Gillio Mia Cara in A6 size

As you might know I'm a keen user of the A6 size planner format. I find the pages more 'natural' to use.

I have quite a few personal size organisers in my 'collection', but I don't think I will be getting rid of them just yet. I still like that size as well.

I've asked the people at Gillio a few times 'So when will Gillio be making an A6 Mia Cara?' They replied "One day but we don't know when yet"

So I decided to create my own and here it is.

Now I can hear you saying 'But Steve isn't that a Medium Size Mia Cara?'  Yes it is.... but here is the difference.

This one is fitted with A6 Krause rings. And look here are the pages in it.

And to prove they really are A6 pages here is a photo with a personal size page along side them.

Now I'm sure some of you might recall me previously saying that personal rings and A6 rings use different mounting points so one type will not fit in the other. Correct they will not.

Those are personal at the top with A6 below, notice the rectangular slots are placed differently.  Err so come on Steve how did you do it....

OK I will come clean and this is how I did it....

1. Step one remove medium (personal rings) from the Mia Cara, keeping the backing plate. See the video for details. 
2. Take apart a set of A6 rings. 
3. Mark the medium backing plate for reducing in overall length, taking approximately 10 mm off each end with a hacksaw and a file to finish off any rough edges. 
4. Put the A6 rings on to the modified medium backing plate as you would any other rings when reassembling them. The backing plates are the same width so the rings fit and work exactly the same. 
5. Put the new modified A6 ring mechanism on to the Medium Mia Cara organiser section.
6. And Robert is your mothers brother. 

Simples... or is it... 

OK there are some small issues with doing this modification that you need to consider before doing it yourself. 

• You need to know and be confident at taking rings apart and reassembling them. See the video for details. 
• You need some metalworking skills and tools to shorten the medium size backplate.
• You could use the medium size backing plate without reducing the length of the backing plate, but the cover plate from the A6 rings doesn't fit very well, plus the backing plate has some nasty sharp edges on it when left exposed, which is why I shortened mine.  
• In use the inserts get very close to the edge of the closed removable organiser because the pages are 10mm wider than the organiser was designed for. So top tabs as you can see above solve that problem. But you can use side tabs because there's plenty of space when reassembled in the outer jacket part of the Mia Cara. Side tabs will stick out of the organiser section though. 

Some tips if you are thinking of doing this modification yourself. 

• See this post on where to buy your rings from.
• If you are purchasing a set of A6 rings, you might want to consider purchasing a set of Personal (Standard/Medium) ones at the same time, so that if you want to revert your Mia Cara back to Medium rings then you will have an un-modifed set of rings to go back in to the organiser. 
• Consult the Gillio warranty before performing any modification on one of their products yourself. 

I only 'converted' mine this morning so I can't really say what this will be like in every day use compared to a conventional A6 organiser, but I will let you know.

If it doesn't work out I will be able to swap it back to medium rings.