Self-production of stamps. How to make a stamp at home

When working with documents, situations may arise when we need to create a stamp or seal, or, to be honest, forge existing ones. In solving this problem, we will be helped by specialized programs that can easily and quickly make appropriate graphic solutions. In this article I will tell you what programs there are for creating seals and stamps, and how to use them.

Features of seal and stamp designers

In most cases, specialized programs for creating seals and stamps (for example, “Stamp”, “STAMP” and other analogues) have a fairly accessible interface, which will not be difficult for even an inexperienced user to understand. Such programs usually have several tabs, each of which is responsible for some properties of the stamp (graphic object, and the specifics of their placement on the stamp, features of the stamp used, color, and so on).

Once you have designed the stamp you want, you can save it in a graphic file format (such as pdf or bmp), or print it on a piece of paper using a printer (however, the quality of such a print may not be different from the print made using a real stamp ).

List of the best programs for creating seals and stamps

Let's move on to listing and describing programs for designing seals and stamps.

"STAMP 0.85" - there are ready-made stamp layouts

The shareware program "STAMP" is a specialized software designed for the production of seals and stamps of various shapes and levels of complexity. It has a fairly simple and user-friendly interface, not requiring the user to have any specialized knowledge to solve these problems.

At the same time, this program is shareware, but you can try looking for keys to it on the Internet.

The program interface is divided into five main tabs:

• “Lines" - allows you to create the top and bottom lines of a seal or stamp;
• “Line Options” – allows you to configure the specifics of how lines are displayed (indentation, underlining, inversion, and so on);
• “Center” - allows you to add any elements to the central area of ​​the print or stamp;
• “Form” - allows you to select the shape of the print, specify its dimensions, and also select frame parameters;
• « Creation and editing" - here you can see what your print will look like (click on the "Create" button). Also in this tab there are settings for editing the seal, as well as options for printing the stamp (seal) we created.

https://youtu.be/8Sjt1CKq9W8

“STAMP” - designed for creating stamps and daters

The “STAMP” program is another domestic development designed for creating a variety of seals, stamps, and daters. The functionality of the program in its simplicity and accessibility does not differ from the above-mentioned program, while its main goal is to create a model of a stamp product. And then further saving this layout to disk (with the extension “dat”), printing it, and also sending it to a company engaged in the production of stamps.

The process of designing a stamp consists of selecting a stamp layout (settings on the program screen on the left), and then filling out the fields with text information that will be placed on the stamp (bottom fields). For operations on an already created stamp layout (saving, forwarding), there are buttons on the right.

We develop a layout in "STAMP"

“Stamp Wizard” - will help you make a seal template

Another popular program for mounting various seals is the “Seal Wizard”. This software offers the development of seals of various shapes (round and triangular shapes are presented, as well as a rectangular stamp), it is possible to change the arrangement of seal elements, font, text color and shapes. The program does not require installation and is shareware (to gain access to full functionality, you must purchase a special key).

The program window consists of three main tabs that determine what form of printing (stamp) you need (“Round”, “Triangular”, “Stamp”). Depending on the selected form, you can enter the text that will be placed on the seal, select the font, font sizes, color, and so on. To save the created template, there are “Save” buttons. mst" and "Save. bmp".

Stamp shape settings in the “Stamp Wizard”

“Fine Print” - the program has the ability to add watermarks

The “Fine Print” utility is a special auxiliary tool that allows you to print watermarks and seals on any document (which will help in simulating various seals).

The main purpose of this product- This is an expansion of printer capabilities when printing. With its help, you can print multiple pages on one sheet, automatically insert a heading, create letterheads, add stamps to documents, and so on.

Functionality of the Fine Print program

Other products

To develop seals and stamps, you can also use professional graphic solutions - “”, “Adobe Photoshop” and other analogues. Working with them requires the user to have specialized knowledge, skills and abilities, therefore I recommend that people who are not familiar with these products refer to the appropriate training materials.

Conclusion

In this material, I reviewed popular programs for creating seals and stamps, described their functionality and specifics of use. The most effective solution in this list is the STAMP 0.85 program, so I recommend using its capabilities to produce the graphic products you need.

For a long time, stamps have been in great demand among various segments of the population. They have found their application in companies and organizations that regularly deal with various documentation. Such products are manufactured in several ways, each of which has a number of distinctive features.

Technologies used for manufacturing seals and stamps:

1. Photopolymer technology

The method of making a polymer print is based on the application of an ultraviolet ray of a certain spectrum to the material. The beam penetrates certain illuminated areas, and where it is necessary to make convex parts, the beam sinteres the polymer thanks to the light parts of the negative. Consumables, as well as the equipment used to make the printing cliché, are reasonably priced. This method is the simplest, cheapest and fastest, and therefore is very popular.

