Carving Material Review: PZ Kut White and Orange

Well, by popular request, I've decided to take my sharp implements to these two slabs of PZ Kut to bring you a review of both - but have discarded the usual design theme for that series to create something that can be used for this year's Box ON!  That's right: if you want to see the following post's result in person (and perhaps whack me across the head in so doing) all you need to do is turn up!

I have both a piece of white AND orange PZ Kut.  I'm going to do a single post for both, but if you're new to this blog or letterboxing,  you should know: this carving material is now extinct.  You can no longer get it.  This carving material is no more. It has ceased to be. This is an EX-material! I've only come into possession of scraps due to the generous contribution of Fish Below the Ice.

Oh man.  Before I get started on this review, I gotta say, I had some serious angst doing this test.  The unfortunate result of this carving review series of posts is that I've gotten super picky about what materials I carve and particular what I like.  I had this suspicion that I wasn't going to like these materials because of my current feels about some of the harder-type materials that I had started carving with.

So, because the resulting stamps are for Box ON!, you should be aware that the review contains spoilers.  So,  in case you don't want to see the image and design and spoil it for when you actually see the stamps, I have the rest of this post below - you'll have to come back after the event ;)

Carving, carving, carving... {SPOILERS}

Ahoy!  I've been having a great, but busy, summer so far and I'm really looking forward to the end of August because I've got some time off and am doing a staycation.  Need to get out there and do some letterboxing during that time,  methinks ;)

One of the things I've been working on is helping Bon Echo with some stamps for Box ON! Stoney Creek. {You should come!  For anyone reading this who doesn't know where Stoney Creek is, it's just a short drive from the US border if anyone wanted to make the trek}  And one of the stamps I just finished is the event stamp...  Read on if you don't mind being spoiled ;)

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.

Carving Material Review: Speedball Speedy Carve (2013)

Speedball Speedy Carve (2013 formulation)

So, Speedball Speedy Carve.  The ubiquitous "pink stuff".  If you've ever carved a stamp in North America, you have probably been pushed in the direction of this material.  In fact, all over this blog you'll find pink stuff.  The tricky part is that even in the seven years that I've been carving, there have been three different formulations of this material.  The stuff that I originally started carving with was great, all purpose stuff.  And I think that's pretty much the case now - it's good all purpose stamp carving material. 

However, the newest formulation (noted by the 2013 date on the label) is yet another step away from the original material that I liked so much.  The 2012 version (if it can still be found anywhere) was more brittle and crumbly - with a slightly lighter colour.  I believe the original stuff I used was 2009...

Cost-wise, this is pretty middle of the road and highly dependant on where you bought it.  By fluke, I found a 12" x 12" slab of the stuff (I've never seen that size in the wild!) and the price per square inch worked out quite nicely.


Again, this blog is littered with my thoughts about this material, but for posterity (and to be able to include it in my comparison table), here is the review for Speedy Carve.

Carving Material Review: Soft-Kut

Soft Kut carving block

So this was one of many different carving materials that I bought from Dick Blick.  The cost for the block was very reasonable, so I added it to my list.

My first thoughts about this material are: ew, gross.  It's floppy and feels like compressed marshmallow.  Very floppy and yet its texture made me think of Speedy Cut and so I had very low hopes.  While it's not my favourite carving medium, it's certainly decent and workable... Read on for more!

Carving Material Review: SEED Horunavi

Hello and welcome back for another review, yay! (I would note that since my last post, I now have even more carving materials in my possession to review... this may be the never-ending set of reviews...)

So, I splurged and actually bought some carving material from Japan made by a company called SEED. (If you go to their website, it looks like they make erasers and things like that as well, and I'm charmed that they put as the title for their product category "Curving Erasers".)

SEED Horunavi carving blocks - yellow at the top, two other packages underneath

Carving Material Review: Blick Blue Easy-To-Cut

Hello and welcome back for another review, yay! (I would note that since my last post, I now have at least three more carving materials in my possession to review... this may be the never-ending set of reviews...)

Since the last review was of a Dick Blick material, I decided to go ahead and try the other Dick Blick branded material for the next review, called Blick Blue Easy-To Cut (henceforth to be referred to as Blick Blue - as opposed to the "blue stuff" that Speedball makes).  It's really inexpensive - Dick Blick sells this for $1.84 USD for a 4x6" sheet.

 (Spoiler: having now used it, I love it.  Not my #1, but definitely up there.)

Carving Material Review: Dick Blick's Printmaking Block

Dick Blick Printmaking Blocks

So this is the first review in a series of posts that I'm doing on all the various kinds of material out there that you can use to make stamps. The first medium was chosen based on its proximity in the pile.  Yep.

The Ultimate Carving Material Guide is coming!!

OMG guise! Guise... GUYS!  You should see my craft desk.  It's amazing.  It's beautiful.  It's covered, just absolutely covered... in carving material.  All amounts, all sizes, all colours of the rainbow (not really, but more colours than usual).

