Industrial Notebook
Yesterday I worked on my industrial notebook again. This part of the ever on-going project was to attached an engraved plate onto the cover sheet.
Months ago the Girl and I found a copy machine by the dumpster. After determining it didn’t work well enough to keep, I took it apart to extract any sheets of metal I could find in it’s innards. I found several small pieces, sadly not large sheets as I had hoped.
The upside was that I had some pieces to experiment on with my Dremel tool and engraving bit. I used carbon paper to transfer my Celtic knot tattoo symbol from a print out onto the metal sheet. I then engraved the image with the Dremel, doing it the hard way since I have yet to purchase the $30 flex-shaft attachment that makes engraving easy. I put the engraved sheet away for a while after I was finished.
Yesterday I finally went to Home Depot and purchased safety goggles, a breath mask, and a bunch of metal-cutting blades for the Dremel. I then set to cutting out the engraved part of the metal sheet. After achieving that, I then drilled holes in the freshly cut plate as well as corresponding holes in the cover sheet of my industrial notebook. After that was done, I used small nuts and bolts to attach the plate to the cover sheet.
It looks good in my opinion, although nothing can ever be as good in realization as it is in the conceptual stages in your mind. It’s got some flaws, but that further gives it that used industrial feel that I think is appropriate for it. The only issue now is that the bolts are too long and thus create a gap between the cover and the first page.
Well, there’s that and the fact that I have yet to settle on any kind of project to include inside the pages. But at least this is done for now. I just wish I had more people to show it off to. I also need to call more places to try to find scrap metal from old VCRs and such so I can pursue more project ideas.
I used to call the industrial notebook ‘the Codex Mechanisma,’ because that sounded all cool and techno-industrial with a classical reference to Da Vinci’s notebooks. Now that I’ve put my idiosyncratic Celtic knot on the cover, I’m more apt to call it something else, such as ‘the Book of Nicodemus,’ which is a project name I’ve wanted to use for a book for sometime as a collection of personal symbolism and memorable writings.
