Newbie Help

[tftn607]

Hello all,

 

I just purchased my first GPS system with the help of a few Christmas gift cards, a Garmin GPSMAP60C, and I am eager to head out this Saturday to start finding some local benchmarks.

 

This may be a dumb question, but what is the best way to make a rubbing? Is any kind of paper preferred or will "normal" printer paper work? Also, should I use crayon, pencil, charcoal or something else?

 

I have a very good digital camera to take along while hunting for benchmarks, but for some reason I think it will be better to have some rubbings made for posterity's sake. I apologize if that sounds dumb.

 

Thank's in advance for your help.

[Photobuff]

I'm sure someone will set me straight, but I can't see why anyone would want rubbings. The benchmark disks have a curved surface, and sometimes the stampings are hard enough to read, without the texture and "noise" of a rubbing. You'd want a paper that could conform a bit to the surface without wrinkling or tearing. A lot of benchmarks aren't even printed disks, so trying to make a rubbing of something like a rivet wouldn't be much fun. I do digital shots, with and without flash, then work on the contrast and color balance in Paint Shop Pro 9.01.

 

Having just started this a few months ago, I'd say the GPSr (that slang drives me nuts) is handy to be sure you're in the right vicinity, but it's really the text description that will get you there. Start out with some easy ones, things that people have recovered in the last few years. I've been looking for things that are missing or destroyed, and it's a lot more fun if you have a successful search every now and then

[+Black Dog Trackers]

tftn607 -

 

If you feel that rubbings are somehow more 'real' than photographs then do collect them! I prefer digital photography and hope that you take digital pictures of the disks as well. The most useful benchmark pictures are not the closeups but the 'distant' shot that shows where the disk is in relation to nearby objects.

 

I think few to none of us do rubbings of disks so you have the opportunity of being our first expert. If you find a benchmark disk, in a convenient spot to do some experimenting, you'll probably need to bring various materials to find out what's best for best disk rubbings.

 

Digital cameras can break or run out of battery power in the field, and having recommended rubbing materials as backup in a benchmark hunting pack might be a good thing to include to be able to get an image of a disk via a rubbing without having to go back. I have seen a couple rubbings before in the

Benchmark Gallery, and that may be exactly what happened in those cases.

[Photobuff]

Just had this idea- how 'bout rubbings on fabric? A close weave light colored fabric would conform to the surface and should take various thing like crayon or charcoal quite nicely. Maybe put it in one of those hoop things, then hold it over the mark. Spray with artists fixative when done.

[+cjf]

Maybe put it in one of those hoop things,

 

I think you're referring to an "embroidery hoop."

 

I generally take close ups and location shots of the benchmarks I find. But it occurs to me that rubbings might be nice for special benchmarks. Maybe ones with interesting names (there's one labelled "Death" in Death Valley!) or if you happen upon one with your name as part of the benchmark.

[tftn607]

Thanks for your help so far everyone. My maiden voyage may have to wait if the snow that is predicted actually shows up. When I find something that works, I will post it so maybe others can give it a try.

 

I'm sure someone will set me straight, but I can't see why anyone would want rubbings.

 

Maybe I'm just weird, but to each their own... Just as some ribs from the local BBQ joint may be "better" than I can ever make, it doesn't mean that there is no value in doing it myself. I'm sure I will take pics to share, but I will probably never open up that folder on my computer again, whereas having some rubbings that I made with the family will be something "real" to pass down to them, even if they are monetarily worthless.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[Wintertime]

Tftn, I think making rubbings is a very interesting idea! It will give you some great souvenirs.

 

You'll definitely want a softer paper than regular printer bond. Photobuff's idea of trying cloth also sounds intriguing, so maybe you can hunt up some of each and let us know how it goes. (After the snow melts. ;-))

 

Patty

[+robert]

I've been looking at "picking up" benchmarking as well (lurking a lot here) and thought about rubbings as well. I do digital pics but had an idea that the solution would be to make a rubbing. Various materials would be a good idea, do report back what you find out

[+Kewaneh & Shark]

I would think that a rubbing would help to pick up some of the details that the eye or a camera might miss. There are many people who make rubbings of old cemetary headstones in order to better 'see' what is on them. Especially the century-old marble and granite stones. When they weather, much of the relief and definition is lost and a rubbing an be the best thing to bring it back out. A rubbing is also fairly non-invasive to the stone, with no, powders, paints, or other chemicals that may speed-up the deterioration process. Most of the headstone rubbings I've seen were done with charcoal on an acid-free, light-weight vellum called 'onion-skin', or drafting linen. The charcoal would work great for benchmark rubbings, but the paper and linen may be too rigid to pick up the finer details on some marks. (The 'onion-skin' and charcoal can be found at any art supply store and are very inexpensive. Cheap is good!)

