Vintage photos 'unframed and 'albumed'!

I will quickly run through a century with some background about 'junk' in our house. My great grandfather built a house in 1911 at Lakshmipuram [a locality] and died in 1936.  My grandfather moved to another house, not far from it, at Devaparthiva Road [Chamarajapuram] in 1950 after renting his father's house.  So, all the things that had accumulated since 1911 or before followed and went up to the spacious attic or store room at Chamarajapuram, where I grew up. This post is only about the vintage pictures in frames, esp. dead ancestors and group photos, as photos of gods and political leaders are not relevant here, so also the myriad objects. 

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Walls of houses being adorned with several old glass-framed pictures of gods, ancestors etc. was a common sight in the decades gone by.  Our house at Chamarajapuram was also like this. Most of them were from my great grandfather's time.  In this rare 1956 family function picture [indoor pictures were rare], two are seen at the top edge and one or two in the back - inside that room.

[Click on pictures to 'biggify' them]

I can remember from my earliest childhood, one particular photo in our veranda, hung above the door frame of my grandfather's office room.  I did not know for many years that it was an aircraft or the people in it were elite and royal!  I used to look at it often.  I learn now that this was part of the historic maiden trip of our Mysore Maharaja, Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar in 1936. [Click]  This was on his first ever flight and taken at Croydon airport.  I still wonder how pictures of such occasions came here and in framed condition for display. 

In 1970 when the house was whitewashed, my father removed and dumped many in the store room and the reason was also their losing relevance over decades. Came the early 80s and I found myself taking up the responsibility of cleaning the store room once in a while.  My father had died in 1981. You know, there were about 60-70 framed pictures of different sizes, some of their glasses were cracked and some frames themselves rickety.  It occupied a helluva lot of shelf space and box space!   The smaller ones were kept in an old rickety wooden box, the perfect haven for cockroaches!   I wanted to get rid of as many pictures and frames as I could.  There seemed to be no purpose in keeping them there for nothing.

In school I did not like 'History', but ironically, I liked vintage stuff.  In one of those cleaning chores, I happened to look at the photos closely and carefully, which I had not done before.  This completely altered the course of my plan to rid many of them and resulted in a new option: 'Proper Preservation'!  My great grandfather or our Mysore King or my grandfather or some dead relative or gods or saints or political heroes were in many. I saw a lot of valuable history in them!  What to do?

Idea!  "Albumize"!

Converting them into an album was the best option, but it would involve a lot of patient work and there was risk of damaging some pictures and mounts.   I set about this project and did not look back. Imagine our house at one time having about 80-90 photos on walls of rooms, hall and verandah, everywhere.

The first job now was to separate them from the frames.  It was a lot of work in itself, removing nails behind them. Some glasses came in handy as replacements for a few broken window panes.

I had about 40-50 photos to preserve after they were removed from the glass frames.  Many in them esp. groups are not identifiable, even the occasions. Old pictures reveal things like costumes, furniture, head gear, etc.,

This project sprang up in January 1986 and I was to even apply for leave from work for some days.  Separating the photos from their cardboard mounts, which were brittle with age was the trickiest part and preserving the details printed on the mounts was another.
Just an example here:

Since all are vintage 'bromide prints', they last long.

All the photos were now ready and sorted.  It took me 6 months.

I bought black album sheets and cardboard for the cover. I became a 'book-binder' [used paste from boiled flour].  The widest photo became the width of the album when I cut the sheets to size.

I used cloth and cotton thread for the binding portions.  I was  happy about the binding job.

The printed mounts were carefully thinned to preserve the details. 

Some could not be separated.  So I made photocopies and pasted them. 

There were many with none and with the change of generations, there was none to identify them!

 The album project ended well.  Imagine such a huge volume of photo frames now reduced to one album, about 16"x12".  I was able to get some personalities in esp. group pictures identified by my old relatives and I made it a point to show the album to them which they also admired, enjoyed.and 'nostalgiated'. Some like the above continue to remain a mystery.

Browse through my online 'Photobucket'album "Vintage Pictures" [Click on 'vintage pictures']. There are 73 pictures in it. 80% of them were removed from their mountings and photo frames. Keep an eye on the years wherever you see them.

Certain wooden frames had become rickety and I just put them into the fire. All the good ones which were only few were restored and now they are still around me.  I will show one or two.

This is the best frame in which I put in my art work. 

See the  frame close-up.  Simply beautiful.

This large frame is about 30 inches high, of our most beloved and revered Mysore King. It was always there in our hall and I continue to find a place for this beautiful picture.  He has done so much for Mysore.

My great grandparents. They were in two separate large frames.  I adjusted both in one, thus saving one. I live in the house built by him in 1911.

My best find in that wooden box is this very small picture:  

I had hung it to some nail in the dark passage outside the store room.  When it was being dusted one day, I looked at it closely, taking it to good light, to see what it was.  It had a "signature" of Swami Vivekananda, the great Saint who had made that historic speech in Chicago and won hearts at the World Conference of Religions in 1893.  See photo-maker's name! 

 I was absolutely thrilled.  It deserved a better frame than the one it was in, all its life.  There were a few still waiting to be reused.  One good frame just suited the dimensions of this.  I made a cut-cardboard mount and framed it.  This is what you saw.  It still adorns our hall. Some good frames also now hold a few of my paintings.

This 'unframing and albuming' project remains one of my most satisfying endeavours, though at the back of my mind I feel having damaged the original mountings, but I do not regret now, because this cannot be undone.  Now I have to protect the album from silverfish.

The wooden box [left] now serves as the garden tool box. 

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My stamp album

Once again, this is not exactly unjunking, but creating something out of cheap materials, yet serving the same purpose.  But the one thing that was 'junk' in this project was the gift paper.  Read on.

That is my entire stamp collection. 

My 'Thematics' album.

My three main albums. The other two contains stamps of different countries, including old Indian stamps.

This is known as 'stock album', by philatelists. Album pages I made are of stiff card. 

'Butter paper' - some call it as parchment paper - protects the stamps on both sides of the page.

Close view of the strips of butter paper I stuck to keep stamps. Note the thin line at the bottom where it sticks to the yellow sheet.  I had flour paste as glue and I used to smear a broom stick with it and apply it on the card and then carefully stick butter paper strip to the card.  It was a lot of work, also requiring a lot of patience.  I also had time which was a bonus.  You can see why I had time, in this connected blogpost.  

First I had measured the card size and cut them out. Then I had made the butter paper strips, using a ruler and razor blade.  In those days, we did not have pencil knives like we do now.  It was really tough considering the tools I had then. The card was stuck with strips and folding in behind it the protruding ends of the strips.   This is how the album pages looks from the side.

Then another card prepared similarly was stuck to it back to back. The colourful gift wrapper paper was stuck on the left side after sticking the butter paper sheet on both sides.  This became one 'page'. All my sticking work was done with flour paste. After 30 years they stay good. 

Similarly I prepared a lot of sheets, working over some weeks.  I made these myself as I could not buy the costly ready-made stock books. It worked out cheap for me.  My meagre pocket money sufficed.   Moreover, I had a lot of pages that could be shuffled, because they were put together with a thread that ran through 'double punch' holes.  

This was my first album gifted by a German lady, Hassenbach, who was a friend of Dr.Radha of our opposite house.  The lady was visiting India and on knowing my interest in the hobby, gifted me with a little stock book and sent it through Dr.Radha after a few weeks!  It was very motivational at that time. I think I was just 11 or 12 then.  I tried to make my own album like this, but I could not and ended up doing what you saw above! 

Potter Wasp Nest Vase!

In an old shelf behind some bottles we had not used for sometime, I found this wasp nest with some ten holes.  A potter wasp had found a nice place for nesting!  When I found out, the nest had served its purpose and it was empty.  So I carefully removed it for examining. 

The shelf was out of doors in a passage and insects like the wasp had access.  I had kept the nest on my desk and at the same time, I had found 2 or 3 parrot feathers that had fallen below a tree at my workplace scooter shelters. I had brought the feathers home and found the holes of this 'work of clay' a nice place to keep them.  When there was a light breeze the feathers would sway and it was an enjoyable sight.  In about 15-18 months, I had found more feathers and you can see them all here, the holes filled up and made a nice vase!! 

