A clever method of using a Kensol or Kwikprint

A guy took a class from me a year or so ago, not that long after I acquired the Kensol.  He had used a Kensol in his job and showed me a clever way of aligning stamping on covers of book. It works equally well with a Kwikprint.  These pictures were taking using this method on the Kwikprint.

First you finish the cover on which you want to stamp and measure its thickness using a caliper.

Next you select a board (or lamination of boards) to equal the thickness of the cover.

Once you have that figured out, and it needs to be almost exactly the same thickness for this to work, you cut the non-covered piece so it's about the same size as the cover.

Now you put the board in the stamping machine (again, it works equally well for the Kwikprint and the Kensol) and tape a piece of mylar along the edge of the table.

Put the die or title in the machine and stamp it onto the mylar.

You'll end up with this.

One the cover you are stamping place a paper image of the die, or a line of paper or tape if you are doing a title (or really anything will work if it shows where on the cover you want the stamping to end up).

I'm using this example because the image on the die isn't in the proper orientation to the cover, which makes this a better example.  The image in the circle is upright (as shown on the mylar) but I want it to be slanted somewhat to the right.

To compensate for the alignment of the image on the die block I neeed to twist the cover until the mylar was seated directly over the paper image.  When it was I clamped the cover onto the table.

When it's all lined up and the book is clamped in position remove the mylar and stamp the cover.

It's a great technique and may be very well known but I had never seen it.  It's really fun to learn stuff like this from students.

Happy stamping.




Related posts on using the Kensol and Kwikprint can be found here:

Title stamping with a Kensol

Kensol vs. Kwikprint