Making seal stamps
When making a seal stamp, I follow a certain procedure involving a chain of software tools, followed by 3d printing, post-processing, and finally using the stamp. This procedure is explained here at the example of a Shackles seal used in my Shackles Letter of Marque, but the procedure is always the same.
1. Get a picture of the seal and open it in GIMP. I started with a picture of the symbol of the Shackles:
2. For the next steps, you have to obtain a black-and-white version of the seal. After a lot of image manipulation in GIMP, I got this result:
3. Export the image to PNG and import it in Inkscape. Use the function to trace a bitmap to obtain a path:
4. Export to SVG and import it in blender. There the path is converted to a mesh, it is cleaned, extruded, and the cylindrical base is added. Finally, and very important, flip the whole model "horizontally', or the seal will be the wrong way around, and stamped text will be mirrored!
5. Export to STL and prepare it for printing with your preferred slicer. I use Chitubox which came with my Creality LD002R resin printer. The printed seal looks like this:
6. Mount the printed stamp on a cork (or other cylindrical object of the same diameter) with hot glue. After that, it is ready to stamp!
7. Use sealing wax and follow the instructions of the product. Unlike a metal seal stamp, my resin seal stamp does not carry away the heat of the wax very well, so it takes longer to cool down. After pressing the stamp into the hot wax, I let it cool down for several minutes before carefully removing the stamp. If all works well, the result should look like this:
1. Get a picture of the seal and open it in GIMP. I started with a picture of the symbol of the Shackles:
2. For the next steps, you have to obtain a black-and-white version of the seal. After a lot of image manipulation in GIMP, I got this result:
3. Export the image to PNG and import it in Inkscape. Use the function to trace a bitmap to obtain a path:
4. Export to SVG and import it in blender. There the path is converted to a mesh, it is cleaned, extruded, and the cylindrical base is added. Finally, and very important, flip the whole model "horizontally', or the seal will be the wrong way around, and stamped text will be mirrored!
5. Export to STL and prepare it for printing with your preferred slicer. I use Chitubox which came with my Creality LD002R resin printer. The printed seal looks like this:
6. Mount the printed stamp on a cork (or other cylindrical object of the same diameter) with hot glue. After that, it is ready to stamp!
7. Use sealing wax and follow the instructions of the product. Unlike a metal seal stamp, my resin seal stamp does not carry away the heat of the wax very well, so it takes longer to cool down. After pressing the stamp into the hot wax, I let it cool down for several minutes before carefully removing the stamp. If all works well, the result should look like this: