Black Beauty

As a writer, I have a love of a good notebook and as a creator, I love a good handmade objects. If you've read my blog you know where this is going, but for those of you who are new, when I decide I like something, I typically think "I could make that." Hence, I started making notebooks. 

This is the first one I made a couple years ago. It's not too bad, but it's obviously rough. The covers are plywood and the pages are printer paper, but it's a been a good companion. After I made this one, I decided to do others. 

Two have covers right now. The third will need some soon. The fluffy stuff is the binding that will be joined to a pair of covers with glue later on. Here is how I assemble one of these.

You will need for this project:

     - paper, can be fancy or plain

     - an awl

     - twine

     - tacky glue

     - plywood, leather, or thick paper board for the covers

     - cloth, small section to cover the spine 

     - cloth, optional, to cover the covers 

     - paint, optional, to cover the covers

First, select your paper, You can use copy paper like my first one or you can use heavier, nicer paper like I did for this project. This is sketchpad paper, so very heavy to accept pastel and watercolor, but thin enough to be flexible. Once you have your sheets of paper, fold them in half. Now you have four pages, or a folio.

Once you have a set of six folded pieces of paper (24 pages), place them inside of each other in a stack. This is called a signature. Signatures can be any number of folios, but I typically choose six. 

Once you have your signatures done, remember that you can have as many pages as you want. The number of pages is equal to the number of sheets of paper, times four, times however many folios are in a signature, times however many signatures you have, all minus two. This will make sense in a minute. 

Now, you are going to need to pierce the signatures with an awl right in the fold. You can pierce individual folios, but piercing signatures at a time is faster. You need to have an even number of holes and you should space them evenly. I keep about a half inch (13mm) away from the bottom and top edges. 

Now, stack up the signatures and line them up so that all the holes in the fold of the folios will be on one edge. This is the spine of the book. 

Once you've got that all done, you're going to lace together the signatures. I use a simple twine about two millimeters in diameter. Lace each signature one at a time. Start by piercing each signature coming from the spine side of the book to the inside of the book. From there, lace in and out through the holes down the spine until you come to the end. This is why it is important to have an even number of holes to ensure that when you lace the last one, the twine will come out on the spine side of the book. Then you can lace from the bottom of the next signature to the top.

As you can see above, as I lace the second signature, I intertwine the lacing of one signature to the one above it. This is unnecessary, but does help keep the binding stay tight. Once you've got the signatures done, simply tie off the ends of the twine, or at least tuck them into the lacing.

Once you get your signatures laced up and laced to each other, take two blocks of wood and use them to clamp them together to bind them tightly for gluing.

After clamping, take a simple glue like tacky glue and and spread it on the spine from approximately the bottom set of holes and the top set of holes. Then take a piece of cloth and lay it on the spine. The cloth should go the extent of the holes, but not any closer to the top and bottom of the pages. I use either thin cloth like cheese cloth or medical gauze. I leave the cloth shorter than the pages so that it won't show in the final project.

Allow the glue to dry before unclamping. 

Once this is done, you now have the essential book. The flaps of cloth (now on another book), are how the covers are attached. These are glued to either plywood, leather, or thick paperboard. These can be covered by cloth or paint, or left alone in the case of leather. I chose plywood, for this particular book. This is thick, but durable. Make sure to use plastic wrap to keep the pages from sticking to the cover.

Once you have the cover glued to the book, take the first and last page of the book, glue those two pages to the cover, to cover up the cloth from the binding. Painting and decoration can commence at this point. Now, you've got an actual book. 

The only step left is to cover the stitching. I typically use gaffer's tape, but more cloth and glue can be used too depending on the look you want. You can either just cover the spine, or wrap it all the way around the cover to the inside. 

That's how it's done. Takes some time to let things dry, but the whole thing shouldn't really take more than a couple of days. 

Summertime Madness

It's been several months since I posted, but I had to go through the drudgery of Spring semester and finals. Now that that's done, I'm free to go about my work I've been neglecting.

My biggest project right now is a knife I've had in the works for probably a year. Currently I'm wrestling with the ferrule and guard you can see here. I bombed an attempt of a guard and handle previously and then another one with the ferrule. I'm trying to see what I can do with the current project, but I've set it aside until I can get some of the subsequent projects finished.

The lines in the blade are the remainders of rasp grooves. If I were to grind them out, the blade would be a bit thin.

I had no saw blades for my jeweler's saw so I used a carbide bit and a drill on my Dremel to get started.

...and finished with files.

The guard was fitted and set.

I squared a copper pipe.

Cut it, and joined as you saw at the top.

The next project was a cool idea I saw on the internet.

And a few more I'm working on.

On top of that, I've been doing a lot of jewelry work.

A sterling ring, alloyed by me, forged by me.

