Experiment: accidental stamp damage during the dye process

[marmoset]

I just finished another experiment. It might not interest most of you guys but a few might find it interesting.

I spoke with someone on these boards about dyeing on top of an existing stamp. I told them to be careful when you apply a vinyl mask on top of a stamp you want to keep because you might pull part of the stamp off when you pull the vinyl off.

So I put the same size piece of 3M Graphic Vinyl on 8 different discs and tried to pull the hotstamp off.
The discs were:
DX Leopard- white plastic with a stock gold foil stamp
Pro Leopard- red plastic with a stock purple foil stamp
Champ Leopard- transparent green with an X-Out blue foil stamp
Star Leopard- lime green with an X-Out silver foil stamp
Pro D Wasp- white plastic with a stock blue foil stamp
X Comet- yellow plastic with a stock blue foil stamp
Z Comet- transparent pink with a stock white non-foil stamp
ESP Comet- yellow plastic with a stock black non-foil stamp

Before I reveal the results I should note a few things:
۰I did not thoroughly clean the disc surfaces before applying the vinyl but I'm sure the vinyl would not have allowed bleeds. Clean discs allow better grip for the tape so if you thoroughly clean before you apply your mask then you might need to be extra careful.
۰I did not put the discs into a simulated dye cycle by putting them into heated water. If I had done this then the tape would grip the disc betterand would increase the chances of lifting the stamp.
۰I tried to attach the tape to similarly sized and shaped sections of the hotstamp on each disc.
۰I applied the vinyl the same way I would have if I were going to dye it. I thoroughly rubbed and fingernailed the surfaces to ensure good contact.


And the results were:

DX Leopard- no effect
Pro Leopard- very light, spotty removal of the foil
Champ Leopard- worst damage out of any of the hotstamps but still not full removal
Star Leopard- foil partially removed but not as bad as the Champ Leo
Pro D Wasp- no effect
X Comet- no effect
Z Comet- traces of white on the adhesive side of the tape but no visible damage to the stamp. I guess it just took part of the top layer of the stamp.
ESP Comet- no effect and I'm glad it didn't because they aren't going to make any more of these guys apparently!

I can't guarantee you will have the same results as me but this should at least give you a start.

[Mad Scientist]

Interesting. That's definitely something to keep in mind of you are going to leave the stamp on.

Did you notice if any of the colored foil stamps had the color lifted, leaving silver beneath? I have a yellow Star Valk that has a green foil stamp - The first day I got it, it landed in a small creek. When I dried it off, some of the green started to sluff off, leaving the stamp silver beneath.

[Lithicon]

On the ones that the stamp was removed partially, is it still apparent where the stamp was? If it had been fully removed, could you still see where the stamp was previous to removal? This sounds pretty cool, wonder if you could almost pull a stamp from one disc, and put it on another disc. Doubtful as the vinyl probably wouldn't release the stamp. Lol, still rather interesting.