Stamping on Stainless Steel - Tips & Tricks
Stamping on stainless steel is a popular trend right now. Many people are getting crafty by stamping on stainless flatware and ask us for our tips and tricks all the time. We are here to help!
We carry letter sets (uppercase, lowercase, and numbers) that are rated for stamping on stainless steel. We also carry metal design stamps for stainless steel for you to embellish your projects.
Keep these things in mind when stamping on stainless steel:
- You can't tell how well the piece will take to stamping until you dive in. In our experience, blades of knives (even butter and cheese knives) are often way too hard to stamp. You should be okay on most handles of utensils and bowls of spoons.
- You must ONLY stamp with stamps that are rated to impress on stainless steel. If you try to stamp with stamps that aren't manufactured (hardened) specifically for hard metals, you will completely ruin (flatten) your stamp. Stamps should say in the title or description that they are approved to stamp on stainless.
- You will have the most success stamping on things with a nice flat surface. Tape that surface down and brace any long handles into place. If the piece isn't resting flat against the bench block, it will bounce and result in a shadowed impression.
- If stamping on a something that will be used with food or drink, don't use ink or oxidizing products to add black to the impressions. You don't want to ingest that. It's harder to read the words without that blackness, but it still looks great!
If you haven't seen it already, check out our All About Metals guide that highlights the differences between the many kinds of metals used to make jewelry and why it is important to use stamps rated for stainless steel when working with this metal.
