Brodissime

I’ve been carving stamps for a couple years, mostly simple shapes and chunky letters. Tried a small “handmade” text stamp for tags—letters about 1/4 inch high—and the counters in the a, e, and o keep breaking out. The rubber between the outside and the counter gets too thin and just crumbles when I test-print. I’m using grey Speedy-Carve and a cheap lino cutter with the smallest gouge. Is this a material problem, a blade problem, or am I just asking too much of the size? How do you folks handle fine text without ending up with blob letters?

Oh, this is my favorite rabbit hole! Fine text is absolutely doable, but you have to treat the counter like a tiny island—if the channel around it is too wide, the island has no support. Have you tried carving the counters first, then working outward? I use a 1mm U-gouge for the outlines and a 0.5mm V to clean the shoulders. Also: are you undercutting? A slight bevel away from the letter gives the counter a thicker base. And Speedy-Carve is soft; pink erasers are worse. Firm gray linoleum or the harder rubber blocks hold tiny text better. What paper are you printing on? Too much pressure squashes soft rubber.

I’m pretty new to carving and this is exactly the thing that’s been tripping me up. I tried a tiny “thank you” stamp last week and the “a” turned into a dot with a ring around it. I thought it was just me! Question: when you say carve the counters first, do you mean cut the inside hole before the outside shape? I’ve been doing the outline first and then digging out the middle, and maybe that’s why I keep nicking the edges. Also, is there a minimum letter height you’d recommend for a beginner? I don’t want to keep wasting blocks.