Wood mounted, foam mounted, chunky, unmounted, acrylic, cling, HALOS….what are these words and what do they mean to a rubber stamper?

Wood mounted stamps are stamps in which the rubber is mounted to a wood block with a thin piece of foam cushion usually between the wood and rubber. Small images can be mounted without the foam cushion, but all other images need the foam cushion in order to stamp evenly. The image is stamped onto the top of the block (or a stick of the image applied) so that the stamper can see what the image is and what direction it faces (this is called ‘indexing’ a stamp. The best wood for a wood mounted stamp is maple. Pine will warp over time.

Foam mounted stamps don’t have a wood block. The rubber image is applied directly to a thick piece of foam. There is no need for an additional piece of foam cushioning. These stamps are less expensive than the wood mounted, and are also harder to stamp with. The foam is flexible, making it easy to unintentionally touch a non-raised portion of the image to your project. The image is applied to the top of the foam cushion with a sticker.

A ‘Chunky’ stamp is a foam mounted stamp with a foam image instead of a rubber image. These are usually your least expensive stamps. They are good for decorative stamping on furniture, walls, clothing, etc but don’t always give the clean look of a rubber stamp. They also only come in solid image, and not outlines.

Unmounted stamps are usually only the rubber image. Occasionally they will come with foam cushion pre-attached. They can be trimmed or untrimmed. These stamps are the least expensive way to purchase stamps, but they require a mounting system in order to make them usable.

Acrylic stamps are stamps in which the rubber image is attached to a clear acrylic block. The rubber can be the normal red or gray rubber, or it can be clear (not really rubber…but a silicon based substance, I believe). These are easy to use, as the acrylic blocks are hard like wood blocks and you can see through the block to see exactly where you are positioning the image.

Cling stamps are like the acrylic stamps, except that the image is removable. Stampers who use these will have an assortment of acrylic block sizes, and then will use those to attach unmounted rubber or clear stamps. Special reusable adhesives (vinyl cling or repositionable glue) are applied to the image portion so that it can attach to the block and then be stored on plastic sheets in a notebook when not in use. This method has the advantage of taking up less space, as well as the advantage of the see-through block.

HALOS is a system of mounting stamps that uses Hook and Loop Tape (Hook And Loop On Stamps). Special acrylic blocks are used that have the hook portion of the tape recessed into special channels. The loop (soft) portion is then applied to the back of the rubber image (much like the foam cushion on the wood mounted stamps). Then the stamps can be mounted to the acrylic blocks, easily removed and stored.

Wood or foam mounted stamps can be made into cling or HALOS stamps. The rubber portions of the stamps can be eased off the foam and gently cleaned. Once that is done, they are treated like unmounted rubber stamps and can be used with the Cling or HALOS systems. Some stampers do this with retired or older stamps that aren’t available in any other form.