Heidi;
I can’t help you with advice when stamping letters in a
line, but as to the problem with ghost images, I do a lot of
stamping with design stamps (native American). Many of us use very
thin, and I mean thin cardboard underneath our silver piece to
prevent the bouncing effect. To give you an idea on thickness, about
the thickness of one to two paper match book covers. I don’t however
use match book covers because of the inked or painted side makes
them slippery. I don’t know if this will help in your particular
need, but to help me get the feel for spacing, the tilt effect
needed, and the overall look of my stamping, I always make a scale
drawing of the piece that I’m creating, and then using a plain old
ink pad, I take my design stamp and inking it place an image(s) just
like I were stamping the piece, and I do this with as many stamps as
I’m using . I use at least a two pound brass hammer for stamping .
The lighter the hammer, the greater the chance of bouncing. I even
have a three pounder for those stamps that have a broad face. I hope
this helps, best wishes, John Barton