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On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:02:43 -0700, "Bob La Londe"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
Whoever said that rosin will not work with steel was right.

I managed a couple of pieces but the results were inconsistent and
unpredictable. I went back to plumber's flux:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2768312...in/photostream

A quick wash, do the machining right away and then wash thoroughly and
neutralize with soda bic. No rusting.

Ignore the stamping, the horrible result is only partly due to my lack
of skill. Who knew that a set of stamps for $11 would be useless?

You could try case hardening the ends. Of course then they wouldn't be
$11
stamps anymore.

The main problem is that they are bent in all sorts of ways so it is
impossible to line up the letters even using a jig, or strike them
evenly because the plane of the letters is not 90 degrees to the shaft
and this angle varies letter from letter.

I have not done much stamping up to now and thought I would try it
seeing that it would cost me only $11 (my previous set was numbers
only - that one had the number 4 different size to the rest!).

The main benefit of the exercise was learning what to look for if I
want to do it seriously in future. However, nothing that I have seen
of it so far convinces me that it is a useful technique for my
purposes.

Where did you get the stamps? I have a few sets of Harbor Freight stamps
that are better than that. They were pre "son", so maybe that is the
difference.