Abner Ravenwood Journal - Finished

I'm slowly making up a Wayne & Bryan Ravenwood journal 'kit'.

So far I have all the pages printed out as A5 and broken into four page signatures. I am currently staining them to make them look all nice and old. I'm giving them a base colour from a wash in a bath of chai tea and coffee grounds, that gives a light yellow colour. Once that's dried I give them a darker colour with Yorkshire tea by stippling the pages with a teabag. I've been doing multiple stippling layers to give an overall mottled appearance.



I've given the 'Atif' letter the same treatment as well as dog-earing it and lightly sanding various creases and the edges with 120 grit sandpaper:



The other thing in the picture is a book plate I plan to put on the inside of the cover.

I'll spare you all a running commentary on staining every page, but I will post some more shots when I start to sew all the signatures and make the text-block and then when I make the covers. I also have a number of inserts to plan and make.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

I was always intrigued by the hypothetical Ravenwood Ark diary.

I compiled a bunch of info about the historical Tanis, and some random pics, but that was as far as I got.

It would take a real creative writer to hammer that into a good 'story' diary, and that I am not.

Let me know if you want any of my random inserts.


-MJ

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

I know exactly what you mean Mike, I can make things and I can research but I really have no writing skills. Luckily for me Wayne and Bryan have done all the heavy lifting in that department.

Any random inserts you have would definitely be welcomed I’ve left the odd random page here and there in my journal for taping/stapling/paper clipping things in place. In fact I spent a while last night trying to make a duplicate of a fancy vintage paper clips I found pictures of. I need to go and raid the stationary cupboard and get some more and I’ll post some shots of what I come up with.

I have another journal related project too, but that one is going to stay a secret just for now until I get some materials in and work out how to bind a book…

Mike J. said:

I was always intrigued by the hypothetical Ravenwood Ark diary.

I compiled a bunch of info about the historical Tanis, and some random pics, but that was as far as I got.

It would take a real creative writer to hammer that into a good 'story' diary, and that I am not.

Let me know if you want any of my random inserts.


-MJ

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Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

You oughta be able to find vintage paper clips on eBay or Etsy.

Here are some images which may be relevant.

Let me know if Abner goes to Egypt, or to the Holy Land, as I have some maps which may make nice inserts. I also have a bunch of shots of Egyptian ruins. I may even have some reproduction Egyptian currency lying around.

I can also make up a phony Library of Congress card, if you can give me Prof. Ravenwood's full name and title and a year.

Please keep us updated on your project!

If you have the HPLHS's paper props CD, you could even make a phony passport for Abner.


-Mike J.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Thanks Mike, I really appreciate that!

I’ve been doing some maths; Karen Allen was 30 when Raiders was filmed. Raiders was set in 1936, so Marion Ravenwood would have been born in 1906. The average age for marriage around that time was about 23. Assuming that Abner and his wife were married a couple of years before having Marion that would put Abner’s birth year in 1881. A quick Google about the Library of Congress (firstly to look up what it is ) shows that the minimum age for researchers is 16, which would mean that the card would need to be anywhere after 1897. It apparently takes 5-7 years to get a PhD in today’s world, if Abner got a Bachelors and then started in the PhD program that would take him up to being about 27 which is puts us in 1908. I guess that his full title after then would be Dr Abner Ravenwood PhD, I’ve never seen any mention of a middle name or initial.

In the Wayne/Bryan version Abner makes it to Egypt a couple of times. He has a trip to France too.

You’ve given me some great ideas for making tickets and such for these trips. I’ve just eBayed a number of old post cards from some of the locations mentioned (like Versailles and Chatres cathedral), it’s actually much cheaper to buy authentic ones than to make them myself! I just picked up a 1922 map of Egypt for a whopping £2.00 on there as well

You’ve no doubt already been here, but I just found this site with various bank notes on this site, I’ve been using that and this site for the dimensions. It’s definitely more expensive to buy old currency than it is to buy old post cards!

