Making a makers mark

**Arron** · 19th July 2023, 10:16 AM

Hi. I want to make a ‘makers mark’. This will be pressed into pottery while it’s still fairly soft.

Most are made from either fired clay or timber. I choose timber. Usually they are machine-carved into the endgrain of some fine grained timber.

I have linden (lime, basswood) and Huon pine at hand, plus macro and micro carving hand tools, and a Dremel plus and a wide array of bits. I have woodcarving experience too. However I can’t think of how to go about this and end up with a quality look. I’m pretty sure carving or dremelling such a tiny figure into endgrain isn’t going to be pretty. Has anyone made one of these and like to share how they did it?

Attached is the mark, sketched on a piece of lime. I’d ultimately cut it down to a dowel about 15mm round.

Cheers
Arron

16986663-9863-4B4A-BB35-722B40A75092.jpg

**Camelot** · 19th July 2023, 10:36 AM

Like you say end grain is going to be a challenge, I guess you would need to make a mirror image and takeaway material around your image so that when it is stamped into the clay it the raised makers mark will leave an indentation.

I have a CNC Laser that might do that in end grain, do you know of anyone local to you that uses Lasers?

**Arron** · 19th July 2023, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by Camelot

Like you say end grain is going to be a challenge, I guess you would need to make a mirror image and takeaway material around your image so that when it is stamped into the clay it the raised makers mark will leave an indentation.

I have a CNC Laser that might do that in end grain, do you know of anyone local to you that uses Lasers?

Don’t know anyone with a laser.

Btw: I didn’t realise it had to be mirror image. Good pick up.

**rustynail** · 19th July 2023, 02:08 PM

A knurling punch made from a suitable sized bolt. The end of the bolt is crosshatch filed with a small three cornered file, the resulting points are then driven into the timber by striking the head of the bolt with a hammer, just like any other punch. The larger the area to be relieved the larger the bolt diameter can be. For small areas and tight corners a bolt of about 5mm dia works well. As the pattern of the knurling is not required in your case, you can go over the relief as many times as you want to reach the required depth. If you do want to retain the knurled pattern a single depth of punching is required to retain the integrity of the pattern.

**Arron** · 19th July 2023, 02:20 PM

Yes. I hadn’t thought of a punch but that sounds like an excellent idea.

Just punch away, then scrape away the compressed and damaged fibres, then punch to a lower level and repeat.

Thanks for that.

**Arron** · 19th July 2023, 03:03 PM

I just gave Rustynail’s solution a go. I don’t have a knurling punch so used a 1.5mm nail punch which has nice crisp edges. It worked really well. Just one tap is enough to depress the ground as far as I need, leaving a figure which should be easy to clean up with micro carving tools.

Problem solved, I think.

Thanks.
Arron

**GraemeCook** · 27th July 2023, 05:09 PM

Originally Posted by Arron

... I didn’t realise it had to be mirror image. Good pick up.

But Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts were all written in mirror image.

Could be an interesting twist.

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