Advantages of the technology: differs from other technologies in the greatest simplicity and speed of production of a printing form, it is also the cheapest, which, in principle, in most cases (approximately 90%), does not affect the quality of the product and suits the majority of customers.

Disadvantages: 1. Photopolymer (the material used in this technology) is not resistant to alcohols and solvents, so for such seals and stamps you can only use water-based stamp ink, i.e. They can only be placed on good quality paper. For cardboard, burlap, foil, fabric and other materials where it is important that the stamps/seals do not wash off (erase, fade), such seals and stamps are not suitable.

2. Thin lines and raster images can be made, but their quality will leave much to be desired; (the resolution of this material is not great)

3. This material is relatively soft and flexible, which is more of a disadvantage than an advantage when using the product. When the product is used frequently, the material “floats”, i.e. a seal with an initial diameter of 38 mm after 3-4 months of operation can increase to 39 mm, and in organizations with which you work, for example, in the bank where you are served, they begin to ask “questions” or even refuse to accept payments with such a seal. What to do in such a situation? There is only one way out - call us and order a new seal using the old print.

2. Laser technology

Using laser engraving, stamps are created from rubber. Laser engraving allows you to obtain products that have maximum protection against counterfeiting. The pattern is applied to the rubber surface using a laser beam. This method guarantees high quality image reproduction. The product does not absorb ink, resulting in a clear and attractive print. Printing is low cost and durable.

Advantages:

1.High quality cliche printing.

When using the laser engraving method, it is possible to achieve ultra-high resolution - up to 2540 dpi and use additional degrees of protection against counterfeiting of seals - microtext, raster fields, etc.

2. Possibility of producing a stamp seal.

Laser equipment allows us to produce official stamps in accordance with GOST requirements.

3. Long service life.

A cliche made of rubber using laser engraving has a long service life due to the material’s resistance to aggressive chemicals and mechanical stress.

4. High production speed.

Laser engravers make it possible to produce several dozen cliches (depending on the size of the rubber and the cliches themselves), due to which a relatively high production speed is achieved, which allows us to offer the service - urgent production of stamps And stamps .

3. Flash technology (multicolor printing).

Flash technology involves the use of heat-sensitive microporous rubber, which is reliably sintered by a flash lamp. Such products have no relief, are characterized by high quality workmanship and excellent resolution. It is almost impossible to counterfeit stamp products produced by this method. The technological process itself is fully automated, so it does not take much time and is simple. Such seals are quite practical, they are very convenient to carry with you, they are compact and do not need a pad. Simply remove the cover and stamp.

The resolution of these seals is quite large, the prints are clean and of high quality (this is especially important when making facsimiles).

Advantages:

1. Several thousand color prints without refilling;
2. Possibility of simultaneous use of 6 different colors in a print without the effect of mixing colors;
3. High resolution reaching photographic quality (maximum 2500dpi);
4. The print cannot be washed off with water;
5. No ink pad required;
6. Invisible UV (ultraviolet) ink can be used;

Flaws:

1. High price;
2. Products sometimes leak (like an ink pen);
3. The coating may dry out or run out at the most inopportune moment, and only special paint can be used for refilling.

Today you can find a stamp manufacturing company in any more or less large city. The manufacturing cost ranges from 300 to 800 rubles, depending on the complexity and urgency of the order. But there are situations in which it is impossible to contact the company. How to make a stamp, facsimile or bookplate yourself?

First of all, let's define the terminology. What's happened seal Probably everyone knows. Facsimiles and bookplates are also seals, but have a slightly different meaning.

Facsimile- a seal that repeats a person’s handwritten signature. Used if you need to sign a large number of documents. In most cases, from a legal point of view, using a facsimile is equivalent to signing in your own hand.

Bookplate- a book mark, most often applied to the inside of the binding and indicating that the book belongs to a specific owner. A bookplate is also called a seal that affixes such a sign.

Technologically, prints, facsimiles and bookplates are made in exactly the same way, differing only in the content of the print. There are several technologies for making seals. We use one of the simplest and most accessible - cast from thermoplastic polymer according to an engraved mold.

The production of a seal, facsimile, or bookplate begins with the production of a blank for the casting mold. To do this, you can use a plastic or even paper box of a suitable size - a jar of sour cream, mayonnaise, yogurt, or a disposable cup. I had a packet of chips and a paper Aeroflot cup on hand. We cut the blanks to make a ring 2-3 cm high.

