Unmounted red rubber SU stamps REVISITED
 

I plan to unmount my wood mounted stamps. My plan is to store them in a pocket with a stable card thingy. Question is laminating a safe product to cover the card thingy? I just saw a video where the stamper covered hers with packing tape. I have a school laminator available and would like to do that if it is not harmful to my red rubber stamps. I have the other necessary steps figured out just not sure about the laminating. Your knowledge would be appreciated. I am in the mind set to get this done.

I use Royal Sovereign laminating pouches to laminate my cards, and they are safe for both photopolymer and rubber that is on EZ mount foam. I have confirmed that with the manufacturer of the pouches. I think that other brands are probably safe as well but I haven't personally checked them all out. The Royal Sovereign is VERY reasonably priced at Sams Club.

As for bare rubber, it would be safe on a wider variety of products, so whatever you use would be fine. The issue with bare rubber is what kind of adhesive to use on the rubber to get it to stick to the laminated card in storage. Sue (gregzgurl) will have to put her $0.02 in on that one...I'm not as experienced on that one.

Laminating cards works great!!

Thank You so much. I am going to do this.

Diane is hilarious! She is the whole reason I went unmounted to begin with (for which I am eternally grateful, for reals!) and bought a laminator and all... She is correct in one thing: I think I have tried every adhesive known to man (or, at least, to me) on the backs of my bare rubber stamps. My go-to is this:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.spl...2e6ca4be46.jpg


I've also used the one that says "permanent" and it works just fine, as well. Just make sure it's not the "dot" one - the dots leave residue everywhere. One other helpful tidbit: After you put the tape on the back of the stamp, stick it to your laminated sheet before using it to stamp with. This will sort of "burnish" the tape onto the stamp and prevent leaving residue when you use the stamp on a block or MISTI or whatever.

You can get these tape runners - as well as packs of refills - lots of different places, including Hobby Lobby, and use coupons too. They're already pretty cheap, so with a coupon they're even more so! Hopefully you will love this system as much as I do!

I Thank You very much for your helpful information, which I believe is worth more than $0.02. I will begin this project tomorrow and hope to finish before 2018.

At least your expectations are realistic! hehehe! :lol:
It does take a while!

I hate to sound like Debbie Downer, but - in my world, at least - it's an ongoing, never-ending project. If/when I buy new stamps (even cling foam-mounted), I strip them down to bare rubber, too...

Totally worth it, in my opinion, though, and so kudos to you and good luck with it all and all the rest of it!

I'm so hesitant to finally take the plunge and un-mount my wood stamps. It sounds like everyone is much happier once they do though. Does anyone wish they hadn't un-mounted their wood stamps? And did you do it primarily to save space? Or for better placement of the images? I've got the space in my craft room to leave them wood mounted - but I could see really liking having more control over where the image stamps on the paper, especially with the two-step SU sets. Any thoughts?

I wish I had the energy to unmount the twenty-five or so that I have. It's fine when the rubber just peels off. But I did some unmounting some years back, and there were too many that needed soaking in Goo Gone (the smell of which bugs me) and still took a lot of fussing and elbow grease to get clean enough.

Wood mounts take up too much space, are hard to organize, and can't be used with a MISTI (or the Tonic stamping platform, check back with me in April when I get mine as to whether I love or hate it).

I know there are those who treasure their wood mounts, for various reasons.

I had an interesting convo with the owner of Stampotique last year, when I emailed and asked her whether (and if not why not) I could buy the stamps unmounted. She said she would NEVER sell an unmounted/cling mounted stamp EVER EVER EVER (well, all those "evers" are mine, just conveying her tone) because only a WOOD MOUNTED stamp could be branded with the artist's name for ALL ETERNITY (again, I paraphrase) and she owed that to her artists. So there.

No, I've never regretted unmounting. But my collection was always 7/8 cling and clear anyway.

And BTW Sue - you show the permanent version of that tape, and then say that the permanent also works. There's the dot one (which you say not to use) and the repositional version. Which is best?

The one shown is "extra strong", and there is another one that just says "permanent". Either of those are fine. I haven't tried the repositionable one, but tend to think that it would not hold well. DO NOT get the dot one! Cathy H added a comment to another thread that she had tried it and it left dots everywhere.

Just a tidbit on the unmounting thing: Someone somewhere suggested putting stamps in the freezer to get the rubber off. I can attest to the fact that IT WORKS! I guess the freezer sort of "hardens" the adhesive, so it stays in its own layer and you can pull the rubber off pretty cleanly. I would pull the foam off the wood (with the rubber still attached) to make it more effective (less to have to get cold). Any residue can just be rolled off with your thumb.

I didn't want to go to all the trouble unmounting all my wood block stamps. Because some the time I may only use one or two stamps out of the set. I have plenty of room for storage. I wanted to use my Misti, so this is what did:

I peeled the stamp foam and all. Cut a piece of transparency the size of my block, used my stamp on my Misti then put it back on the block. Easier to take off each time I wanted to use it. Most of the time there is enough sticky on it to use on my Misty. If not you could use the crafters tape on the back. If the foam starts to tear you could use the freezer method or I read where some stampers put in the microwave for a few seconds. You would have to look that up not sure.

Clever girl! Nice to hear another option for people who occasionally want to use "unmounted" stamps, but leave them on the blocks most of the time.

I just wanted to mention that it has been my experience that the microwave option tends to give you a sticky mess to deal with, where the freezer option is a much cleaner separation. Others may have had a different experience, though...

Thanks Sue. Good to know about the microwave. I'll try the freezer when I have one that Is hard to get off.

One caution on the freezer method. If you have an older stamp and the rubber has hardened, it can break when you try to remove it. I lost the corner of an old stamp that way. Fortunately it's a border that I can draw in. I decided to take all my stamps down to the bare rubber, including the cling. Almost done!

I've unmounted the majority of my wood-mount stamps, and I can say with some authority that there are some that are just nasty to unmount, and neither microwave nor freezer works on them. If I recall correctly, the ones I had the worst luck with were Delta brand. Stampin' Up, however, all were really easy.

And I left some of mine on the wood mounts - My House Mouse, because for some reason they just seem like they should stay mounted, and a couple of others like that. And when I finally bought Teeny Tiny Wishes from SU, I spent the extra to buy it with the wood, because those sentiments are indeed teeny tiny, and I am afraid I will lose them :) Also, it's much easier to see what the sentiment actually is (especially since I refuse to use the indexing stickers on SU Clear Mount stamps). I figure I can always go back to my Stamp A Majig for positioning those, if I feel a need.

Oh no! I don't leave mine in long enough to actually freeze - five minutes or so... I do pull the foam + rubber off of the wood and just use the freezer to get the rubber off of the foam, so I wonder if that makes a difference, as well? Thanks for the heads-up of a worst-case possibility - good to be forewarned.

I think it was because the stamp was hard and slightly brittle in the first place. I didn't leave it longer than 10-15 minutes.