 

All that being said, a brass benchmark does not weather or deteriorate anywhere near as fast as a headstone. Most of the important detail can still be deciphered even on a damaged mark. Many times, corn starch, baby powder, or a yellow lumber crayon (keel) is enough to bring out the detail enough to be visually inspected or photographed.

 

- Kewaneh

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

Here's an interesting thing I've noticed more than once.

 

If I set my camera to Macro mode (that allows close up focus) and full resolution (4 mega pixels) then when I get back home and look at the image on my computer, I can often see details I could not see with the naked eye.

 

Now granted my eyes are not what they used to be, but nevertheless the camera seems to acting as a magnifying glass.

 

Case in point: there is a painted over disk on the Federal Building right across from Ground Zero in NYC. Here's the log KV0592 log. I could see little more than the shape of the disk in person. But back home, I could make out lot's of things such as fragments of the lettering and even 2 of the characters of the designation. Unfortunately the resolution of the uploaded image here is not as good as the original but you can still see some of this detail on the images in my log.

 

Anyone else notice that?

 

I'm no expert on rubbings, but I would guess 1) you might find some details you missed due to the fact that low contrast and bad lighting will impede your naked eye and 2) you will probably lose absolute resolution due to the intrinsic nature of the rubbings.

 

My sister does rubbing on old gravestones and that is certainly very cool.

Edited December 31, 2005 by Papa-Bear-NYC

[Photobuff]

I'm finding the rubbing idea more and more appealing in terms of the finished product you get to display. OTOH, my name is still Photobuff! When you photograph anything looking for surface textures, use side-lighting. Because the mark will be a closeup, the on camera flash can do pretty well if it's the pop-up type that isn't too close to the lens. Otherwise, get a separate flash unit and hold it off to the side (if you have a PC socket or shoe to hook it to). I recently discovered one advantage to automatic digital cameras. I couldn't get close enough to a mark to read it, lest I fall in a creek and drift out into the nearby lake. I put the camera on the tripod, set the self timer, and held it out over the mark by the ends of the legs. The timer tripped, the camera autofocused the macro shot and, voila, I had a readable shot of the name and date, that I couldn't otherwise get! Once you get a sharp image, bring out details using something like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. Adjust the histogram for good detail and apply unsharp masking to crisp up the edges (in moderation).

[holograph]

If I set my camera to Macro mode (that allows close up focus) and full resolution (4 mega pixels) then when I get back home and look at the image on my computer, I can often see details I could not see with the naked eye.

 

...

 

Anyone else notice that?

 

I've sometimes found that the camera with flash will capture details that might be unnoticable in the field, especially if the mark is somewhat inaccessble or in a dark location. On other occasions I've held the camera in positions that would be an entirely unsafe viewpoint by eye, and it was the only way to capture the stamping.

 

One example of the benefit of the camera and flash was LY2619 where the mark was at the bottom of a dark, wet, 3 foot deep hole, and the only thing I could see by eye was that there was a disk there, but the camera captured the stamping, including a faint "Woodport" at the bottom of the image. The original camera image was 1600x1200, and the stamping is more visible in the original than in the image posted to the log.

[+Klemmer]

One of the things this techie here knows a fair amount about is the capabilityies of CCD and CMOS sensors (the part in the camera that converts incoming light to electrons that can be stored). Most still & video sensors have some sensitivity to wavelegths of light that the human eye cannot see (Near Infrared - NIR), some more than others. That NIR could very well be providing information that NO human eye could see. I'm more familiar with the phenomena in video cameras (my company makes some that see ONLY NIR, intentionally), but there is no reason a similar thing couldn't occur on a still camera. By the way, sunlight has lots of NIR in it, so many cameras have a special "NIR filter" internally to keep most of it out, but some still gets in.

