{"id":619,"date":"2020-07-26T17:05:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T22:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/?p=619"},"modified":"2020-12-20T13:35:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T18:35:16","slug":"a-rolodex-mutoscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/26\/a-rolodex-mutoscope\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rolodex Mutoscope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a little device I made that I call a Rolodex Mutoscope.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/embed\/video\/k5UIy5LkqKWeN6wwGvi\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rolodex\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rolodex<\/a> was a ubiquitous late 20th-century piece of office equipment used to store business contact information on card stock. The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mutoscope\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mutoscope<\/a> was an early motion picture device from the late 1800s that was basically a hand-cranked flip book. Today, the Mutoscope is probably most familiar to anyone who has visited Disney World or Disneyland, both of which have Mutoscopes in their arcades.<\/p>\n<p>I was thinking about both devices and how they are so mechanically similar, so I thought I would try converting a Rolodex into a mini Mutoscope. It ended up being a pretty good fit after a few changes.<\/p>\n<p>I started with the Rolodex model NSW 24C. Because this is a relatively old piece of office equipment, there was quite a bit of squeaking when turning the knob. So I disassembled the unit and used a bit of silicone grease in all of the places where plastic was rubbing against plastic.<\/p>\n<p>You cannot use regular Rolodex cards with this device; you need to make your own. My cards (printed on card stock) measured 4&#8243; x 2-1\/2&#8243;. Instead of using the two raised &#8220;tracks&#8221; on the Rolodex spindle to loosely &#8220;hang&#8221; cards (a mechanism which works fine for storing contact information but not for flipping animated cards), I cut very thin slots in the tracks with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B07VMTQ9GN\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a jeweler&#8217;s saw<\/a> (size 3 blade). These cuts went lengthwise across the spindle, across the two tracks where regular Rolodex cards would usually go.<\/p>\n<p>Although I put the spindle in a vice when cutting and tried to keep the jeweler&#8217;s saw as straight as possible, most of my cuts ended up angled for some reason. When I make my next Rolodex Mutoscope (I have three additional Rolodex units waiting in the wings), I&#8217;m going to find a way to ensure these cuts are straight. I was able to cut 29 slots &#8212; for 29 cards &#8212; in the plastic spindle; I probably could have cut a few more had the cuts been straight.<\/p>\n<p>Before taking the plastic spindle out of the Rolodex, I put a piece of strong Velcro (the loop side) around the center, between the raised tracks. This wasn&#8217;t because I needed Velcro, but because the Velcro tape itself was so strong that it would hold the two pieces of the plastic spindle together when sawing the slots for the cards.<\/p>\n<p>I attached a 1-1\/2&#8243; x 1-1\/2&#8243; corner brace with Gorilla Glue in the inside of the cover. This corner brace acts like your thumb when you are flipping through a flip book.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s it! It&#8217;s a very simple device, and, as you can see from the video, it works pretty well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a little device I made that I call a Rolodex Mutoscope. &nbsp; The Rolodex was a ubiquitous late 20th-century piece of office equipment used to store business contact information on card stock. The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device from the late 1800s that was basically a&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13,29,28,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundriftproductions.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}