7/6/04
Anal About Gauges!

I’m still working on getting the gauges made at a plastic shop here in NYC. I took my laser etched lens (on the right) to work and had one of the scenic artists fill the etching with some paint. Vladimir is way over qualified for the job as he’s a Russian surrealist painter that works as a scenic artist for his day job. His paintings are wonderfully detailed, so using his steady hand and good eyes was much to my benefit!

Unfortunately, as a typographer in his former life in the Soviet Union, Vladimir also picked out a glaring issue with my reproduction. The type face is wider than the original! If I didn’t have the original to compare, I would have never noticed the problem, but it is very obvious when you place the two next to each other, especially in the word “FUEL.” It was less apparent before the letters were filled, but now with paint in the etching, it’s a problem.

I stopped by the plastic shop to have them take a look, and they agreed that there was a difference in thickness in the type. The technician blamed the Illustrator file, but I have my doubts. IPS suggested I rework the file, and re-submit it for manufacturing. They said that they would run a test run to see if the type becomes thinner. If I choose to do silk-screens, they will be generated from the same file, so fixing this issue in the etching process will make for a perfect silk-screen.

I’ll have to go back to my friend Miguel to have him look at the files he made for me. I hate to make him do extra work especially since this is a favor, so I may have to learn another piece of software! I have a pretty good understanding of Photoshop, but didn’t have much need to learn Illustrator…until now. Where to find the time!?!

Previous Restoration Day
Next Restoration Day
Home page