Giving an Old Deck New Life
Hey everyone, I wanted to show you what I did with a deck that was missing cards and was pretty worn out. The idea was to repurpose the cards so I could give them away signed and leave a nice memento.
You can see here how totally trashed they were... (no comment 😂😂) The tools I used were a utility knife, a ruler, and a corner rounder (Thanks, ZETA, for your contribution! 🙌🙌👏👏). After trimming the sides of the deck, I have to say, trying to cut exactly 1/2 mm or less with a utility knife and get them all perfectly even felt like the stars aligned. Ideally, a guillotine cutter would be better, but for now, it's adapt or die!
This is how they turned out. I still need to clean the backs and faces with zinc powder, which I don't have yet, but it's on order. They're nothing groundbreaking, but it's my first time doing this.
Cheers, everyone!
By the way, any feedback or tips are welcome!
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Well, they look really good. :slight_smile:
Right off the bat, I didn't trim them like that (I'm talking about the edges) because I try to maintain the original size of the deck (keep in mind I just did my first test the other day 😅).
My initial idea would be to restore decks that really matter, like limited editions for example.
The deck they gave me to test had so much gunk on it (I swear I've seen decks in small-town bars that were cleaner, and that's saying something!) that it would've been great to just trim off the entire border (like you did) and then the corners. I bet it would look pristine that way (and even then, I bet I could still do a Faro).
In fact, I thought about doing that, but my initial idea was to see what I could achieve without trimming 😊.
Anyway, yours turned out great. You've given that deck a new lease on life.
Even if it's just for Force cards and for signing, that's already useful and a saving.
Thanks for your comment! The main idea was to make them Bridge size (57x88mm), but they ended up too narrow, really cramping the indices compared to poker size (63x88mm). And of course, the height is the same. I loved your first attempt, especially the vintage touch you described. It's always great to find new ways to use those old decks that served us so well, instead of just letting them gather dust in a drawer!