MasterCut Carving Block, Rubber, White, 300x200

Speedball's Speedy Carve is a fab product but it's also pretty pricy so I have been searching for an alternative for stamp making for a while now and decided to give Essdee's Master Cut a try. I was specifically looking for a compound for the stamping of block and motif down onto paper rather than a material for use with the paper on top and use of a barn or etching press. I'm happy to report this product perform well as the former and although I have yet to try the later I think it will perform well with a baren/back of a spoon for sure and as long as one doesn't use too much pressure it'll be fine through a press.It's not as thick or soft as the pink stuff: at 4mm it is a little harder to lift and place and one needs to exert just a little more pressure but at the price I can work with this, especially when doing workshops or exploratory work to save the expensive of the speedy-carve.As a carving medium it seems to hold fine lines relatively well but as above: it's a firmer cut. I have read some reviews of this product which say it can be crumbly but I have not, thus far, found it so and it cuts cleanly with a scalpel. I shall have to see how it holds up over time but so far so good and I would recommend this product for sure.

I'm new to relief/lino printing and purchased this as part of my learning curve regarding materials for carving my own printing blocks.This is a white pliable material - think of a sheet of eraser - and is very easy to carve with lino tools.I found that cutting larger and simpler shapes worked best.When I tried to cut fine lines or small details I found that I couldn't achieve clean cuts despite using a very sharp cutting tool.In addition, as I worked I found that the Mastercut became crumbly when handled/turned during the cutting process - just like an eraser does when used to rub out.Some crumbly fragments adhered to the block surface despite my best attempts to remove them and subsequently became embedded in the ink I applied to my block. The block also seemed to "absorb" a lot of ink.I learned a lot from my experiment. However, hand carving a block is time consuming and I want a good return on my effort. .Overall, I wouldn't purchase this again.

This is fine if you are doing solid shapes and not a lot of fine detail. Although easy to carve, I found that it is crumbly when wanting to do finer details.I have used all sorts of carving blocks and I would use this again as long as my designs are simple and not too detailed.

I’ve used this before. Great stuff! Soft and easy to carve. Also, being white it is easy to trace or draw onto. Held its shape well in registration plate, despite multi block reductions.Also, ordered last night and it arrived this morning!!

I was able to successfully carve a few designs that I needed. I am well satisfied with the end product. If I need to do anything else like it, I will buy this material again.