There are a few different ways to make wax seals. (see the third image below) – that top right one looks off because I didn’t have enough wax. If you don’t use enough you often end up with a “flat” spot at the edges where there wasn’t enough wax to push out from that side. When I’m pouring wax from a spoon I often use the tip of the spoon to just do one gentle swirl – mixing is less important here because all the wax has been melted evenly at once. This eliminates bubbles, blends the cooler and hotter parts of wax, and helps you better shape your puddle so it doesn’t look like blotchy shape (I mean… if you like that fine). You can use the wax stick itself, once you’ve dripped enough stick the end of the wax stick into the puddle and stir it once or twice to better form it into a circle shape. Not everyone will tell you this, but especially if you’re using sticks, you need to stir your wax. I prefer pellets for small jobs and the glue sticks if I need to make 15+ You can also chop up wax sticks into pellets (second image below). It comes in many forms – sticks, glue sticks, pellets, and sticks with wicks. You need a special flexible type of sealing wax. Regular candle wax is brittle and will not work (trust me), it will just crumble off the letter’s surface or flake apart. It’s a weird little trick, but it does help if you’re doing a few of them back to back. TIP TWO | A little trick I’ve learned in the past is before stamping you should rub the seal’s face against the side of your nose or forehead. Style #2 will usually stamp better than #1, but in this case, both work fine. The silver seal was likely cast, hence the curvy depressions. This seal was probably milled on some sort of C&C like machine. You’ll notice the brass seal on the left (below) has a flatly carved out design – there is no taper or curved concavity. It’s like a regular rubber stamp in that way – the design is typically tapered to make stamping easier. The rounded (concave) impression in the seal helps with both stamping and release. TIP ONE | You’ll notice when you look at a wax seal that the design engraved in is not typically flat at the bottom of the well. They can be either hand carved, cast, or milled on a machine. Typically, wax seals are made from metal or stone. Instead, I’m just going to start by explaining a few tips for using them. There is tons of awesome info about that. I’m not going to dig into the history of seals. Go ahead at Skip to The Glowforge Section if you’re so inclined. I’ll also share settings for the Delrin/similar material I used so there are still some useful bits of information here. I’ll walk you through the basics of wax seals, and then we will go through how I attempted to adapt it to laser cutting. I’ve made hundreds of wax seals using a whole range of tools and techniques. As someone who has worked in the wedding industry as a letterpress printer, I have made a TON of wedding invitations and once or twice I’ve actually done wax seals for the final invites. I have a lot of experience using wax seals. Likewise, I’ll still cover using wax seals and a couple of cool tips for them. You may then be wondering – well why make a post? I think making this post will help save people from the same fate. Well, that date has finally come, and spoiler alert – I still didn’t work. It didn’t turn out well, and I shelved the idea with the intent to try again at a later date. I while back I did a quick test to see if a wax seal could be made on the Glowforge.
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