bristles. Does you paint contain acetone?

Jo

I don't know Jo... it only mentions that it contains 'petroleum distillates'. I'll pick up a small can of another type of paint and try it. I have a friend that has a vinyl letter cutting machine!!! If this paint works, I will have an unending source for the vinyl!! At least I HOPE I will! lol

Marly

Acetone is a petroleum distillate.

It's be interesting to have 'tufaneers zap a bit o' foam with some spray paint and report results.

peak

MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) is very toxic (as in, one tiny drop will blind you permanently). If you want to etch polystyrene foam use petrol/gasolene (quick) or turpentine (slow). Styrene itself is possibly a carcenogen, and is released by depolymerisation caused by dissolving it.

The pros all use hot-wires with chemical-proof face masks. You can't get the beautiful smooth finish with anything else (although I find a sharp box-cutter works ok if you pull the blade out full length and saw gently).

Also, these days you can get polypropylene foam, which is 'harmless' with a hot-wire (it breaks down to basically parafins and burns away), and isn't soluble in most solvents. I have never found a cheap supply of polypropylene foam so I can't comment on suitability for moulding.

Methyl ethyl ketone is really dangerous to use, but it is used in plastic glues so maybe even plastic model glue will work. I use to use MEK in industry and no one was very concerned. I am lucky to still be alive with all the chemicals I have played with.
Nathan, do you think the vapors giving off during a chemical melt will be carcinogenic? Even with turpentine? Or spray paint which is carcinogenic with the tolene in it anyway?
Marly, better keep the exacto but keep it away from your wrists! : )

Jo

Jo! LOL I think it will be safer to stick with the exacto too! I always cringe when this discussion gets started about toxins. Toxins scare me silly so I always try to err on the side of safety when I can.

Marly

Yeah, I wouldn't be too worried if you are working outside in the wind, but I wouldn't want to be using anything with styrene vapours indoors without protection. I suspect the answer is that we don't really know. Some lab rats didn't die when given a pile of styrene, and it's found in plants; but long term effects are very hard to study (was it the styrene? the asbestos from the old shed? too much wine? etc). The best we can do is look for correlations, and avoid exposing ourselves unnecessarily.

bump

Peak,
I have used the paintcan and styrofoam method and was happy with the results using standard stencil letters. Also did a nice "fossil" fern leaf using a fake fern leaf, spraypainting same and carefully transferring the paint from the fernleaf to the foam. One thing worth mentioning is that the solvent doesn't eat away the styrofoam evenly or smoothly, so expect a "lumpy" texture where this is used. I can't comment on the health risks other than to say that I didn't notice any fumes other than the usual from any spraypainting (bad enough!), and haven't noticed any physical or mental effe adj fnpaufhg [oaipfgh p9audsgh;i [u*)%uhfgp cts
Jeff

Great tutorial. Thanks for your patience. I've thought about stamping my planters a bit. After talking to a potter, I will be having a rubber stamp made. I can specify the depth of the letters. Some experimentation to come, of course. Just the same, I saved the tutorial to look at again!

I wish we could have a permanant link for your tutorials Marly! Right now we'll keep it in this mobile home for display! LOL

Still have to give this a try... Marly your tutorials are the BEST!!

Finally, I'm working on my website. It's commercial as I'm putting prices in, but DH says that I have space to use for technical info. Should I put Marly's tutorial there? The address could be something like: Bloomingstone.com/technicalfoamstamp. What do you think?
Mercedes

Mercedes, could you let me know a bit more of what you are thinking of doing with this tutorial? I'm not quite understanding what you mean.

Marly

Hi Marly,
The tutorial could live on a hidden page on my website. No falling off the forum and being lost. I'd make it hidden because I'm assuming that we'd all rather that someone coming to my site shouldn't be able to cruise on over to the technical information (*especially* because it's not my expertise that built that info). That's why I imagined that there would be a "/technical" end to the address. Web forum members could access it without going through my home page, as well.
If you want it, or anyway you could want this tutorial to be there, I could see if I can do it. This forum has given so much to me, I'd like to give a little back. If this seems like a bad idea, though, I'm cool with not hosting it.
Mercedes

Mercedes... I'm 'cool with it'! lol I understand a little better now. Would you be hosting the actual pictures in my tutorial or are you thinking of linking to Photobucket? I dont' know how they would handle that. But if you are planning to save my pics to your site, I'm ok with that too. I like the idea of my tutorials being saved somewhere else other than my site. If you could post a link to my MSN website that would be great. Maybe we should email about this from here on in? Send me an email from this site. Thanks for thinking of this! If you could save a bunch of everyones' tutorials, that would be fantastic.

All the best to you!

Marly

Marly
Could you describe your method. The link to the tutorial no longer works. Thanks.
Fleur

Marly, are the The Manic Sculptor Tutorials still available? I didn't see anything at the link. Thanks!

just visit acornsales.com and you will be served with ample number of stamping options.

Here is a link that might be useful: Xstampers stamps