The nest was something like this. Pictured on the left is a different nest.

Thread spool toy

Some boys in my high school class had made a toy that would move upon winding.  It was created out of stuff that were otherwise 'waste'.  The toy had only four main components.  A wooden thread spool, ball pen refill,  rubber band and a piece of candle. A few rotations of the refill to wind the rubber were all that were needed to make the spool move.  The candle piece would slowly release the rubber band tension as it unwound inside the hole. Simple mechanism!

Everyone was tempted to make one for himself.  I did it too, but only after much trouble in procuring its main component, which was the wooden spool which I did not find at home.  The sewing threads we had at home were on cardboard tubes.  So I had to go to our tailor's shop was close by to ask for an empty spool.  He would not part one saying "See, all of them have threads on them"!  Since he was our tailor, I resorted to persistent pestering to which he finally gave in and handed me a spool to me.  I was so happy.

The toy needed a thick slice of wax candle with a hole in the centre for creating that bit of friction needed for it to move slowly.  I used a razor blade to cut the slice carefully out from the base of a candle. Once this was done, the toy was ready.

I had taken my toy to a relative's wedding.  I would wind and leave it on the floor to see the fun when it touched people's feet under the chairs! In classrooms, racing competitions were held on desks during the short breaks. Pure fun!

I wonder how, where and by whom these little ideas originated!  This was a classic!

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For this post, I relived the old days in making one.  I had a similar wooden spool but I had forgotten I had wound the soldering lead to it and kept in some box.  When I found this yesterday, the joy I derived was similar when the tailor handed over to me!

It took me just 15 minutes to do.  See how it works - *click*.

Actually when the rubber band is a good one, the thing moves along steadily and more quickly than the one I got in the video.  Here are some images:

The spool I found now.

All materials ready.  Paraffin candle, rubber band, empty refill and knife.

Candle piece cut out. 

Ready!  The rubber band goes through the hole and is held by another piece of stick - here I used a folded card.  I also rubbed some candle for it to grip on the surface.

Comic strips into books

The 1970s saw the best period of my enjoying the comic strips that appeared in the magazines my father subscribed.  Aside from those, I also used to borrow or buy comic books from libraries and friends.  Each week, I used to look forward to the magazines being delivered because of my following the comic stories in them.  A huge lot of them had got accumulated by mid 70s.  

I had a lot of time, really a whole lot, at home when I was a student because I was achieving a rare feat!  I must reveal that I took four years to complete the two-year pre-university after my 10th. Got the clue?

But I never wasted that time as I found plenty to do, besides playing street cricket and games.  This post is about how I collected those comic strips from the old magazines and created comic books from a huge lot!  

I arranged all the magazines date-wise, tore out the comic pages and kept in that order.  There were two strips in one page and they had to be separated.

I had a long needle for stitching. Sewing thread was used after waxing it for added strength.  I had seen this being done by the cobbler!  I used 8 strands.  It was tough piercing through the number of pages. So I used a huge sack-stitching needle to make a hole first, striking it with a hammer.  Later I found out the book binders also did that!

It was a helluva lot of work, but I enjoyed doing it because there was no hurry and no academic pressures at all!  I learnt the art of binding books on my own.  The glue was created at home using flour!  Some years later I entirely manufactured a photo album including the hard binding. But that is for another post.  

Phantom strip was so thrilling.  Illustrated weekly of India. 

I used the notebook hard binding for this.

Dennis the Menace was my favourite humour strip.

This binding was got done by my grandfather's book binder who had done many law books for him.

I continued to do this for smaller strips from Deccan Herald, a daily newspaper, collecting esp. 'Blondie'.

Here lies my full collection of books I bound.  The old magazines had to end up in a paper recycling unit.  I'll make a separate post regarding the comics themselves.  So watch out for that!  It will be in "Mysorean Musings". 

Pencil extender

This is something like the cigarette holder. I discovered the need for using the shortened pencils further.  All I did was put the two short pencils into a rubber/plastic tube.  This I found in the form of a rubber sleeve provided for gripping the ballpoint pen.   I removed it from an unwanted pen and lo, the longer pencil was ready.  One pencil tip was fitted with a discarded pen cap that suited it perfectly. 

