Carving letters and words is just like carving anything else... EXCEPT that you have to be more careful. While you might flub a little bit on objects and things that COULD have misshapen edges, having them on letter, especially elegant cursive letters, is... not desirable.

Obviously, the simplest, straightest sans-serif font will be easy carve. Add serifs (the little pointy things on the ends of the ascenders, descenders and tails), and it gets twice as hard.

Having carved many, many letters myself, some smaller than 1/8" tall, there are two daunting parts of carving letters: carving those tight inside corners so they're sharp as glass; and carving the very ends of the letters, where (if the cross-cut has already been made) the rubber has a tendency to warp away from the cutting edge and inadvertently give you serifs or stretched ends.

The first instinct of some people might be to drop their carving nib like a hot rock and head for the X-Acto, but I say NO! Don't do it! Trust me... I've been there before, you see, and I can tell you with authority that letters and X-Acto blades don't get along because there's that whole extra set of cuts you have to make. If you're not extremely careful with that blade, you'll slice up and gouge the delicate shapes like Mike Rowe with a Saws-All on Dirty Jobs.

So I say, stick with the nibs...

To keep the inside angles of ANY corner nice and sharp rather than dull and rounded, attack the corner from two sides. Take the letter T. A piece of cake to carve this. First drive your blade along the bottom of the "roof" on the left hand side, heading for the "pole". Stop when your blade reaches the pole and back it away. Now drive your blade up the pole on its left side, stopping when it reaches the roof. Repeat the process for the other side of the T. Then clear the rubber atop the roof.

What's missing from this? The T doesn't have pointy ends! Instead of driving your blade ACROSS each end of the T's lines, turn your tool totally vertical and set one of its "two" blades flat across an end of the letter. Push the blade DOWN into the rubber, trying to angle the cut away from the desired surface.

V, X, Y and Z (and other letters, too) have inside angles that are more challenging that the comfy right angles of the T.

Take for example, the letter V. Nice, simple. Should take only a minute carve this, you might think. But look at that tight inside corner. Oh, sure, you could drive your blade up into the corner like we did with the T, but if you drive it straight in, either you'll slice through the other "arm" of the V or you'll realize it and stop. How do you get in there? Easy. Before you start driving down, say, the left arm, angle your tool 45 to 60 degrees so the open end is directly facing the right arm. Drive the blade along the inside of the left arm toward the inside angle, and you should be able to get that leading blade right into the corner. Repeat for the other leg and you should have a corner so sharp Ginsu would be proud.

Sometimes, if the angle is very sharp or the space very narrow, I'll stop before I reach the point and roll that leading edge forward and into the rubber till it meets the point.

Now, to get the ends of the letters clean, the best thing you can do is NOT carve out the rubber that's perpendicular to the sides of the arms, legs, poles... whatever... If you leave that intact, as we did with the T-carving demo earlier, you'll be right as rain, cause then you'll have to make only one of the following cuts:

Let's say you're carving toward the end of a line and you've already carved a groove that's perpendicular to your path. As you reach the very end of the line, the rubber may stretch with the blade as it travels by, and could warp enough so that when you cut through the rubber and into the open groove, it leaves, as I said before, a little foot or "serif". Not always what you want. So, to prevent this warping, watch carefully as your blade approaches the corner. When you see the rubber ahead start to bow, stop! Back up a hair, tilt your tool vertically and roll the leading edge down into the rubber. By cutting this way, you're forcing the rubber to bow DOWN instead of OUT.

Now, to carve those little "eyes" and donut holes, line up your nib and press down a bit to slightly sink it into the rubber. Keeping your nib stationary, spin the rubber so that it feeds into the blade. When you come full circle, slow down to minimize deflection bowing.

StarSAELS

A trick I use is to turn my carving upside down. I find my brain sees the letters as just another image, and I do not rush ahead assuming I know how the letters should look.

LW PhD
"Nice Counts"

PS Remember, you can make up your lettering in word or some other document and print them out...and then iron them or use the acetone method..just like any other image!

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Use a wide rubberband. cut it open, pin both ends down to make it taut and use an exacto-knife to cut letters out. Glue the letters where you want on your stamp - this will be the raised surface rather than having to carve them from the original block of carving material.

That sounds like a plan, but offhand I'd worry that the rubber band wouldn't be easy to carve. How about using that gasket material sold at Home Depot instead? It's thin. You wouldn't need to strap it down, just lay it down and cut. You're not limited to width, either.

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While you might flub a little bit on objects and things that COULD have misshapen edges, having them on letter, especially elegant cursive letters, is... not desirable.

Obviously, the simplest, straightest sans-serif font will be easy carve.

Gee, in my limited experience, it's exactly the opposite. It's the straight sans-serif letters that look awful if you don't carve them perfectly. Every part of every letter must come out the exact same width or the whole thing is a mess. Cursive lettering or other lettering with lots of natural variation makes it easier, since one part a little off here and there isn't noticeable.

StarSAELS, this deserves to be in the tutorial section. How do we arrange that?

Fiddleheads

I'd have to make a wiki entry out of it.

{It's the straight sans-serif letters that look awful if you don't carve them perfectly.}

Well, speak for yourself... ;-)

But I understand your point, and I agree to the extent that you can compare it to handwriting. My daughter's first-grade block letters are typically messy, but when she opts for cursive (which aggravates her teachers to no end), it's beautiful.

But blocky, sans-serif letters are the best things to get practice with. You have to learn from your mistakes, and as you said, they'll be immediately obvious.

If anyone is looking for some decent fonts that lend themselves to being a little uneven, then I suggest Ancient Script (a variation of it is Papyrus), Thomas Paine and Mailart Rubberstamp (although this last one has details within the strokes that may throw you off if you're not into typography, as I am.

{A trick I use is to turn my carving upside down. I find my brain sees the letters as just another image, and I do not rush ahead assuming I know how the letters should look.}

Rarely does a stamp I'm carving stay in its "proper orientation" for long. For the most part, my nib is stationery except on really tight, hairpin turns, and long straightaways. The stamp is constantly moving, spinning. I see the lines and what must be excavated, and for most artwork that's fine.

But letters.... ehhh... they really do need a little extra precision.