Soldered (the bead is excess. It was cut and filed off later)

The ring was filed and set up for the next stage. Pictured with the ring above is a sheet of sterling silver I beat out from a lump. More annealing and cold forging was done after this picture. 

Next, flower patterns were cut out of the sheet with heavy scissors. The pattern was taken from one like this. 

After this, the petals were bent, formed, and soldered together.

The next phase will be to solder it in place and finish shaping, sanding, and polishing. I'm debating putting in a stone in the center, but it will be very challenging if I do.

 This is a cast I just finished.

A few issues with it, but I might be able to salvage it.

The next big project is a stone set into my ring I wear on my right hand. I talked about that in a previous post. I wear it everyday and am quite happy with it. However, I had heard about a type of setting called a gypsy setting.

This is essentially how it works. So, I decided, I needed to do this to my silver ring, but first, I did it on come copper sheet.

And that is done. I'm very happy with it. 

Lastly, I'm working on some gold refining. I have a large amount of old gold filled and plated jewelry. First, some terminology; Gold plated jewelry has a microns thick layer of gold that is added to base metals like brass, copper, or bronze through an electro-chemical process called plating. The process is used in jewelry, electronics, and steel (although in this case it is zinc and the process is called galvanization). Gold filled is a term to describe a mechanical process where gold is bonded with heat and pressure to a base metal. Gold filled results in a thicker, more durable coating of gold. This is used typically in watch cases and jewelry. These are marked typically with things like "1/10 12KT," "1/10 14KT," or "1/12 18KT." These describe the amount of gold alloy by weight, and the type of gold alloy by karat (a 24-ratio, 18 being 18/24 or 75% gold). 

To determine if an object is gold or a copper alloy, I discovered a solution of 2/3 3% hydrogen peroxide and 1/3 5% vinegar will serve as an indicator. Leave the piece in the solution overnight. If the solution is blue in the morning, you have a copper alloy. I discovered also that this solution will also eat at copper alloys and indeed, most metals while remaining largely non-toxic and relatively safe. The mixture is called peracetic acid. This is a useful solution that can be used as an anti-microbial agent on vegetable and hard surfaces if diluted to about 140-400 ppm. This is actually used in the kitchen I work in. However, my more concentrated solution eats metal in a matter of hours. 

As gold filled and plated jewelry is used and worn, it wears down the gold layer slowly. Hence the holes that appear and become tarnished on some old jewelry. This can be exploited to erode the base metal. If the gold is intact, simply cut it up to expose the inner layer.

The solution is strained and anything in the filter is collected.

Here's what happens to a watch case after several washes in the solution. 

The leftovers are a highly ionized solution. The copper ions in here really want to come out of solution so the peracetate and acetate ions will join to anything more reactive than copper. For this reason, do NOT pour this down a drain. It's not acidic anymore but it is highly corrosive. 

Aluminum is added to the solution so the copper (the dark stuff on the side) drops out of solution and since aluminum is the second most abundant material in the earth's crust, it will largely not react with anything down the drain. Now it is safe to dispose of. Soon the gold will be the only remainder material and it will be melted down to a single bead. 

That's all for now. I'll keep this updated the rest of the summer.

Portraits, Words, and Places

I said two posts ago that I was working on some portraits because I tend to take too many pictures of things and not people. I promised and now I'm going to deliver. Here is my latest work in the workshop and with the camera.

The first subject is my girlfriend, Angie. She's so lovely and fun to photograph, but I love the natural bond and intimacy that she shares with her best friend Hannah, the second subject. They're love and care for each other is immediately obvious and a joy to capture in these images. These were taken on my new Nikon Coolpix 840. It's a very nice gift from my sister. We are going to be shooting a wedding together soon and if the bride and groom allow it, I'd like to share those photos with you all as well.

On top of trying out my new camera, I recently finished a project that I'd wanted to get done for some time. It's my simple and fun book binding project. The pages are just copy paper, but they've been cut down. The edges ended up with this cool weathered look because the blade on the paper cutter was dull. The pages were sewn and glued together, then glued to the leather cover. Before adding the cover, I added four copper corners for the aesthetic. I thought I was done, but I really wanted some sort of closing mechanism, so I added in the clasp after the book was "done." Here's my finished result.

It won't fit in my pocket but it's definitely petite. It's probably about as big as my hand. The clasp has a bit of wiggle room in it, perfect for holding a pen in place for travel. This is destined to become my adventure log. I'm going to recap my adventures to take pictures with Angie and Hannah and then plan out more trips and take accounts of them here.

This actually my second completed journal. The first is my everyday user that I've had for about a year and a half now. The poor things falling apart in places, chipped, worn, and dirty, but it is well loved and used. Surprisingly, the whole thing is holding together and has held up to the rigors of my bookbag, unlike most professionally made books. The binding is holding up remarkably well. I've got two more in the works, one with plywood covers installed, like this one, but I'll just leave this one here for now.

Still working on the dragon, updates to come.