The ring is attached with plasticine to a piece of ordinary or organic glass. The fastening will not allow the form to move or “float” on the gypsum solution. The glass surface must be clean, smooth and without scratches.

For casting, building gypsum (alabaster) is used. Alabaster hardens quickly and gives a smooth, clean surface. You can mix it in a special rubber cup (sold in hardware stores) or any other elastic container. An elastic glass will allow you to easily get rid of gypsum residues after hardening. You can also dilute alabaster in any unnecessary container that you don’t mind throwing away after use.

First, pour the required amount of gypsum into the container, and then add water, stirring constantly. You need to add water in small portions, it’s easy to overdo it. One minute there were semi-dry lumps and then there was a too liquid mass. The optimal thickness of the solution is like liquid sour cream or kefir. If the solution is too liquid, then you need to add dry gypsum.

The prepared well-mixed solution without lumps is poured into the mold. In order for the plaster to fill all the corners, the form needs to be carefully shake. There will not be a large load on the plaster, so a layer of 10-15 mm is sufficient.

It is better to cast several blanks at once; at the next stage they can easily be damaged, especially if the print, facsimile or bookplate is being done for the first time. After 30-40 minutes, the plaster has hardened enough to be removed from the mold. Most often, the paper form will have to be cut to do this. Plastic molds with beveled walls can be reused many times.

Now we have several “pancakes” with an almost mirror-like surface, but still dark from moisture.

You can relax - the “pancakes” need to dry at least 2-3 days until they acquire a perfect white color and become light and sonorous when struck. The process can be accelerated by drying the discs for 2-3 hours in the oven at a temperature of 150-200 degrees. Heating and cooling must be gradual, otherwise the plaster may crack.

In the meantime, you can start preparing the contents of the print. The easiest way to prepare a print or bookplate is in any graphic editor. There is no point in making signs and decorations that are too small - the technology used is quite crude. It is best to count on a line thickness of at least 1 mm and a distance between lines of at least 2 mm.

WITH facsimile the matter is a little more complicated; in this example we will consider the manufacturing technology. To receive the original, you need to sign several times on a piece of paper and choose the best signature. The sheet with the signature is scanned or photographed, and the signature goes into the computer. Here it can be adjusted and scaled to the desired size.

Just in case, you can make several copies of the signature on a sheet of paper and print it on thin writing paper or tracing paper.

Now, using carbon paper, the seal, bookplate or signature is transferred to the surface of the alabaster disk. The image on the disc must be "straight". Then on the cliche it will turn out to be mirror-like, but on paper it will again give “straight” prints.

Now is the most difficult stage. The print lines need to be deepened into the alabaster by about 1 mm. This is best done using an electric engraver with a suitable cutter. The rotation speed of the tool should be about 10-15 thousand revolutions. This will give you a clean line surface. If there is no engraver, then the work can be done with any hand tool - a chisel, a scalpel, the tip of a knife, a sewing machine needle, an awl. This, of course, takes longer, and the lines may not be as straight. Please note that the grooves in alabaster must be at least 1 mm wide with straight or outwardly sloping walls.

Alabaster is processed quite easily and if the printing is simple, then at most the second time everything will certainly work out. Complex printing, facsimiles and bookplates with lots of curlicues and intersecting lines will require some tinkering. It is possible that you will have to return to the previous step and edit the image. For a facsimile, you can try to sign with a thick felt-tip pen; such lines are easier to make on alabaster.

Once you have received a satisfactory print, you can begin cliche casting. To make the casting easy to separate, the surface of the alabaster is impregnated with any oil, maybe even sunflower. There is no need to pour too much oil; all recesses must be soaked, but liquid oil on the surface is not allowed. If there is too much oil, then blot the surface with a paper napkin.

We will cast the seal from ethylene vinyl acetate. This scary name actually refers to the readily available, strong, lightweight, and flexible polymer that glue sticks for hot glue guns are made from. Cured ethylene vinyl acetate does not absorb moisture and is resistant to oils, various solvents and stamp ink.

To prevent the polymer from spreading too much, you can make sides out of paper by gluing them to the surface of an alabaster disk. Or you don’t have to do it, the excess material will simply be cut off later.

Glue gun warms up well for maximum adhesive fluidity. After this, the surface of the alabaster with the signature is filled with a layer of glue 3-5 mm thick. For better penetration of ethylene vinyl acetate into the thin grooves of the print, the disc can be heated with a regular or hair dryer.

After 10 minutes, the hardened adhesive layer is easily separated from the oil-soaked alabaster surface.

