Jig for Steel Stamps

A jig for use with alpha-numeric steel stamps.  My stamps have ¼" square bodies, so that is the actual dimension this jig is based upon.  There are two thicknesses of side spacer, ¼" and 1/8" so that you can achieve your desired spacing between characters.  Sized to be used with inch dimension stamps but they were drawn in metric dimensions so they should load in your slicer normally.  My stamps make 3/32" high characters, but I have seen 1/8" character stamps with the same ¼" square bodies, and there may be other stamps these will work with as long as the body size is the same.

Stamps of this type are extremely useful for marking all sorts of metal objects, but the main difficulty is usually getting them lined up and spaced well enough so the resulting marks don't have an amateurish appearance.  Making a jig like this is not terribly difficult with machine tools, and that's probably the way to go if you have that ability, are trying to achieve perfection with your hand stamps, and especially if you want to use finer shims/spacers to really refine your character spacing exactly how you want it.

That's not the concept of this jig.  This is meant to be semi-disposable, so if you need to modify it to fit an irregular surface, you can easily print out another one to replace it.  It's got features allowing it to be clamped in place on the work object, or secured using zip ties, but if that's not practical, get out the hot glue gun or super glue and tack it down… VHB tape, whatever works.  Don't expect laser engraver precision, but with careful and consistent technique you can use this to make attractive looking rows of characters.  Even if you do have a laser engraver, you might find yourself with a need to mark something that won't fit on your engraver, or can't be taken to it.  With this jig and a set of stamps, you can still mark it, and make it look professional.

I printed mine out of PETG; other materials should work just fine but PETG is a good choice because it usually has great bed adhesion.  This is important because I do recommend printing the spacers vertically (PLA may not stick to the bed well enough).  They will be weaker in that orientation, but I tried printing them flat and found it was more difficult to achieve the dimensional accuracy needed that way.  So print them vertically; they don't need a lot of strength anyway.  The jig is semi-disposable, so you don't need to get too carried away  with your print settings, but you don't want it to fail in the middle of a job under clamping pressure, either.

Practice on scrap before you try to mark something expensive or important, and don't expect miracles.  Slow, careful, deliberate consistency is the key to success with hand stamps.

[EDIT 14NOV23:  It has come to my attention, that the Arachne perimeter generator used as default in recent versions of Prusaslicer takes “shortcuts” when going around square corners.  This will negate some of the features these models include to ensure square internal corners.  Therefore, these models should be printed with the perimeter generator set to “classic” rather than Arachne.]