I know the Japanese/Vietnamese "Seed" stuff is all the rage right now since it's available at stampeaz.com, but I'm going to go on record with a report on the translucent "Sandy" stuff (formerly referred to as Crystal Carve) that I'm still fiddling with because I have several pieces to use up yet.

Review: This stuff is heaven to slice, but getting a usable transfer has proven to be a nightmare. Transfers can be difficult to see depending on the tint of the material (it comes in 12 different colors) and smears so easily that the first pass with a hobby knife basically removes it. You'll need to plan to make any subsequent passes based on the first cut rather than the transferred image.

Recent findings:

* This qualifies as a "Duh!" I usually mount my stamps before carving, which means the material is bonded to a layer of pipe insulation foam tape -- which is black. Since the material is translucent, all I could see was black. I needed to change my process to carving before mounting (this stuff is thick and stiff, so that's not a problem) and lay the material on a white sheet of paper when carving. That makes it much easier to see what I'm doing!

* I found one piece that the wire knife refused to penetrate. Whassup wit dat? The blade would just slide over the material without cutting it. I could push really hard and cut it, but that's no fun. Flipped that piece over and the other side cut just fine. Weird.

* This material really calls for a surface tinting before transfer to improve visibility. Others have used yellow StazOn or something, but none of the ink pad inks I have here would stay put -- they'd just wipe off this stuff. I tried several ideas before hitting on the one that worked: A red Sharpie. I have light blue and yellow Sharpies, but you could barely tell you had applied anything. I used a red Sharpie to completely color the surface of the material as uniformly as possible (it still ends up a bit streaky), left it a day, then wiped it off. This left the material looking bright orange -- it was a pale blue color carving block to begin with! Note that, just looking at it, it looked as though the block was solid orange, not just a coating on one surface. The color evidently refracts through the material. When cutting, the cuts lit up like Christmas, reminiscent of the way Orange PZ Kut did. Removed chunks leave light blue areas, so those areas are easy to see.

The problem with this idea: The transfer left a bright orange image on my piece of mylar! That's really weird; it didn't leave the shape of the block, it left a copy of the transferred image. Only thing I can figure is that the inkjet ink dissolved some of the Sharpie ink and transferred it back onto the Mylar. I've been using that one piece of Mylar for a coupla years now and wasn't happy to have it permanently stained in this manner. Oh, well, it'll still work for transfers.

Still not entirely happy with this whole process. Having trouble getting really fine details because the transfer spreads if printed too solidly, and then smears when the wire knife passes by no matter what. I could carve excellent details if only I could see what I was doing.

* Oh, one other thing: I have noticed that stamping with stamps made from Sandy result in lighter stamp images than when using pink stuff or other carving materials. The images are not blotchy at all, in fact they're arguably the cleanest I've ever achieved. But black looks like dark gray. It's as though the material picks up only a very thin coating of ink from the ink pad, even though that coating is perfectly smooth. I don't mind it, but it is distinctive.

Thank you for this review. I found it very useful since I was about to buy some of it. I am concerned about the light inking. Hmmm? I will have to think about that and wait until I find a stamp made of this stuff.
Thank you Kirbert