When illuminated from the side, the relief lines of the resulting cliche are clearly visible.

Excess casting material trimmed stationery knife. The cut lines should be as close as possible to the print elements (1-2 mm), otherwise, with strong pressure, the free surface may sag and stain the print.

All that remains is to select or make a suitable pen - and the print, facsimile or bookplate is ready! It is convenient to use old equipment from some kind of seal or stamp as a handle. Now you can try to make an impression.

When using a facsimile, keep in mind that it may not be suitable for all situations. The general rule is facsimile forbidden use on documents that lead to significant financial and material consequences.

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HOW TO PRINT AT HOME

We continue our humorous forensic circle “Erase the seal, put a new one and become a millionaire, or how to fake a seal at home”... So, in the previous article we looked at how we can remove works of bureaucratic art that we don’t need from a snow-white sheet (see informative in In this regard, article HOW TO REMOVE UNNEEDED RECORDS OR STAMPS FROM PAPER). Let me remind the respected reader, as well as representatives of law enforcement agencies who have suddenly shown interest in this article, that the author of these lines, like any artist of pen and penknife, is not responsible for the information provided, which is most likely unreliable, and most importantly, is not responsible for it usage. In addition, it is my civic duty to remind my fellow citizens that forgery of seals and stamps falls under Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and is punishable by up to 4 years in prison. Having thus fulfilled our civic duty, we also note that like any goddess, the Goddess of Justice Themis is portrayed as blind for a reason, so forging seals and stamps is not the most interesting activity for her, unless you are going to take a million from a bank using false documents... However, even in this case, Lady Themis will most likely remain blind.

Leaving aside the legal aspects, it can be noted that historically, counterfeiting of seals and stamps has existed for as long as their production, i.e. since the times of Ancient Babylon and Egypt. For every bureaucratic poison there is a similar antidote. If we look at our immediate past, stamps were also forged in the Soviet Union. Moreover, these specialists were highly valued, since forging and cutting out a seal on the heel of a shoe or on an elastic band was a real work of art and required not only a lot of time, but also a certain skill. Well, now, thanks to technological progress, it has become much easier to forge a seal: there are many programs and more, thanks to which a mere mortal can become a real pro in forging seals. In this article we will look at various historical options for forging a seal at home, which were used in antiquity: from quite exotic, but effective - such as forging a seal with an egg, to the most realistic and practical. Naturally, these methods are not relevant now and cannot be used.

Thanks to progress, there are now a large number of computer programs with which you can easily fake a stamp or seal. However, at the dawn of history, when the Sun was just rising, one of the simplest and most used computer programs in this regard was the Stamp program. Type the phrase “download the Stamp program for free” into a search engine and you will find a bunch of sites where you can download it. However, I’ll warn you right away: the Stamp program is not a panacea for all stamps. The program is quite primitive, frankly speaking, and those who have used it, I think, do not feel excessive enthusiasm when it is mentioned. Well, since the Stamp program does not satisfy us, you can always use Photoshop or Corel. These programs allow you not only to process images and remove unnecessary print elements, but also to create your own. Numerous lessons on how to do this are waiting for you on the vast expanses of the Internet. May Gosha and Yasha be with you... Well, after you have realized your creative potential, all you need to print a seal or stamp is a string ink printer. With it you can print almost any stamp in any color.

Today you will find out, I will clarify right away, wax seal. Of course, not many people need it, since many people are now writing letters on the Internet, but if you really and truly want to surprise your precious soulmate and plunge into romance, then such a wax seal will be the main advantage of the letter.

What we need for this is shown in the picture. There is stain in the jar, sunflower oil in the glass.

Now I’ll tell you step by step what and how to do, although everything will be clear from the pictures.

1. We take our wooden blank; if it is not smooth, we thaw it with sandpaper.

2. Cut out a circle from paper corresponding to the wooden blank. First, we draw on it what you want to see on your seal, and then we cut out this picture with a thin, sharp blade. This is the most important part of the job.

3. We apply the paper pattern to the wooden blank and outline it with a pencil.

4. Using a sharp soldering iron, we burn what we have drawn onto a piece of wood.

5. We cover the entire workpiece with stain and our wax seal at home is ready.

6. We pour wax from the candle; it is advisable to take candles with thick wax, which contains fewer impurities.

7. We dip our seal in sunflower oil so that the wax does not stick.

8. And before the wax melts, we put our stamp.

These are the types of seals we produce.

Now you can send letters with a unique seal from ancient times; in letters you can also write about unique crafts, such as or. Create miracles with your own hands!