3D Stamp

Group Members

Lexi Aggen (Lead Designer)
Gwen Han (Lead Writer)

First Design Iteration

After much brainstorming and having a hard time thinking up a good idea for what we wanted to create, we finally decided to make a stamp of the JMU logo. The difficult part was not making the main piece (the stamp) on Tinkercad, but the anticipated issue of finding something to apply to the logo that would make the ink stay on and transfer to paper when stamped, as the printing filament tends to absorb the ink rather than stamp it.

We started by designing the stamp. We kept it simple by putting some basic shapes together and made them purple for school pride. We had to get the JMU logo onto the stamp by importing a picture of it from an online converter, converting it from a JPG to a SVG. When the image downloaded we applied the handle and base to the top of the logo, so that when it printed the logo would print backwards. It needed to be backwards so when ink is applied and used as a stamp it will print the right way.

What’s a little concerning is how the intricate details of the logo will print out. Because our product has to be small, it may be a little difficult for the printer to accurately print such small details. If it does not print how we would like, we could find a simpler JMU logo. We could also make it a little bigger but still small enough that we don’t have to use up too much filament. Other than that, printing the other part of the stamp should be fine because it’s a simple design.

We’re planning to use acrylic paint on the bottom of the stamp on the logo. We might have to use something else as our coating if the acrylic paint doesn’t do its job of temporary grabbing the ink to properly transfer onto paper. Finding something that will do the job will be the tricky part of making this stamp if the acrylic coating doesn’t work. Our second option is currently a putty of some sort that dries or something completely different. We’d have to possibly test out a few options for this more difficult part. As for the ink, we can just buy an ink pad since we can’t print out ink.

 

First Draft Print

As we were printing our design on the Ultimaker, we ran into more problems than we anticipated. As we were getting ready to print our first draft, we realized our design was a little too big. It would’ve taken four and a half hours for the stamp to print. So, we made it a bit smaller to use less filament and less time. We were also concerned about the size of the letters on the bottom of the stamp as it might be too long. We had to make sure it wasn’t going to snap because the length of the letters itself might be too fragile. To fix the potential problem we were going to make the letters only two millimeters long. As our first draft was printing, we realized that the nozzle was not touching the surface of the platform. We tried making the design a little bit larger and making a raft (two layers of filament as a base) to correct the issue. But that did not work because the intricate details of the stamp ended up printing very messy (as shown in the pictures below). Although we loved our current design on the stamp we had to change it to a simpler design to hopefully be able to print cleaner.

 

Iterating the Design

We decided to go with a simple “JMU” logo instead of the complicated design. We had little bit of trouble accessing the lab so we had to print our design in Carrier’s 3D lab.  We finally printed our design and expected good results, but our print ended up looking tangled. The logo looks melted and the base where it connects looks very messy because the filament didn’t have anything to stand on. For our next print, printing it from the base to the logo would be the better move. We will keep modifying our design until it prints out perfect!

Final Print

This time around we made the handle into a gradual shape and printed the stamp for the final time. We used the second test print that we made to see if the logo would print properly to see if the acrylic would work. We were worried that the acrylic paint would be a problem in making the ink stick, but it actually worked in making the ink stick to the JMU outline. We also had to use a nail file to even out some spots on the logo that the filament had come up during  the printing process. At last we had our finished product after multiple failed attempts at printing a useable stamp. The ink had dried out some so the ink when stamped on paper doesn’t show as bold as it should, but the product itself and the ink on the paper when stamped looks neat! The process was a little bit of a pain (waiting time, failed attempts, size issues) but was definitely worth it.

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 Finished product!

Thingiverse Link:  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2578569

Tinkercad Link: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/kfxWDBuuDCO-jmu-stamp/editv2?sharecode=b_HyuPLQVKCYV46YfCuZdBsUo285NLhlmVBuJAD4iso=