Since I have been going through carving material a lot more than usual, I have put orders in for a whole bunch of different types of carving materials which have slowly been coming in.  My desk is just about covered in carving material (it's beautiful) and I'm a little teary over here.

So here is the plan: although some of these I've carved before, many are completely new to me.  COMPLETELY NEW! I'm so excited, I can barely contain my carving knives.  I need to come up with a design that I am going to carve in each of the mediums, and then report back - all scientific like - and let you know what I think.  The problem with other online reviews is that they are usually about one or two carving mediums and you have no idea if the person has actually compared the carve with other mediums...

Thirteen (13) different carving materials.

See that photo? See it! That's what I have so far.  Starting with the pink stuff I have in the bottom middle, here's what I have going sorta clockwise around the photo:

• Speedy Carve (2013) by Speedball
• Speedy Cut Easy by Speedball
• Soft Kut Print Block by ???
• Clear Carve Lino by Richeson
• very dark grey lino from DeSerres
• Softoleum from Above Ground
• Speedy Carve (2009) by Speedball
• EZ Cut by Dick Blick
• Clear Printmaking Blocks by Blum
• Blue Easy-To-Cut by Dick Blick
• Moo Carve by NCTC Inc.
• OZ Kut by Stampeaz
• OZ Kut - B by Stampeaz

 Aren't they beautiful? Aren't you jealous?

Okay, missing from this stash: Speedball's Speedy Cut (*vomits a little in mouth*), MasterCarve (which I believe has been discontinued), other Stampeaz formulations (are they all gone now? Just OZ?), and the few different types of carving material that I see from asia (some of which the AQ Boards refer to as SLQ). Am I missing anything?

I'm thinking I might actually order any of the remaining types of carving materials out there just so I can round out the set so that I can do an epic, comprehensive and charted review and comparison.  Love it.

Okay, so off the top, here are the things I am going to report back on:

• Price per square inch
• Thickness, in mm
• Floppiness
• Crumbliness 
• Transferability
• Ease of slice - gouge and knife
• How well it holds fine detail
• How well it inks - various inks
• How well it prints large negative areas
• How well it holds up after washing/scrubbing
• Each medium's super power
• Best uses

Am I missing any factors you'd like to have feedback on?  Email me or comment below - I'm happy to add other characteristics to the matrix if anyone has any particular factors they consider.

Happy carving!

It finally happened *or* a letterboxer's view on ink pad packaging

It finally happened: I had to throw out ink pads.  Ones I bought over five years ago.  It's crazy.

In reviewing my ink stash (which have been tragically underused over the past year or so) I came to find three (3) of my ColorBox petal point kits had gone dry, along with a number of other individual stamp pads.  I'm a bit of a craft supply hoarder, so it was nice to have a good reason to toss those.

The petal point packaging in particular was difficult to use, particularly on the trail.  Too many pieces, weird size.  10/10 would not recommend.  I do like pigment ink for certain things though... Their individual stamp pads have this unfortunate habit of popping their tops off in my trail pack. {The insides of my one bag are a lovely teal because of this...} I don't even buy those any more.  My long skinny ColorBox with the full range of colours sometimes joins me, but it is also super messy to use.

On the other hand, my StazOn and other Tsukeniko inks are doing really well.  Still quite juicy.  The black is the only one I've needed a reinker for - and the packaging stays nice and tightly shut in my bag on the trail.  I'm going to stick with those in the future, I think...

OZ Cut: perfect for knife carving...

This past summer, I was asked to do a wedding invite stamp for a friend's wedding...

With a knife on OZ (click on image for bigger):

Listmakers Anon

Did you know that I have a list? A big master list of all the letterboxes that are planned - and have a location? Right now, I have 48 letterboxes that have an idea, image, and location in the works.  Some are only in the ether at the moment, others have the images transferred, some are mid-carve, others are sitting on my coffee table at home waiting to be planted (right now, that coffee table list sits at seven - waiting a good day to plant!).

Moving again got my creative juices going again big time.  I'm also really busy at work, which somehow also gives me great ideas.  Don't ask me how that works.  But many a sticky note come home with me from work with new ideas on it.

I also have a dropbox folder that has about ~500 images that I've dropped there that all fall within the "I want to carve that someday" file.  I don't really count those as in the process, really it's just an easy way to pull images to keep on hand.  Although, admittedly, lately I've been generating more and more of my own images - whether because of text, or because I've been doing a lot more image manipulation that's given me more control over the images I produce.

Anyways, I've got a lot percolating at the moment, but that carve I'm doing for L&B is bottlenecking the process (although, I seem to also be behind on logbooks).  I timed it last night: I'm averaging five words per hour on the L&B carve.  The image has a lot of teensy text.  I just want it to be done - serves me right for picking text.

I've really been enjoying the mild weather - hoping it keeps up and we have a warm March.  My MeetUp is in a few weeks and it would be nice to have it outside... I've been working on a mini-getting-started-letterboxing-booklet for the event, still being written... I digress... I'm off!

Happy trails!