Abner Ravenwood Journal Build (Wayne Miller, Bryan Babich Kit)

[Monkey540]

Hey there everyone, I picked up a Ravenwood Diary kit a while back and I just started to do my assembling.

I had to middleman the recommended base book cause they wouldn't ship to Canada for some reason.

I'm not sure why this particular book was suggested, the only thing that seems like it's going to be reused is the red vinyl spine, and I gotta say it is a real pain to peel it off.

After opening up the book it looked like this:

And the red spine split on me a few times, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to fix it:

Taped for now, but I'll try to glue everything when it's ready.


After visiting my local Staples, I was able to get the cover and paper cut down to size, and I also got a piece of 32lb weight paper to use as the leaf folds:

Starting off alright, now I need to get some grey fabric for the cover.

 

[Monkey540]

I found some grey material at walmart, (the only one I found) that would be suitable for the cover.

And I cut it to size for the book, leaving about 1 inch extra on all sides, time to get ironing and starching:

Also, I glued the flaps to the spine using E-6000 (my first time using it) and left it overnight rubber banded:

Next step for that one is aging.

 

[LorduDesign]

Are you going with handrwritten text or font?

 

[Monkey540]

Are you going with handrwritten text or font?

i plan to hand write it because i'm not going to disassemble the pad for printing. i'm just trying to figure out a pen to use that is permanent but looks like pencil. (no ink blobs) and i'll have to learn to write softer and smaller as my writing is heavy and large.

 

[Monkey540]

So, I've made some headway in preparing this book:

I started by ironing and starching my fabric

Then I set myself up for gluing:

I brushed some fabritac to the back of my cover and laid glued it to the fabric, I flipped it back over and smoothed it out.

I then cut the flaps along a 45 degree angle 1/8" from the actual corner, and starting gluing the flaps down.

I carefully taped the outside of the spine together, and gently removed the tape from the inside so I wasn't gluing on top of tape, and figured out the area to spread the glue out on.

I used fabritac again, and glued the spine in place, (slightly off, sigh) and proceeded to slowly glue the edging of the spine down in stages:

Then I did some coffee aging for my page block

And discovered that it didn't soak in far enough:

So, I decided to spray each page lightly from a spray bottle of coffee, this got the entire block soaked a bit more than was probably necessary.

Also was too much for my outside sheet and it disintegrated on the seam, so I'll have to replace it.

I'm now waiting for my page block to dry then I can finish up the assembly of the book and start on writing.

 

[Monkey540]

Ok, the book is finished


Here's how it looked after it dried and I glued a new coffee stained piece onto the spine with E6000. (As the back distintigrated from the aging.

Then I glued just the spine to the inside of the cover:

Then it was time to glue the flaps with fabritac

And finally, I'm ready to start writing in the book

 

[Mike J.]

Yaay!


-MJ

 

[Monkey540]

Thanks Mike, looks like I may have aged it farther than necessary, but that's ok, it's much older now than when Indy had it right? lol

I started writing in it, here's my first couple of pages and my first illustration:

 

[Mike J.]

Eh, who knows? Mine are terrible screencaps

I'd compiled a pile of pics & text & maps & junk I'd intended to make into a passable Ark diary years ago. Never got around to it. Maybe some day....


-MJ