My Grail Diary Project

[zachsbanks547]

I'm embarking on making my own Grail Diary. I've been doing some research on RPF and other places for a while and collecting pictures and pdfs. The Beginner's Grail Diary thread has been particularly helpful.

My plan is to handwrite/draw as much as I can (as well as typewrite where applicable on the inserts, using my grandpa’s old typewriter), and then hand bind the diary. I've been using my Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen for all the writing; fits the period better than a regular pen.


I'm using Celeste Conway ’s Story Diary as a basis, and also using her insert file collection as a starting point. I've also been referencing Zen's Grail Diary page a lot for insert research, especially sizes of everything.
I'm doing it a bit backwards and starting with the inserts and wrapping. Those seemed more tackle-able for the moment.

For the wrapping, I found some ribbed Kraft paper that looked really close on Amazon. I also found some original stamps on eBay. I was pleasantly surprised how cheap they ended up being. I'm planning to get the rubber stamp for the wrapping (and the Eastern Telegram) custom made, which is also surprisingly cheap to have done.
That's as far as I've gotten on the wrap.

I finished the Arabic Letter, handwriting it on parchment paper. I used my light board to essentially just trace the digital file I have.


I printed all the LARy tickets, using some coloured card stock from Hobby Lobby and the digital files from the Beginner thread. And then I filled in the numbers on the tickets with my typewriter.


For the Insurance Company Envelope, I had to guess a bit at the exact construction. I didn't see a lot of good pictures of it. So I printed the file I had on parchment, cut out a rough envelope shape, and glued it together.


The August/September/October sheets, the War Time Sheet, and the Washington Quote Sheet, I printed on newsprint paper. Thankfully my mom had a stash of it that's probably almost as old as I am and nicely aged.
I ended up having to remake the digital file for the Washington Quotes, since what I had wasn't high enough res.


For the Pinkerton Envelope, I found some A2-sized, parchment envelopes on Amazon. I printed the digital files from the Beginner thread, and then hand-wrote the address (again, tracing with the light board).


For the Small Arabia Map, I printed on some 34lb printer paper in b&w, then traced the coasts with a blue highlighter and then added the numbered circles with my fountain pen.


The Eschenbach Map was all hand writing/drawing (tracing with the light board), on parchment paper.


The Roman Numerals Scrap was traced onto parchment paper. I tried replicating the smudges as best I could (the fountain pen really helped here, as it's naturally smudgy).


For the Indian Telegram Envelope, I started with the envelope pattern in the Beginner thread, but remade it in Illustrator, then printed it on parchment, addressed it by hand and then folded and glued it.
For the telegram itself, I ended up having to remake the digital file from scratch. I got pretty close to the low-res version in the thread, but not exact. I printed that out on onion skin paper. My mom had some old onion skin in her stash as well. It's really nicely yellowed and is a really satisfying paper to handle.
I didn't find any reference for what the telegram should say. If anyone has any, let me know.


I had the Henry Jones Sr/Jr photo printed at Walgreens as a wallet size.


I printed out the White Star Line flyer on onion skin.


I also found an original 100 Franc note on eBay.

I'm currently working on writing out the Gray Letter, using the filled-in letter from this thread as reference.


I attached a zip of all the printable files I remade. Feel free to use however.

Things I could use help with:
-Paper recommendation for replicating the bank notes
-High-res file for the National Lecture Series Ticket
-High-res file for a White Star Line Ticket
-High-res file for the Zeppelin Ticket
Thanks!

 

[heyyoukidd]

i am having a friend hand write the story version for me right now

 

[zachsbanks547]

I started working on the maps, and in the Beginner's thread, there's a link to this scan of the main Egypt/Sinai map. It’s pretty big, but as soon as you start cropping it to get the smaller maps, it loses resolution real quickly.

So I decided to try running it through Lightroom’s AI upscaler. I ended up being able to quadruple the resolution and it turned out really well.
The final image is now 22,476 x 17,792

^Original_______^Upscaled

Here’s a link to a Drive folder that has the upscaled tiff of the original map, as well as all my cropped and colour corrected versions for the printed maps
(that folder also has all the grail diary files I’ve made/remade. Feel free to use any of them).

 

[zachsbanks547]

Finished more inserts!

I finished the Gray Letter; I used some textured heavy off-white paper, printed the top text on the front, and hand wrote the rest with the light board.


The Eastern Telegram was printed on onion skin and then typed up on my typewriter.


The Eastern Telegram envelope was printed on 32lb printer paper nd then folded and glued, using the pattern from the Beginner thread. I still have to get the stamp made and add that.


The Venice ticket was printed on 32lb, and then I poked all the holes along the edges with my leather awl and then cut it out to give a faux perforated edge. I also ripped off one of the tabs at the bottom, to give it more of a used feel.


The Purple Dragon flyer was printed on some heavy off-white paper my mom has, then written out by hand, with the light board.


The camel pack was printed out (front and back) on some 32lb, and then creased. The label was printed on an Avery shipping label and then cut out.


I decided to redo the Small Arabia/Sinai map. Partly to make it more in line with some reference from Zen's website, as well as because I had my new upscaled map file to use as a base. Comparison photo has new on left, old on right.


The Big Dead Sea map was printed on the same paper as the Gray Letter and folded, also using the upscaled map as a base.


Same for the Long Arabia Map.


The Two-Page Arabia Map was printed on 32lb, using the upscaled map as a base.


And I got in my White Star Line Ticket from Indy Magnoli!


Currently working on the two hand-written maps and typing out the Donovan Letter. Then I’m moving on to writing out the “Leap from the Lion's Head” page.

After that, the only inserts I have left that I want to use are:

• Silver Certificate (which I still need to figure out a paper for)
• Grail Tablet Rubbing (which I think I’m going to buy on Etsy)
• Lecture Series Ticket (which I need a good file for)
• Zeppelin Ticket (which I also need a good file for)

 

[zachsbanks547]

I got the stamps and the 100 Franc note in the mail this week.


And I finished the mailing labels. I ended up using the story wording, which fits with the story diary I plan to do. I printed the border on an Avery shipping label and then typed it up on my typewriter.


Finally, I finished the Donovan letter, printed on 32lb and typed on my typewriter. Took a few tries, since I need new correcting ribbon.

 

[zachsbanks547]

I stared to do some test prints of Celeste Conway ’s pages, but they were coming out just a bit pixel-y so I decided to re work them a bit. I ran them all through vectorizer.ai to make them vector pdfs (which worked really well).
There were two images that weren’t cooperating though: the crucifixion painting and the King Alain drawing. So I scrounged around and found some higher res rasters of those two and added them to the vector pdfs.

I added all that to my Google Drive folder: Grail Diary - Google Drive

 

[Andre771]

Pixelated pictures are the norm when it comes to trying to get good source images. That being said there are some good ones around, it just takes alot of google searches and some digging.

 

[RaPtahMeryt99]

Nicely Done zachsbanks547! Keep up the good work!

 

[jadedprop]

Really nice work.

 

[zachsbanks547]

I got my text block all bound!

I printed it all out with my work’s laser printer on an ivory 24lb cotton paper I found (Amazon).
Then I cut them all out, folded them into signatures, and saw cut the holes.


Then I did a kettle-stitch binding with doubled up regular sewing thread. I still have to glue the binding and add some reinforcement fabric. And then I’ll probably do some aging, after some tests.
Really happy with how it turned out.