The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Administrivia

Overhead

  • Geek Scratch Paper

    Grid scratch paper pad
    Grid scratch paper pad

    Everybody needs doodle paper, but geeks need graph paper. What to do?

    Go to http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ and set up a half-page grid with 5×8 1-inch divisions, 0.5-inch mid divisions, and 0.1-inch minor divisions (I think 1 / 0.6 / 0.3 pt line widths look nice). The obvious metric divisions are a bit too fine for my taste, but 2 cm – 1 cm – 2 mm might work.

    Fetch the PDF, load it into The GIMP at 300 dpi, expand the canvas to a full-page sheet (8.5×11 inches), duplicate the grid so you have two on one sheet, save it as a PNG for later use.

    If you don’t have a full-bleed printer, pick a full-page size that’ll print within whatever margins your printer enforces. You really want those one-inch grids to remain one inch, right?

    Print a few dozen copies, whack ’em in half, and bind ’em on the long edge. Add a thin cardboard backing sheet (Mr Breakfast Cereal Box, meet Mr Paper Cutter) so the bottom sheet stays neat.

    I have an old IBICO (since absorbed by GBC) plastic comb binding machine, but it’s easy enough to line the sheets up and coat the edge with white paper glue, rubber cement, or, for the true geek, liquid electrical tape.

    Pre-position pads wherever you’re ordinarily at a loss for scratch paper: neat doodles!

    PS: Put some money in his tip jar when you use his graph paper. It’s a nice gesture.

    [Update: Inexplicably, I didn’t have a picture of a pad. Here you go… low res, but you get the general idea. Great for off-the-cuff graphing, too.]

  • Pocket Stationery

    Being that sort of bear, I must carry paper for notes, sketches, and suchlike. Years ago the Levenger catalog tempted me with the notion of 3×5-inch stationery, but the notion of paying 5 cents per piece of scratch paper just didn’t titilate my inner cheapskate.

    Part of my chandelier o’ gear (props to Neal Stevenson) is an ancient Zire 71 PDA that’s about the right size to sit atop a 3×5-inch sheet of paper. Some experimentation showed that five cuts could produce six sheets of pocket stationery from a single letter-size page. I used QCAD to lay down a nice 200-mil grid with my contact info on the top, duplicated it six times, and added cut lines.

    Part of the trick is figuring out how to get the cut lines at the right spot so the paper divides neatly into thirds and halves. Trial and error is your friend.

    Print it on heavy card stock, whack the paper cutter along the lines, and it’s all good.

    After a while, you’ll realize you can print it to a PostScript file, then just print that without firing up QCAD every time.

    QCAD screen with stationery
    QCAD screen with stationery

    Better than scribbling on the back of a biz card, as there’s plenty of room, and my contact info is right on the front where it won’t get lost.

    Actually, the real reason my Zire 71 case fits that paper is because Mary made it years ago for my HP-15C calculator. The stationery fit that case, so when the Zire came out, well, why change anything else?