Fauxstage Stamp
38 mm x 60 mm Color laser printed on Tromark dry gummed paper Created for the 2022 Portland Correspondence Coop Artistamp exchange. Approximately 40 people participated and the work deserves a page all of its own. So, I made one.
This design was meant to push the limits of precision when laser perforating stamps made on a consumer grade laser printer. |
Fauxstage Stamp Sheet 8 1/2" x 11" Color laser printed on Tromark dry gummed paper The main takeaway from this project is that the position of the image on a sheet printed in a consumer-grade laser printer varies enough from sheet-to-sheet that each sheet must be manually registered in the perforating fixture. Or at least it must be for designs requiring the level of precision here.
The upper left and lower right blocks on the sheet served as sacrificial test locations. The sheet was perforated along the top-most rows and left-most columns of printed perfs. The variation of the laser cut perfs from the desired location was noted and the sheet position adjusted accordingly. Then the next row and column were perfed. This process was repeated until the laser perfs coincided a closely as possible to the printed perfs. On this sheet, the fourth time was the charm. The scorching in the test perf areas is an artifact of the laser perforating fixture having be designed and built prior to deciding to use these areas for testing. None of the actual stamps have significant scorching from the laser. |
Perforating fixture Laser cut tempered (smooth both sides) Masonite The sheet must be stood off the laser bed at least 1/4" in order to prevent laser reflections from marring the back of the sheet. Here, the sheet stands off about 1/2" from the Masonite base of the fixture. The sheet is supported only in areas that will not be perforated. Note the various weights used to keep the sheet from moving due to the exhaust fan in the laser. Small magnets are embedded in some of the sheet supports. |