Stamping 1. Stamping

BAEL LEATHER SCHOOL
Sep 4, 2018 · 5 min read

Stamp is to press logo or initials on the leather. In Korea, it is often called as ‘Bulbak’.

You can brand the leather with heat and pressure, and you can add a variety of stamp such as gold and silver foil.

There are many kinds of stamping machines.

There is the one that attached the stamp on the iron with low price and there is also expensive stamp matching that is used in the factory.

This is Gilbert, who is a craftsman in stamping

I’ve seen the service at the headquarters of Louis Vuitton in Paris to stamp the customer’s initials. It was very impressive that they carefully checked and stamped the font, color, font size and position.

I told him that I came to Firenze to study the leather craft and he tried to tell me about many things. But he couldn’t speak English, and I couldn’t understand French.

I thought that it was wonderful to see that he was working hard and his professionalism was recognized.

It was a while, but it was a worthwhile experience.

If you are going to have stamping machine in a small workroom, you need to consider the size.

Of course, temperature control should be basically constant.

The stamping machine in the photo is Kingsley. It is made in USA.

It originally made for the purpose of stamping on the paper, but many leather workrooms use this in Korea since it has a lot of fonts, very classical and there is no problem in using it for the leather. It is now discontinued, so you need to buy the used one. Due to its scarcity and discontinuity, and its beautiful font and antique looks, it is trading with quite expensive price.

As a result of my experience, the accuracy of scale is not that good since the model is old and the product is a little distorted, but it is good to have analog sensitivity. It was less elaborate than the clear one, but I liked the naturally stamped one. If I have a chance, I will tell you about Korean stamping machines.

As shown in the photo, you can stamp using gold foil.

In other words, you can cut the gold foil regularly, place it on the desired side, and press the lever like you do for general stamp.

The temperature should be moderate so that gold and silver fold are not crushed and beautifully stamped.

The temperature should also be adjusted according to the leather. Temperature should be low for the vegetable type leather that is dyed with vegetable oil and temperature should be relatively high for the chrome type leather that is dyed with chemicals.

I usually set in in about 5 for temperature and test on the leather patch first to adjust the temperature again.

You can stamp the letters by combining the fonts.

We can find the desired letter in the font set and combine them in Kingsley stamping machine.

This combination of fonts is very useful when you stamp customer’s initials in customized products.

If you have your own product logo, you can ask for making one that fits the stamping frame to mold production shop. I will tell you about the process to create and stamp a logo in the next chapter.

Then, shall we stamp the simple letter of combination now?

Set the position of reference line with black guide in the photo.

Center it and press it with the lever. For reference, you can check temperature with the needle that moved to the right enough on the round gauge(over 250).

It was stamped without using gold foil. Because of the nap on the chrome leather, the stamping is not clear.

It is stamped with gold foil.

Sometimes it is good to just stamp, and sometimes it is better to use gold or silver foil depending on the leather.

For the suede type leather, it is better to use gold and silver foil to have clearer stamping.

And if you want to reduce the mistakes, it is better to stamp small parts such as pocket or band rather than the large area. This will allow you to work without much loss.

Or you can stamp a separate leather patch and connect it to the main body.

If you use stamping, you can feel more like your own bag and small goods.

And if you give it as a gift, it will look more sincere.

Bring the vitality to your leather works with stamping now.

But, please be careful not to stamp too many because it is fun to you.

BAEL LEATHER SCHOOL

Written by

Participating in the work of leather crafts, writing and lecturing at BAEL Leather School after completing 'La Scuola Del Cuoio' in Italy.

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