I guess I have been confused all this time. Forty years ago in elementary school I carved a print image from what they called a linoleum sheet. It was a thin piece of linoleum with a rubber-like bottom, which is where I carved. In recent years I have layed linoleum flooring, which also had a rubber-like bottom with an adhesive coating.

Today I went letterboxing and found a box with a stamp carved from a Mounted Speedball Linoleum Block 4" X 5" (the label was still stuck on the front. If you've never seen it, look at page 10 of product catalog at http://www.speedballart.com) which is really nothing but a big block of wood. It didn't stamp very well, either.

I am just so surprised that there is no rubber surface on this thing, like I remember from elementary school.

So the Speedball Speed-Cut is too crumbly, and the Speedball Linoleum block is impossible to carve?

I can't get the speedbal website to load, since I don't have flash at work.

Unless you were working in a historic home, the "linoleum" you installed was not actually made of linoleum.

Linoleum is made of natural materials, and the other stuff is vinyl.

Here's an article that does a very good job of explaining the differences:

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/knowhow/interiors/article/0,16417,202857,00.html

As far as the "art" linoleum, there about a dozen different types. Different hardnesses, different backings (or no backing), different colors. Linoleum carvings print best when run through a printing press, or are burnished by hand. They make lousy rubberstamps.

Or at least my recent attempts did.

Hope this andswers your questions.

Lisascenic

One of my college roommates was an Art major... she took a block printing class and carved up big sheets of linoleum one semester. She used a speedball blade too, and left little bits of brownish grayish linoleum all over the place. Wish I'd paid more attention to her technique back then...

... anyway, I think she made some prints with a big brayer, but I think she may also have used some kind of press or jig to set them in... something in the art building, not our apartment. At any rate I'm pretty sure it was the thicky sticky poured ink I've heard block printers talk about, not nice neat, self-contained little ink pads.

MoonBunny

When we carved linoleum blocks in school, we heated it up a bit on a little burner, so that it became easier to carve. Not that it was impossible to carve cool, but just much easier when it was heated a bit.
They don't stamp well -- at least not with typical inks. But if you use something like acrylic paint, they're fabulous. Usually you must use a press or a roller of some sort to get the paint evenly spread and pressed firmly onto the paper.
I LOVED doing these carvings, and in fact ended up buying a bunch of the stuff once the class project was over, so that I could do more at home. I made christmas cards many years in a row out of one carving.

monotonia

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So the Speedball Speed-Cut is too crumbly...

I'm not sure it's crumbly while you're carving it, but it reportedly becomes crumbly later. And that would be most depressing after spending time carving a nice stamp. Obviously it's a better idea to start with good stuff such as Speedy-Stamp or PZ Kut.

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...and the Speedball Linoleum block is impossible to carve?

I haven't tried carving the Speedball Linoleum block, but I've seen it, and it appears to be hard as a rock. I think it's for linotype printing, where you carve grooves in the block, roll ink over the block with a roller, then wipe the ink away so the only ink remaining is in the grooves. Then apply a sheet of paper and roll it over hard enough that it's pushed into the grooves a bit and picks up the ink.

IOW, it's the negative of a rubber stamp, where the ink remains on the flat surfaces rather than in the grooves between the flat surfaces.

I have tried NASCO Softoleum. Totally unsuitable for rubber stamps. It's a soft grey material with a texture not unlike the FACE of the linoleum flooring rather than the back side! When you try to carve it, you end up with a raised lip around the edges of what you carved because the linoleum smoooshes out of the way of your blade and stays permanently deformed.