One of my recent projects has been to make some some leather stamps out of scrap pieces of metal. I'd made one or two in the past, but decided it would be nice to make a few more for a project I was working on. I decided to use some old files as the metal as i have lots knocking around that would give me a few different shapes to begin with and if I wanted to i could harden them so they can be used with wood or metal. The first job was to cut them down to length a suitable length. This is really easy when you're using old files as the metal is hard and brittle, so I just secured it in a vice and then gave it a wack with a hammer.
Then I took the pieces to the forge, heated them up to cherry red and allowed them to cool down slowly in vermiculite. This anneals the metal and makes it softer and easier to work. After the pieces had cooled down I ground the faces flat and then it's just a case of filing them to the desired shape or design.
I wanted to make some simple shapes and experiment with some more complicated designs too. Some seem to have worked better than others, but they're pretty quick to make so it's all good fun. When put together, even simple shapes can create interesting effects.
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