Carving Material "Review": Jack Richeson's Easy-to-Cut Lino

Easy-to-Cut Lino by Jack Richeson

The good news is that I'm up to date on my tetanus shots.



 So, I actually gave up on carving this material.  Jack, who are you and what makes you think that this is good for stamp making? I never thought I'd find something that I liked less than your Clear Carve, but you've proven me wrong.

See that image above with the label on it? It says specifically that this is for stamp making.  Not so much.

I figured this stuff was going to be like the DeSerres stuff.  It is roughly the same thickness, same texture, almost the same grey.  I thought to myself that it could be that it is actually the same stuff and that it's just labelled under a different brand.

Um, no.  I was wrong.

For transfer, heat worked, but not great.

And then it pretty much went down hill.  The knife carving of the text was super difficult.  The brand-new xacto did not want to carve this stuff at all and I really struggled through the text.  I just figured that it was a lino-substitute and the gouge would work better.  No - the gouge (new and sharp) did not want to go into this material.  Well, it is more like the material did not want the gouge in it!  And when it finally spewed the gouge tip out, because of the force I was using to get the gouge to go into the material, it jumped out and went straight into my thumb.

With blood all over my craft desk, I admitted defeat.

For posterity, here it is (or at least as much as I carved of it) inked and stamped.  Look at the lovely beading of ink on its surface!  And that's after I had stamped.  Uneven, too.  Smh.

I like my fingers, I won't be using this stuff again.