I'm considering looking to local acrylic manufacturers about cutting custom ship tokens and I wanted to gauge interest.

I don't know if anyone else has this issue, but some of my ship tokens are beginning to wear in heavily. The corners are fraying and the place where the plastic fins lock in is indented heavily. If for no other reason than it may look cool to have acrylic ship tokens, I'm gonna talk to a few people, but is there anyone else who'd be interested if a batch get's fabricated?

Other thoughts?

(Presuming, of course, that the arc lines/LoS dots are precise and that the information is correctly printed/etched).


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I'd be interested, but honestly the price point would have to be pretty low for me to bite. I could always just buy a sheet of plasticard and use sharpie haha.

I use a black sharpie on the edges of my bases and paint my bases black. Can't tell if anything is fraying.

8 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

I'd be interested, but honestly the price point would have to be pretty low for me to bite. I could always just buy a sheet of plasticard and use sharpie haha.

Too true! lol

Yeah a sheet of acrylic is pretty cheap, especially as thin as it's need to be. If I did the engineering myself (because that's what I do for a living), I could see them being pretty reasonable if I did a run of 20-30 or so at a time.

Just now, Undeadguy said:

I use a black sharpie on the edges of my bases and paint my bases black. Can't tell if anything is fraying.

Are any of your tokens worn in where the fins lock in? If I don't put a folded piece of paper under my ISDs front hull the ship and fin fall right off.

2 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Are any of your tokens worn in where the fins lock in? If I don't put a folded piece of paper under my ISDs front hull the ship and fin fall right off.

One of my VSDs is like that.

I was actually just talking about this the other day. I'm in this game for the long term, and plan to still be playing it with my kids even after FFG stops supporting it. The ship tokens are the only piece in the game that:

* the shape is important
* is subjected to wear (I fully assemble and disassemble my stands for storage/play)
* has no long-wearing options available

Part of the issue with an acrylic token would be that the ship token relies on the cardboard mechanically to hold the whole stand together. The fin requires the slightly squishy resistance of the cardboard to hold it in place.

You could make an acrylic replacement, but I think it would need to be manufactured to pretty impractical tolerances to hold the whole assembly together sturdily.

It's a problem that I would love to see a good answer to, but I don't know what it would look like.

Just now, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

One of my VSDs is like that.

All of my large ships and all but my newest 2 mediums do it. (just a few smalls, mostly the Mc30s). I clock a ****-load of games but it's gotta be a regular thing right?

3 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Are any of your tokens worn in where the fins lock in? If I don't put a folded piece of paper under my ISDs front hull the ship and fin fall right off.

I paint the entire base, so I have the extra layer of paint n sealer. I have an issue getting the fin into the whole rather than it falling off lol

The issue I see with this idea is creating a base for every ship. 3 different sizes, all different arcs. I worry about recreating the arcs and width of the arc.

10 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Part of the issue with an acrylic token would be that the ship token relies on the cardboard mechanically to hold the whole stand together. The fin requires the slightly squishy resistance of the cardboard to hold it in place.

You could make an acrylic replacement, but I think it would need to be manufactured to pretty impractical tolerances to hold the whole assembly together sturdily.

It's a problem that I would love to see a good answer to, but I don't know what it would look like.

Well here's the deal, as long as the details of the edges and surface are maintained, (dimensions included). The actual thickness of the acrylic may not need to be accurate. The only way to make these would be to have the thickness be smaller than needed and apply a "plastic base" shaped layer of thin foam or foam-like material under the acrylic token. The material would give just enough at the pinch point that the fin would lock in place.

This would also prevent future wear in as it would not likely create enough pressure to wear in the plastic.

I figure once the tokens are cut, cutting out the foam I could do myself and each token would come with a neat little foam sheet that lays down on the base before you set the token.

Easy peasy.

4 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I paint the entire base, so I have the extra layer of paint n sealer. I have an issue getting the fin into the whole rather than it falling off lol

The issue I see with this idea is creating a base for every ship. 3 different sizes, all different arcs. I worry about recreating the arcs and width of the arc.

I have a scanner, and could easily draw up an autoCAD tool path at 1:1 scale. It would be precise within 0.01+/- of a MM.

Like I'm said in the OP. Let's presume I do the work and these are PRECISE lol

Color me interested.

11 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Well here's the deal, as long as the details of the edges and surface are maintained, (dimensions included). The actual thickness of the acrylic may not need to be accurate. The only way to make these would be to have the thickness be smaller than needed and apply a "plastic base" shaped layer of thin foam or foam-like material under the acrylic token. The material would give just enough at the pinch point that the fin would lock in place.

This would also prevent future wear in as it would not likely create enough pressure to wear in the plastic.

I figure once the tokens are cut, cutting out the foam I could do myself and each token would come with a neat little foam sheet that lays down on the base before you set the token.

Easy peasy.

It sounds pretty neat. I too am intending to have these to play with whomever I can ensnare for as long as I can, and if these can be proven to work I may scrape up enough to get one for each model, but that may be a while away.

Just now, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

It sounds pretty neat. I too am intending to have these to play with whomever I can ensnare for as long as I can, and if these can be proven to work I may scrape up enough to get one for each model, but that may be a while away.

It's all in the air right now, but I think the best way to organize their production would be in runs. So I'd likely have a signup sheet where each person paid their portion of the cost, we'd run one ship, and ship them out. Then on to the next. Probably the best way to keep the cost low.

1 minute ago, Darth Sanguis said:

It's all in the air right now, but I think the best way to organize their production would be in runs. So I'd likely have a signup sheet where each person paid their portion of the cost, we'd run one ship, and ship them out. Then on to the next. Probably the best way to keep the cost low.

I see. Well, depending on the costs involved, I may be willing to sign up as a pioneer in the field of long-term Armada. Wouldn't it be ironic though if we replaced all our tokens with acrylic and the models broke?

You definitely got my attention.

3 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I see. Well, depending on the costs involved, I may be willing to sign up as a pioneer in the field of long-term Armada. Wouldn't it be ironic though if we replaced all our tokens with acrylic and the models broke?

[knocks on wood furiously]

13 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

The only way to make these would be to have the thickness be smaller than needed and apply a "plastic base" shaped layer of thin foam or foam-like material under the acrylic token . The material would give just enough at the pinch point that the fin would lock in place.

This would also prevent future wear in as it would not likely create enough pressure to wear in the plastic.

That is a fantastic idea. This is why I pay other people to make sweet stuff like this for me instead of trying to do it myself.

I'm tentatively in if you do a run, as long as the price point is something I my wife can swallow.

Just now, Ardaedhel said:

That is a fantastic idea. This is why I pay other people to make sweet stuff like this for me instead of trying to do it myself.

I'm tentatively in if you do a run, as long as the price point is something I my wife can swallow.

Thank you! And noted, I'm hoping to keep prices at a minimum. I messaged a company that may be a good fit just a few minutes ago, I'll have more info soon.

Yeah. I’m curious. Probably willing to go in on at least a single run to see how they pan out

https://goo.gl/images/ENnICh

I'll get in on this. Need some Vic II tokens.

I may be interested.

I'm interested, this is a good idea and if you can pull it off as outlined you will have no lack of market

I absolutely love this idea. I'd really want this to be in some dark grey, semi-opaque acrylic with all the pertinent information of the stock cards etched and painted into the sheet, such as arcs, shield and attack dice values, ship name, cost, and squadron dice.