Review of the Trodat 5212 Professional Mega Self-Inking Stamp

June 22, 2016 Jon Off CNC Laser, CNCROi.com News, Rubber,

The Trodat 5212 professional mega self-inking stamp is HUGE, just how big? Watch this video as we make a custom rubber stamp for this incredibly accurate and metal framed beast!

The measurements of the rubber stamp itself that fits into the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp are 116 x 70 mm or 2.8 x 4.6 inches. This is, by far, the biggest self-inking stamp in the market and CNCROi.com has plenty to work with to help you with your custom stamping needs!

As with all our stamps, it begins with our Trotec (parent company is Trodat) 400 flexx Austrian CNC laser + Trodat rubber. This is an incredibly powerful combination as our machine is optimized and equipped specifically to make awesome custom stamps day in and out with incredible quality and precision. In this case, the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp.

The design was made in-house, CNCROi.com has a full design department so even if you can’t design the files we need to make your stamp, we have the internal capabilities to make it for you at any size, any volume and for any rubber stamping mechanism, Trodat or otherwise.

As you can see, custom rubber stamp production is a dirty business, you see more of this during the production of the custom Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp because there is more surface area being vaporized to create this huge stamp. The smaller the stamp, the less you notice this dust.

We’ve done stamps that were a meter long by 60 cm high (32 x 39 inches) and by the end of the production run, the entire laser has to be cleaned due to all the dust produced. Luckily for this video, it’s a relatively small stamp we are making.

The design was optimized for the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp in that many items were outlined instead of full to use the ink from the pad optimally. With custom stamps, there is a very fine line between having too much surface area and not enough, the more surface area you create, the more ink you use and this increases the potential for “empty spots”.

Having a solid stamp produced takes experience, a fully inked pad and of course, a little bit of time to let everything season. As you’ll see, there are some minor empty spots on this Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp when in first use but that goes away once the ink has had time to settle onto the custom rubber stamp and ink pad gets properly embossed. This produces a better result.

CNCROi.com also has a full complement of lenses to augment our custom rubber stamp production. Some lenses are better for thicker or thinner rubber during custom production. For the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp we are making here, we are using a 1.5″ CO2 lens but other times, we use a 4″ lens for specific rubber stamps.

After the custom Trodat 5212 professional self-inking rubber stamp is produced, it’s cut out, as you can see, there is a full layer of vaporized rubber on the stamp which needs to be cleaned off.

The design looks perfect, it should come out awesome once married to the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp! The custom rubber stamp is huge with the surface area roughly equivalent to two business cards.

The mechanism itself of the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp is even bigger, I have a big hand and it’s dwarfed by this beast of a steel-framed stamp! The plastic is also solid and and as a result, this stamp is made for heavy use and is incredibly durable. We can also make many different custom stamp pads so you can switch between them if needed.

The steel core of this Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp is an important feature that can’t be expressed enough. Why? It means that the results will be solid on the media you are imprinting. Put another way, the frame will not bend and produce uneven results during the stamping process, especially for applications requiring lots of stamping day in and out!

Putting the custom rubber stamp we just made here at CNCROi.com and the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp together is easy, just put the rubber underneath and stamp “once” to stick them together with a little pressure.

The custom rubber stamp is now part of the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp’s mechanism and ready to go! You can note how solid the stamp is, the surface is flat (very important!) and the mechanism flawless, which means you won’t get ink all over your fingers when using this!

Taking a look one more time underneath, you can see how consistent the laser engraving of this custom rubber stamp really is. There is also a faint outline around the stamp which needs a bit of time to marinate to the rubber (you’ll see why below) but otherwise, it looks great!

Another visual aid to help you understand just how massive this custom Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp really is.

It’s literally bigger than most people’s heads! It’s also very solidly built and comes with a full Trodat warranty against mechanical defects.

The ink pad, available in a variety of colors, is also huge for the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp. In this case, just black was used.

And now you can see the custom stamp made above inked by the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp. It really helps to showcase the high and low points of this custom rubber stamp doesn’t it?

Compared, for instance, to the 5206, you can see how big the Trodat 5212 professional self-inking stamp really is.

Watch this video to show you how we made a custom rubber stamp for that too!

What do the results look like? Almost flawless and incredibly sharp, again, there is a little marination required on the edges of the self-inking stamp when there are things right on the bleeding edge of a custom stamp but otherwise, looks fantastic!

About 10 minutes later after the video was done, here are the sharp results created by this custom rubber stamp… some designs need a little time, that’s all.