Over the weekend, Hugh found himself in posession of a wood pile, a sharp object, a little time and a Museum of London book. Always a dangerous combination. He’s turned into a stamp making machine.
Hugh has done his own write-up with a stack of photos on his group’s forum here.
Here's a couple of examples. This pair together were about 2 hours' work.
Stamped decoration for a leather girdle.
Click on either photo or here to go to the full set of stamp photos.
Hugh and I both use Australian hardwood for our stamps, Europeans and Americans can use a close-grained hardwood like ash. I’ve found American Oak to be too open and ended up with the imprint of the end-grain on the leather.
Give it a go, it doesn’t take long and you may enjoy it.
The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather 
cool! thank you 🙂
That is quite excellent and enlightening guys!
Nice work! What was your chosen sharp object? It’s funny, you know, but with the huge pile of wax carving tools I possess, I tend to end up using my $2 set of screwdrivers. Those ones you use to tighten up the screws in glasses.
Hugh’s chosen sharp object was a diamond awl, augmented with scalpel, Stanley knife (box cutter in the US) and file. I use my whatever comes to hand, chisels, files, most of my fine toolkit from my days in the electronics industry, scrap bits of metal and for long straight lines, the back of a butter knife.
Aaah, thanks for that, and also for making it clear that you’re not Hugh! Got a little confuzzled there for a sec. For another sec I thought you might be a tad schizo 😀 So who might be the name behind the Reverend?
It might be… Wayne. I might also be a tad schitzo, but the Reverend bit comes from me wearing black. At work I occasionally (about once a week) get called Johnny after Johnny Cash.
lol thanks Johnny. Thought you may have been from Company of the Staple seeing as how you let Hugh within a few metres 😉 Seems we may not have met after all but it’s a small world. I discovered your site via Racaire’s in Germany (?) when she linked to this article. Unless there’s a regular medieval event that we both go to?
Nope, I’m a bit of a maverick, for ECW I’m with the Pike and Musket in Sydney – I’m the one in black with the flat-topped hat and the shiny armour. We also do 7-8th century Saxon and 1st C Romano-British on our own and have a few other periods that are hang-overs from my past. I’m also building up to Mary Rose re-enactment by stealth. Were you at any of the conferentions?
Nope, no conferentions as they usually clash with other events I like to attend. So it seems we’ve not met but have a friend or two in common like Hugh. I often do the Roman thing, when not doing the C12th – 15th Spanish thing, and have a beautiful outfit made from handwoven silk. Mostly I do it for the bling as I’m a jeweller and like to turn my hand occasionally to reproduction work. Love to see a full Roman event sometime. Own a copy of ‘Before the Mast’. Full of wonderful things to explore the making of…
Hugh has been at it again: http://companyofthestaple.org.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=158
I tried using cherry wood and found it to be too soft. I am planning on trying again with something Purple Heartwood. Just thought I would FYI here in case someone thought to try it themselves.
BTW Thank you so much for sharing this and all the other info!!
I don’t pretend to know much about (or be able to afford) what we consider to be exotic timbers. Purple Heart has a good reputation for toughness, possibly hickory would also do a good job. The advantage with Australian timbers is that many are as strong as wrought iron and have a reputation for being able to tear the teeth off a saw.
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