If you’ve ever wanted to create your own authentic wax seal, I’ve finally cracked it using a laser-engraved brass stamp — and I’ll show you how.

They come and go out of fashion, but wax seals still evoke a sense of quality and authenticity that has survived for hundreds of years. Over a lesser number of years, I have attempted various ways of making my own version, from a faux wax seal using embossing powder, to another made from pewter and latterly engraving acrylic with the laser and painting over with a soft-touch varnish. None of those were authentic though

With the arrival of my xTool F1 Ultra fiber laser, the opportunity was there to finally create my own proper, customised, brass wax seal stamp and apply an authentic wax seal to my work.

Designing the wax seal stamp

The laser-engraved versions of my seal featured the year of creation – this was easy to do each year and I only engraved a small batch at a time. It would be a costly endeavour to engrave a new brass stamp each year (though easy enough to do). If I created more pieces than I do, then it might become cost-effective, but not at the moment. Thus, a date was not included.

I wanted to include a signature of sorts – I chose to add my initials-squiggle that is found on patient records across at least three counties and on the ridiculous number of prescription forms I have to sign for my meds each month. The lettering is Gill Sans Condensed, giving a bold outline and a shorter line length. I pulled it altogether to scale in Adobe Illustrator, converting everything to vector format for a crisp engrave. I then, importantly, mirrored the artwork ready for engraving onto the brass stamp blank.

Engraving with the xTool F1 Ultra

The brass blank is the traditional 1″ / 2.5cm diameter and was obtained from a certain Chinese wholesaler along with the screw-in wooden handle. They are also available via Amazon. I set it up so that it wouldn’t move on the bed of the laser. Then, using an outer circle in the xTool Creative Space and setting the framing option to outline, I lined up the artwork. I used the native settings for incising (deep engrave of vector artwork) using the fiber IR laser and set it going. After a couple of passes, I added crosshatching to the laser passes and changed the angle of the laser pass as well to get an even engrave. I lost count of how many passes were needed, but kept going until I reached what I thought was a good depth.

If you engrave too hot, a lot of trash gets thrown out onto the surface of the brass. It’s better to go low and slow, and you’ll have a lot less crud to clean up. That said, there were still some burrs around the engraved edges, so I swirled the stamp on some 3000 grit sandpaper on a flat surface to smooth these off.

Wax on, wax off: wax application trials

Testing did not initially go well. I have several packs of sticks of traditional sealing wax – the type that have the wick through and you set light to. Well, I can tell you it takes practice. Flaming wax dripped onto the paper in all sorts of patterns, none resembling a disc of molten wax. Getting the stamp into the wax whilst blowing out the flames was not ideal.

Plan B: cut up the wax into pieces, melt in a spoon over a tealight candle and pour onto the paper. Yeah, it should have worked, but it didn’t. I couldn’t get the wax/spoon hot enough to pour reliably and it coated the spoon rather than pouring off it.

Plan C: I invested in a cool heat glue gun and wax sticks. Oh, this was soooo much easier. Perfect molten discs, no messy clean up and quick to set. I quickly learnt that one should press the stamp into the wax until it squeezes out at the sides, then leave well alone until the wax has cooled significantly. To do otherwise results in the stamp pulling up wax and breaking the design.

To save time in the future, I admit to fudging the seals… I did a small batch of seals onto a silicone sheet, and once cooled peeled them off ready to glue to my pieces. It means I don’t have to get out the kit, let the glue gun warm up and tidy everything away each time. This has the added benefit that any unsuccessful stamping can be gathered up and remelted by other means so none is wasted.

Finishing touches

I experimented with adding a touch of gold Rub-n-Buff wax paste to catch the raised areas, but didn’t find a reliable way to hit these and not the background. I also tried adding a contrasting colour of wax to the indents on the brass stamp, scraping the rest clean and then imprinting this into the red wax. The theory is (according to social media reels) that the raised areas stick to the background and a two-tone seal results when you lift away the stamp. Well, I couldn’t get the stamp clean enough to avoid the constrasting colour sticking to the background.

Learning points

I only just got away with the width of my letter lines – any smaller and I don’t think the wax would have got in and the natural surface tension/meniscus would have resulted in a duff imprint. I advise that a minimum line width of 0.5mm be used.

Engraving brass chucks out a lot of brass powder – I recommend making a pre-filter for the laser extractor fan and be prepared to change the filter paper frequently during the engrave to keep airflow going. I used TPU (backplate) and PLA (front plate and filter grip) filaments to 3D print this magnetic version which uses cooker filters to catch dust. It works well with slate engraving too.

Get your own customised wax seal made

If you are also looking to add that extra bit of authenticity and mark of quality to your snail mail, or considering sealing wedding invitations, or indeed anything else that you might affix a wax seal to, I would be happy to discuss making a brass seal stamp for you. Just get in touch!

And should you have your own xTool F1 Ultra laser and want some help to make your very own brass seal stamp on it, I can help with that too 🙂