Help
I've been using several notebooks in the past 15 years, cheaper when I was young, more expensive and higher in quality when I grew older until last year I bought a manuscript book from Smythsons, and I've been using a Allan's Journal for the past year orso.
Most of these journals/notebooks are not bad but every one of them fails when I'm not in the office.
Basically they are just not waterproof, certainly not seawater proof and they are not adjustable to one's needs.
After long searching if found "paper" that fit's my needs and I've been using it for about 10 months now.
"paper" because this isn't paper in the true sense, it doesn't contain any cellulose.
It is something of polypropylene and a silica plastic that feels a bit smoother than paper, is printable by laser and inkjet,
can be cut, perforated and used like paper and makes a nice basic notebook that I used up until now.
The brand name of it is Teslin, it is mighty expensive, think in the range of 30ct per A4 sheet when bought per 1000.
But it is really good, ink is instant dry, even with my very wet Visconty LE Wall Street.
There is no seep through to the other side, no bleeding, no feathering.
Oke, don't mind the writing, it was in a hurry and I write like a coal mine worker, I know.
After writing with the Visconti, I hold the piece under a running tap and it just gave a ever so slightest
blue shade in the water. But I couldn't detect in on the paper.
This Teslin can be written underwater, not with a fountain pen, but with a Fisher space pen it is possible.
It has resisted abuse on a shipyard, surveying workshops, when kayaking etc. etc.
But as a notebook it was rubbish. The whole was much too flexible, the leaves would fold, wrinkel,
I couldn't ad new pages (e.g. printed maps for the area I wanted to kayak, can be handy!).
So being a su**er for titanium, I want to make something nice, special and extremely rugged.
The size will be A5 (148mm by 210mm, aprox. 6" by 8")
And perhaps I will later on make some A6 or even smaller.
The spline will be made by 2mm wire titanium spiral wound, so it is, with some effort
possible to take apart for adding and removing pages.
The front will be 1mm titanium as will be the back:
I think it could be made in aluminium as well, but you would need some special aluminium to be good resistant against sea-water.
And you can't see it by eye, so only time would tell if it was the good stuff or just another piece of cheap aluminium.
I've had aluminium carabines oxidise within days until they where utterly unusable.
And aluminium is relative soft, making it easily scratched and dinged.
Stainless steel like 316 would probably do well, but it is a bit more heavy and not that much cheaper,
but still a real pain to work with. And as I said, titanium rocks. well, IMHO
Do any of you have any idea's, has this been done before?
just let me know!
This post has been edited by alecgold: 03 February 2009 - 10:34 AM
Why not make the covers out of carbon fiber? or have you considered this?