[+Open Hand]

I like the idea of making rubbings. When I visited London last Spring with my niece, we went to the "Brass Rubbing Centre" in the crypt of an old church and we got to make our own brass rubbings (using brass replicas of old grave markers). They were great souvenirs which we actually framed and hung in the living room! The substance we used to make the rubbings was definitely a waxy substance - almost like crayon, but not quite. We used the side, not the tip. If you do an internet search for "brass rubbing," you might get some ideas on the best way to do it and materials to use. Apparently, it is a hobby for some in the UK and elsewhere. (Obviously it will be a little different, considering the nature of benchmarks, but some of the general principles might be the same.) Just a thought!

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

 

GG0054 RITCHEY TRIANGULATION STATION

 

Had to dig up some old one's to find em again.

3 years back.

 

Way back in my paper days I use to do a rubbing of every mark I recovered.

When I got my first 100 I quit.It is very time consuming.

Especially when you uncover one that has been there 40+ years.

The moisture and dirt mess with the paper.

 

Anyway I used the heavy weight regular printing paper that I printed out for the benchmark details or always had an extra sheet of paper when I got 3-4 marks in one.

 

I used a carpenters pencil with a wide tip #2.

Then I pressed the paper into or around the benchmark and held it in position with one hand and rubbed it with the other.

If you move it it will have double images.

 

I tried everything but the above was the best I found.

[tftn607]

Wow - thanks for all of the replies, guys!! I will try out some of your suggestions once this weather breaks for a bit. It's been either raining or snowing just about every minute that I'm not at work.

 

GEO*Trailblazer 1 - those look awesome, thanks for sharing.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I think it'd make an interesting wall hanging/collage. Might have to try a few.

A lot of the ones I've found are far too corroded ANDOVER CBL 580, or far too damaged RIDGEWOOD RESET. Though, here's a great one I found last weekend, that I'm using as wallpaper on my puter at work MONTANA AZ MK. The actual Montana 1942 might be too faint for a rubbing?

The eyes, of course, are not what they used to be. And I find I can read a lot more with a flash photo. Of course, my eyes were never good. Cataract surgery is interesting. I went from 20/1000 with near vision the only good vision without the specs, to 20/20 without any close vision at all, without reading glasses. Oh, well.

Edited January 5, 2006 by Harry Dolphin

[+Seasoned Warrior]

I've never done a rubbing of a benchmark but I do a lot of rubbings or historically intersting places, especially when the plaque is artistic or very interesting. The last one I did was in Progress, Yucatan and was the corner stone of a building from the Spanish conquest of Mexico. I use a variety of pencils and find that rubbing with the side of the lead as in shading weems to work best. My favorite paper is vellum and can be bought in stores that sell drafting supplies or in art supply stores, although the vellum used for drafting seems to be much better quality than I ahve found in art supply stores.

[+Seasoned Warrior]

Anyone know where I can get a coputer that can spell????

[Photobuff]

Some time back I downloaded the Google toolbar. It has a spell check button that works perfectly on forum messages. Makes me look far better edumacated than I really am

[Surveyor1]

Many surveying companies require their employees to make rubbings of NGS monuments used for GPS observations. This was one way of being sure that they were occupying the correct monument. I think I still have some observation sheets that have a space for the rubbing.

[Difficult Run]

My sister does rubbing on old gravestones and that is certainly very cool.

Just an FYI for genealogy buffs - it's not recommended to do gravestone rubbings. The face on a lot of these old stones are quite fragile. It's best to take a digital photo, especially on very difficult to read stones.

 

Once you have the best photo of a REALLY difficult to read stone, run the digital image through a series of color filters. I use Corel Photopaint, and have been able to decipher lettering lost to lichen, erosion, etc.

 

<back on topic>

 

Thankfully, most benchmarks don't have this problem.

 

Dunno if this has been mentioned before, but it would be cool to make a replica of "noteable or famous" benchmarks. An example would be Mt. Washington, N.H. or Mt. Mitchell, NC. I think I've seen them somewhere.

 

Cheers!

~ Mitch ~

 

Klemmer & TeddyBearMama

One of the things this techie here knows a fair amount about is the capabilityies of CCD and CMOS sensors (the part in the camera that converts incoming light to electrons that can be stored). Most still & video sensors have some sensitivity to wavelegths of light that the human eye cannot see (Near Infrared - NIR), some more than others.

Re-reading this post, I have to agree with Klemmer & TeddyBearMama. 20 years ago, I videotaped a friend's ancestral gravestones, while she was reading them. We played the tape back at home and laughed. The image from the camcorder was incredibly clear, while she was on tape struggling to make out nearly every letter and phrase.

Edited January 11, 2006 by Difficult Run