Signing off my mugs in style.

Since the beginning of my ceramic journey, I've always loved signing my work once it's finished. It's a way of putting your mark down, a way of traceability. I've always gone scribing 'The Shit Shed Shaper' into the base of the mugs with a pencil. Scribing has been working great but I longed for that clean stamp looking signature that I've seen other potters use. The only thing is that my branding is a long name so to try and make it fit onto a stamp would be a challenge.

I started sketching my logo out in a 3D modelling software called fusion 360. They have a function where you can bring in any image and sketch the outline. Then I just extruded the features to make them 3D, now I had my basic stamp idea.

I took this idea to work with me and asked Julius (colleague) as he is well equipped to help me turn my design into a program the milling machine can understand. We then set a mill up with the right tools. I decided to go with 2 inch of aluminium bar as the stamp.

With the stamp all done Art (another colleague) helped me switch the machine back to its previous job. I was pretty excited at this point to get home and try the stamp out! What I didn't realize was as I was making the stamp there was a gnarly snowstorm happening outside. The drive home was the most interesting drive home I've ever had! The snow was coming down soo fast that the wipers couldn't keep up. But I made it all safe and sound.

The stamp works well, I had to make a platform that went into the mug to support the bottom from pushing in when applying the stamp, I do want to remake it with a few revisions. One is that I want to mill it onto a curved surface so that when applying it you roll it through the clay which will stop the stamp from leaving a circle around the outside. Big shout out to the guys at work for helping me get it made.

The stamp on a finished mug!