I’ve made several miscalculations with my monumental project. Grave oversights. I’m trying to figure out a way to salvage my project. The idea of having to trash my Hanshi Festival ( Cold Eat Festival) poems calligraphy piece nauseates me.
To begin with, my premise was totally wrong. I assumed that by using my Rotozip tool on paper cardboard was such a clever idea. If veneer posed no problem to my Rotozip bit, cutting through cardboard paper would be like a hot knife through butter. The harsh reality was that because cardboard did not have the density of veneer or gypsum board, the bit was not able to make a clean track through the cutting. Instead it just shredded the paper into lint that refused to vacate. It was far from the crisp cut edges and hollowed out trenches that I was expecting. Also the torque of the Rotozip was a little too much for the corrugated cardboard and it was difficult to to precisely place the bit, especially if I had to start or stop the drill in the middle of carving out a line.
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In my infinite wisdom I switched to my Dremel. I wasn't thinking clearly when I picked my next bit. I thought it was on steroid and should be a piece of cake in hollowing out my cardboard.
I picked a word with straight lines to test my new setup. The lint problem remained and the bit was disappointing in its performance, perhaps due to its weird shape. That bit was probably better suited for carving and shaping than hollowing out something.
I finally decided on a more traditional bit.
This bit was fine in control and efficiency and all that, but it had no answer for the lint problem. I resorted to using my tweezer to pick off the lint.
I eventually decided to give my Exacto knife blades a try. I was hoping that I could achieve crisp edges with more success.
I was right, but my surprise was that these sharp blades were no match for the corrugated cardboard.
The cardboard had a sandwiched layer of undulating paper with peaks and valleys. When the seemingly sharp blade cut into this layer, it did not meet the necessary resistance to make a clean cut and the paper tore and left pieces of chads. These chads were stubborn and subsequently required the use of a tweezer to be removed.
The insert showed the exposed corrugation which was resistant to cutting and the resulting chads.
In the end I was using the Exacto for my initial cuts and finished with my Dremel and tweezer to dig out the chads.
Obviously this whole project did not progress as I had expected. The project changed abruptly from the moment I first turned on my Rotozip. The lesson I learned over the years was how to salvage my miscalculation. How to mitigate my mistakes.
As luck would have it, or extremely bad luck, depends on how one looks at it, I was having some grave health problems all of a sudden, which totally blindsided me. New health problems kept popping up and I just couldn't get a break, always worrying about when the other shoe was going to drop.
As I had to retreat from my usual activities, I was thankful that I had this project to occupy my mind and time. I also looked at this project as a parallel that tested my resolve. Was I just going to throw my hands up and said I screwed up. Of course not. So I must deal with my health problem with the same resolve. I stayed positive and stuck to the agenda of what needed to be done next to move forward.
I had faith that my efforts would not be in vain.
This was what I had so far and no I couldn't tell you the significance of hollowing out the words. I just felt like doing it.
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