I think, because I work on code, and shiny new things all the time, I'm fascinated with old tech. It can be anything, from how Romans built aqua ducts to steam power. I was looking into how horn-backed sinew bows are made (as one does), was looking for the recipe for the glue that would have been used at that time - and, among other things, found a recipe for "mucilage".
It's the lick-and-stick glue on those old style stamps...
cool. Now, my wife, being a junior school teacher, could potentially make use of this sort of thing - teachers are always on the lookout for stickers to put in books, so this could just work...
I ran off a couple of prints at the local copy shop, slapped the mucilage on the back, ran a perforated cutter over them and handed them over for testing.
Cute, and they worked nicely. But of course, I wanted to see how far I could take things, so I carved up some lino, and hand printed and aligned some stuff:
Of course, because I was going for a certain look and feel - those little punched holes in the paper, I built a machine to make that happen:
Here's a clip of the last little bit of punching, and the system resetting for the next sheet of paper:
I also ended up printing using a traditional Japanese method - because it gives a very pleasing look, is highly economical, and doesn't require fancy equipment like presses and such to turn out prints of decent size. David Bull has got some really great videos, and you can see the process and beautiful results on his channel:
I'm slowly moving to making a vending machine (entirely manual) for the stickers. See you in two years :)
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