I've used a similar pair of pencils and hung it from the 'sleeve'to a calendar for recording the daily milk supply quantity.  Very handy. 

Collage on the left is self explanatory.

Toy Movie Film Projector

Information about a Toy Movie Film Projector was doing the rounds.  It was around 1970.  I cannot precisely remember how I came to know, but it could be from a demo cum sale at the Dasara Exhibition. Someone later had shown me the shop where it was sold too.   This shop happens to be very close to where I now live and the small shed-like rooms of that portion is still existing. 

Let me make it clear that this post is not about something I converted, but only bought.  I am posting it here for a change, because some ingenious person ten thousand times better than me was selling his 'unbranded' machines fabricated from cheap and crude materials!

Cut pieces of 35 mm films were sold in little packets for 3 paise or so.  I had a few such films and they were great fun.  I was projecting them on the wall using a torch and a toy lens.  It was a joy to see the magnified image!  These film pieces were discarded portions of movie films from theatres.  Films sometimes snapped during operation which necessitated a cutting off a certain length from the reel and rejoining, rendering the pieces waste. Some enterprising persons collected these portions and made a buck or two out of this waste film.  We children fancied these tiny packets of film.

My father was a projection operator at his work.  So I fancied doing the same at home when I came to know about toy projectors being sold.  My pestering paid fruit. What a thrilling event it was to bring it home from that shop, fixing it on my bicycle carrier clip after paying twenty five rupees!!  It was a sum equal to about four months of school fees. 

I borrowed this image from the web to give an idea about how it was.  Not exactly like it, but you can imagine a crude one made of unfinished wood, with a handle on the right and the light came in from the top of the box. 

Since toy projectors were a fancy in those years, there was a demand for waste films and the longer strips used to be sold in small spools.  I had procured some through my aunt who had gone to Bangalore where it was sold in great number.  This is a reel, containing all the portions she had bought for me.

The projector's body was of scrap wood.  All the parts were from scrap material.  There was great ingenuity which had gone into it.  The delivery spool and the focusable lens unit having 3 lenses were fabricated from zinc sheets, moving gears and the rotating handle were of iron, all custom made.  A 60W bulb was fitted from the top which was removable.  The entire unit was painted in silver colour.

There was only the delivery spool and no collection spool.  After the show, we had lot of work rolling back by hand all the lengths of 'showed film' that would have snake up on the ground in a heap!  This is what you get for twenty five rupees.  The machine worked trouble-free, but broke, because I broke it for the lenses for my other projects! It became a victim of my curiosity and joined numerous items that met their end in this fashion.  

The lenses did not fit my  telescope project, but came in handy long later, that is just 4-5 years back when I used them to enhance power for my macro shots with my digital camera!  I could use up to four lenses.  At least two here are from that toy projector.  The identical fourth one which became the pocket magnifying lens. [Click on it].

Toy Monkey on a Spring

During the 1960s and 70s, there was a simple, cheap and popular toy esp. sold at Mysore's famous Dasara Exhibition [annual event, on which I have made a separate blogpost - Click on this: http://bit.ly/VSraaI ].  The components of this toy, created by some unknown ingenious person somewhere, were merely a bicycle spoke, probably a ball pen spring and a little plastic monkey which was molded for that.  A few sand grains inside it would produce a rattling sound, just for effect.

Likelihood of anyone saving even one 'original' sample from those times is nil.  So I thought of manufacturing one now, about 40 years after, just for 'old times sake'.  I could get the spring and a bicycle spoke and substituted something else to do the 'monkey role'. I found out during trial and error that there is a fine balance necessary between the tension of the spring and the weight of the 'dancing monkey'.   I had to try different springs from my 'junk pen box' and using some clay to get the right weight!  

You must imagine the monkey to be holding the spring and to visualize its tail curved like a 'U" behind it...it would be funny.  Sorry I could not make it when the images were captured.

My happiness jumped like a monkey when my new toy worked like 'old times'!!  I had to make a video for the present generation.  Watch this:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tBqcQ_2D73s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now I preserve this in my 'shoe box'!  

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This is the real monkey - just imagine this scene.  A shot I took of my favourite animal near the foothills of Chamundi Hills.