There are plenty of places to get steel stamps for jewelry making, e.g. https://www.steelstampsinc.com/products_jewelry_design.html but while one can find the Latin alphabet, Arabic numerals, and punctuation (as well as an amazing variety of little pictures), I need some in non-Latin fonts. Could I print these through Shapeways, or would the granularity not be fine enough? Would the steel be strong enough?
I don't know about the strength, but if you check the materials page it says that the minimum detail thickness is 1mm. That is considerably thicker than the thinest parts of most letters, regardless of the font you choose.
It would certainly limit how small a font I could use, and I'd need to go with a font style like Arial or Helvetica. But I could probably still get some use out of this if the stamp itself will hold up to being hammered against a sheet of copper or brass.
The short answer is NO. The printed stainless is not hard enough to stand up to repeated hammer impact. This material is more like cast iron rather than steel when comparing strength and hardness. There are however companies that can and will create custom steel stamps using your own artwork. Meaning, ANY design or font is possible. I believe this is done by photoetching the design onto the end of a tool steel blank. All that is required is a high contrast 2d drawing. The only problem being, it might be rather expensive to create an entire custom alphabet.
Here are a couple of other manufacturures to check out: http://www.harpermfg.com/index.html http://www.infinitystamps.com/ http://steelhandstamps.com/product_line.html Good luck and Happy New Year
Thanks, I already have a request for a quote in to a stamp manufacturer. Meanwhile, I'm going to use Art Silver Clay for my immediate project, which I can shape and then fire here to get a solid silver piece.