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From: Al, The Door Man at Whispers Links (THe Quiet Golf Course)
Date: 28 Oct 2004
Time: 17:02:38 -0500
Remote Name: 172.195.48.245
Hmmm &. Sounds like you want the action of mini(achew!)ture cookie cutters instead of poking through the paper with a very sharp stick (aka needle). Hmmm . . . . the most obvious is taking the idea of the commonly used three or seven hole punch and having a custom one made up that is more like a 12 punch (I count 12 perforamtions to the inch on my stamps) and maybe get them 2 or three inches long to cover longer sided stamps. You might have two problems though how closely together you can put the punches since the outer tube has a larger diameter and you need clearance between them. It you want to vary the spacing (aka move th e punches around, you probably need an adjustment jig for each [peering inside the back or inderside of your three hole punch will illuminate what this is], increasing the elbow room each needs. The other problem might be the usual swing action of the typical three hole punch. That might cause a clearance problem, but if you are not doing hundreds at a time, a top-down action mechanism might work fine. To get different sizes, get several made in different sizes (how many hole variations are there?) Best advice would come from the people who already make custom punches or the guys who make comb binding machines that have to punch out the holes before they insert the plastic spiral strip. . . . . . . But do you really need minute holes cut between the stamps, or do you just need it to look like it aka you need a fluted edge along each side? If you use them singly, who is to know what was on the other side? In which case, I like the idea of a pizza cutter with fluted edge that creates a one-sided pattern cut (kina like -^-^-^-^-^- only with rounded edges [imagine these carets are semi circles]). Then if you really need holes cut out, you run the cutter opposite way down the other side. Course you will need an alignment jig to do that, to get the two flutes to match up perfectly so you get a complete line of small dotted wholes instead of two strips of flutes. (Hmmm perhaps a visual will help -- donut holes versus rippled edged linguine. Footnote, wearing WS attire: Donut wholes do not grow on donut trees. ) (But even if you messed up, you could still just toss the strips and move the fluted edges closer together so it looked like the stamps were made together.) . . . . and if all else filas, why not just paint the "punched pattern" on the stamp using the appropriate background envelop / paper color (it is only about time, right??) Just a few ideas reflected by the clouds in my coffee . . . al at The Clay Pigeon Emporium off Route 66 Near Hendersville