[jdunford]

I've been considering getting some hot-stamped T-molds for a while. Was curious if people with more hot-stamp experience could help me out. I just picked up an "expendable" sample set (colours I'm not interested in purchasing) and started doing thumb-flips, and noticed it damaged the hot-stamps pretty much immediately. After half a dozen cycles through the 5-chip stack, they all showed varying degrees of damage, from scratches in the stamp, to large pieces of stamp flaked away.

Should chip tricks strictly be avoided with hot-stamped chips? Do you do thumb-flips and other potentially face-damaging tricks with your hot-stamped chips? Results?

Perhaps my samples are particularly susceptible to damage. My samples have particularly delicate (shallow) hot-stamps. I've seen others that are much deeper; perhaps that's the issue?

(not sure if this belongs in Poker Chip Tricks or Poker Chip Care... flipped a coin)

[whataboutj]

I shuffle and do thumb flips with my hot stamped T-molds (the second set MSPatton ever made) and the stamps seem fine. I will look again closely to see if there's any damage, but for sure nothing that "Stuck out"
J

Originally Posted by jdunford

I've been considering getting some hot-stamped T-molds for a while. Was curious if people with more hot-stamp experience could help me out. I just picked up an "expendable" sample set (colours I'm not interested in purchasing) and started doing thumb-flips, and noticed it damaged the hot-stamps pretty much immediately. After half a dozen cycles through the 5-chip stack, they all showed varying degrees of damage, from scratches in the stamp, to large pieces of stamp flaked away.

Should chip tricks strictly be avoided with hot-stamped chips? Do you do thumb-flips and other potentially face-damaging tricks with your hot-stamped chips? Results?

Perhaps my samples are particularly susceptible to damage. My samples have particularly delicate (shallow) hot-stamps. I've seen others that are much deeper; perhaps that's the issue?

(not sure if this belongs in Poker Chip Tricks or Poker Chip Care... flipped a coin)

[tastic]

I haven't noticed any such damage or flaking with my stamped T-molds.

[SuckoutKing]

Sounds like some sort of problem with the stamping or foil. If a chip is stamped properly even scratching the face of the chip with say a coin wouldn't bother it. Could you throw up a picture of the chips in question.

[Felix]

I can only speak for the PaulSon Private Cardrooms and their hotstamps doesnt get damaged easy. Especially not due to thumbflipping or shuffling them.
If you look an the pic you can see it:


The left one is mint, the middle one hast been "shuffled to death, thumbflipped ... for half a year several hours a day and the one on the right has seen 10month of play at least once a week.
I hope this is true for BCC hotstamps also because i want to order some.
Sorry for the huge pic but somehow i wasnt able to put the thumbnal up.

[jdunford]

Originally Posted by Felix

I can only speak for the PaulSon Private Cardrooms and their hotstamps doesnt get damaged easy. Especially not due to thumbflipping or shuffling them.
If you look an the pic you can see it:

The left one is mint, the middle one hast been "shuffled to death, thumbflipped ... for half a year several hours a day and the one on the right has seen 10month of play at least once a week.
I hope this is true for BCC hotstamps also because i want to order some.
Sorry for the huge pic but somehow i wasnt able to put the thumbnal up.

Wow! Thanks. That middle chip has noticeably rounded edges, but the hot-stamp looks pretty good still. Just what I wanted to see/read.

The hot-stamps I've been shuffling are the "Speakeasy" hot-stamp (wonder why?! )... and it has a rather large, flat hot-stamp region in the exact middle of the chip. This region gets rubbed by the edge of 1 or 2 chips during a thumb-flip, and seems to scratch easily. But it's generally not rubbed during shuffling...

My samples are supposed to demonstrate what each colour of foil looks like on each chip base, and may have been made quickly (not pressed as deep or at as high of temperature) - not sure. I'll have to ask Michael. Just wanted to see what other people have generally found.

Here's a stock photo of the stamp, for people who aren't familiar (taken from HoldemPokerChips.com):

[Felix]

Yes...the middle chip has been shuffled really hard, i sometimes shuffled them with a lot of power, just to see what they can take. I have to say, that they can take a lot!
i remember some pictures where a member got custom hs from bcc with a ship on them. There have been some issues, too. I think that large foil covered areas are not as robust as some small lines. maybe because the hs is a little deeper than the rest of the chip, so thet there is not soo much contact. If you look at my pics, you see that on the two other chips still is some excess foil around the letters. this wears off first, so the hs gets even sharper. If i ever do a custom die, i would only make outlines and no areas that are bigger than 1 millimeter. I think thats the trick!

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Felix

... i sometimes shuffled them with a lot of power...

How do you do that?

[SuckoutKing]

The key to the stamping whether for a small or large area is allowing the proper amount of pressure and heat for the Foil to form a bond to the chip. If that bond isn't completely made over the entire surface of the stamp you will get the problems you are having.

[jdunford]

This morning I started with another base colour (Sherbet) and started doing thumb-flips, and so far, only 1 chip (out of 7) has damage on one side... so it may have had to do with adhesion between the stamp and the chip, as well.

But my Charcoal samples are pretty much ruined. The only ones holding up reasonably well are the red and green foils; blue, gold, silver, and both holographic stamps are toast!

Moving on to my Black samples. They seem to have been pressed a little deeper.

(Besides, gives me something to do while I nurse this flu)