Unfortunately I don’t have any paper prop CDs, I’ve only got the stuff you guys have already posted into the paper prop forum here.

I did a little work on this project last night and made some vintage style paper clips. I re-bent them into more old timey shapes (Google gave me plenty of references) and attacked them with a blowtorch to make them look old and tarnished:



This is a close up of one of the stained pages, I’ve created the ‘foxing’ effect by dropping coffee grounds onto the damp paper (after several layers of tea staining):

Mike J. said:

You oughta be able to find vintage paper clips on eBay or Etsy.

Here are some images which may be relevant.

Let me know if Abner goes to Egypt, or to the Holy Land, as I have some maps which may make nice inserts. I also have a bunch of shots of Egyptian ruins. I may even have some reproduction Egyptian currency lying around.

I can also make up a phony Library of Congress card, if you can give me Prof. Ravenwood's full name and title and a year.

Please keep us updated on your project!

If you have the HPLHS's paper props CD, you could even make a phony passport for Abner.


-Mike J.

Click to expand...

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

You have done your homework.

Nice job on the Egyptian map score.

And nice job on the paper.

Here are some more maps which may be useful.

I'm not sure the resolution is high enough, however.

Proceed with caution


-Mike J.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

I'm sure that I can find a use for those The Tanis one should be very handy, the last entries in the journal are from a Tanis dig so the map would fit in nicely there.

And yeh I do like to do my research, details matter :lol

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Just a little update, for the most part I'm still aging the main pages.

These are two 1989 50 Piastres notes and an 1898 5 pound note:


Here's a shot of the finished bank notes with a 1922 map of Egypt:

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Are the banknotes real?

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Mike J. said:

Are the banknotes real?

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Nope. They're the graphics off here, printed both sides with a colour laser printer and then aged with my tea and coffee concoction. When they were dry I crumpled and folded them up, so that the look like they've been stuffed into a pocket or two.

I did look at how much real 1898 notes were, and it was a hell of a lot of my modern day money. So I printed my own

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

That's what I thought - they had to be lasered...

I have some similar images, but looking at mine, they're all younger than yours.

There used to be a good world paper money site hosted by Ron Wise, but I think it's gone down.

You can also, occasionally, find good size scans on eBay, but it's very hit-or-miss.


-MJ

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

I like all the hard work you have done with all the extras, but in my thoughts of how the journal is, it would only have his notes and hand drawn maps and pictures. Not to pick on your awesome job though.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Mike J. said:

That's what I thought - they had to be lasered...

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I keep getting kept late in the office, so I make full use of the equipment while there arent too many people asking why I am printing money :lol

Tapper said:

I like all the hard work you have done with all the extras, but in my thoughts of how the journal is, it would only have his notes and hand drawn maps and pictures. Not to pick on your awesome job though.

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Thank you For me the Abner journal is very similar to my own travel logs which have notes and drawings but they also have maps, tickets, postcards and anything I find stuck in them. So for when the journal takes Abner to France with his family I wanted some momentos of that trip, and as the journal has him going to Chartres cathedral I am going to put in a couple of old timey postcards of the cathedral.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Time for an update I think!

1920s postcards from Versailles and Chartres:


Some of the inserts:


The completed, unbound, journal pages:


Everything from the project currently on my workbench:

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

The airline pamphlets are a nice touch.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Mike J. said:

The airline pamphlets are a nice touch.

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Thanks buddy, I found some nice high res scans of both sides of the pamphlet/timetable things when I was hunting for tickets. It seemed rude not to make up a set

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

This evening I've sewn all my signatures into a textblock.

I marked out and punched holes every 30mm from the centre of the pages:


After that lots of sewing ensued with 18/4 waxed linen thread:


And here is the book halfway and fully sewn:


Next up, I need to make a book press and then glue the spine

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

Very neat!

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

That looks like some very tidy sewing.

Re: Abner Ravenwood Journal - WIP

The book press is built and I've applied a couple of layers of PVA to the spine:


The inside covers are applied and as soon as it's done in the press the textblock will be complete: