owners name stamp

ttalma

ttalma

Well-known member
I looking for a source for an owners stamp. I have the link to the makers stamp (http://mazzagliatools.com/BlumStamp.html). But I am looking for the style to stamp my planes as the owner not the maker.

Googling (is that a word now?) stamps comes up with rubber stamps and the like.
 
How do you tell the difference between a "maker's stamp" and an "owner's stamp"? What distinguishes one from the other?

Tony
 
Tony,
The difference is mostly the person who hits the stamp.
If you go to the links you will see that one displays Owners stamps and the other Makers stamps. Mostly semantics.
Mike
 
The link to mazzaglia tools shows makers stamps. I was always told a makers stamp presses the background and the name is left raised, where an owners stamp presses the name into the wood.

As best I can gather from conversations and books there was a distinction because one reason for joining a guild was cheap insurance on tools. In order to get insurance your tools had to be marked with your name, and there were rules about stamps with your name on them, one being that the letters had to be pressed into the wood.

here is an example of owners stamps. http://mjdt10.servername.com/WebCD/CDBrowse.php?Page=View&item=257708
 
I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he means that "maker's stamps," like Mazzaglia's, have a lowered background with raised lettering within, while "owner's stamps" have incised letters, such as you might get with the commonly available individual letter and number stamp sets.

I have a Mazzaglia stamp, and can attest to it's quality. I also consider it a bargain price. But I also have a few complex stamps with incised letters, from Harper Manufacturing. Check out the website at http://www.harpermfg.com/hm_products.html and follow the directions at http://www.harpermfg.com/Harpersteelstamps_knife.pdf

Harper can do pretty much any size letters, logos, etc. More pricey, but great work. I use mine on wood as well as brass.

I have no connection to any of these businesses, except as a happy customer.
 
I just looked at my wooden planes. All of them but one have both the owners name and the makers name stamped with the letters below the surface of the wood. On one the makers name had raised letters. There are at least 6 different makers. The stamp that stamps the letters below the surface makes sense if you plan to stamp materials other than wood.
Mike
 
"The stamp that stamps the letters below the surface makes sense if you plan to stamp materials other than wood."

Or if you don't like swinging a 3lb hammer at your fingers or above your work.

I use a stamp from Mazzaglia Tools. Chris Schwarz has a stamp that is the Dividers in his Lost Art Press insignia. It is pretty awesome.

I don't remember the name of the company that made it. I will in a few minutes.

Matt
 
Mike,

Actually you can go either way in metal too.

I have stamps I use to hallmark silver that depress the background around the letters and numbers so that it shows as "raised".

Karl
 
Roy Underhill's school is having a one-day class on making your own maker's stamp. It's taught by Peter Ross, who was a blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg for many years.

So much to learn, not enough time.
 
Karl,
I could see it in things like touch marks in silver. I don't have many silver tools, I was thinking along the lines of mild steel.
Mike
 
Mike:
Using the depressed background stamp is no big deal in either mild steel or tool steel as long as you do it at forging heat.  Check out the Peter Ross touchmark on the foot of his holdfasts in this Schwarz blog entry: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/chris-schwarz-blog/workbenches/authentic-holdfasts-from-peter-ross

RD
 
And they look great! The point I was making is it takes less of a whack to mark with the letters in to the material rather than the letters raised as there is less surface area to drive in to the product. I personally like the look of the raised letters with zig zag border and find both will work quite well.
 
From the standpoint of antique wooden planes, the vast majority of them have maker's marks where the name on the stamp is recessed, and the border is incised with triangular marks made by a saw file.  This is true of both American and British planes, though this changed somewhat in the later production period of wooden planes in the late 19th century.

This leaves a mark on the plane where the maker's name is raised, and the area around it is recessed.

There are reasons for this.  Owners needed to stamp their tools once, so they might use their stamp a few dozen or perhaps a hundred or so times during their lifetime.  Makers would use their stamp hundreds of times a month, if not more.

By definition, a stamp with the owner's name incised into the metal will last far longer than a stamp where the letters are raised above the metal's surface, because the 2nd kind of stamp puts a great deal of force on a very thin section of metal.

Nevertheless, many maker's stamps did not last their working lifetime, and the approximate production date of a plane can be deduced by the form of the lettering.  In some cases where the maker used the same stamp for many years, when a plane was made can be deduced by examining the breakage of certain sections of the stamp.  In other words, the more perfect the stamp, the earlier the plane.
 
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