Always Be Circulating

June 19, 2012 10:57 AM

I occasionally like to stamp things (rubber stamps in ink on paper approximately the size of a dollar bill; I'll do a few dozen at a time). Does a device exist where I could feed lots of paper through and make a small ink stamp on each of them?

I'm not at the point of something messy or a small letter press, but I'm wondering if there are examples of obscure contraptions or homemade devices that I could look into. Thank you, good people.

posted by history is a weapon to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

A while back I played with using an ink jet printer to mark my Where's George bills by making a envelope template in word and cutting windows in a stack of 10 or 20 envelopes in the areas I wanted printed. Then it was just a matter of putting the bills in the envelopes and feeding them though the printer in a stack.

Honestly it wasn't THAT much faster then say hand stamping but it was neater and I found the printer ink to be a bit more durable then the stamp pad stuff.
posted by Captain_Science at 11:09 AM on June 19, 2012

A small letter press wouldn't get you automation anyhow -- you'd be printing a page at a time there too.

The obscure contraption that comes to mind for me is a postage meter. I don't know if one can find used, de-postal-ized postage meters though.
posted by mendel at 11:32 AM on June 19, 2012

Print Gocco is close, as is Yudu.

You will need to replicate the stamp onto the screens, but otherwise the end result is almost the same.
posted by hmo at 11:36 AM on June 19, 2012

You could build something like a hand-cranked Mimeograph, with parts scavenged from copiers or printers. There would be a fair bit of engineering and math involved to get the timings all right.

A simpler method (rather than trying to feed individual sheets) would be to lay out the sheets and construct something like a Rollagraph.

With some practice, you could just get really crazy fast with your single-sheet stamping, too!
posted by xedrik at 12:00 PM on June 19, 2012