wiles01 said:

I picked up some nylon washers from Home Depot but I found that the 3/8" washers covered up some of the artwork of the bottom disk. I went with 5/16" washers instead and you can barely see them when the disk is reassmbled. Another benefit using the smaller washer is I get 3 of the 5/16" ones for the same price as two of the 3/8" ones.

As my disks were already assembled I took them apart by using a pair of needle nose pliers and gently twisted the center pin that holds the disk together till it came loose and could be pulled apart.

I spent 5 hours a few evenings ago applying Con-Tact clear to EVERYTHING that could possibly see wear and tear. The top of the movement dials, the bottom and speed/direction side half of the dials, the movement templates, the range ruler… everything. It's *all* protected now! It took some time, but in the long run it oughtta be **well** worth it.

My technique was to put the piece of Con-Tact sheet on a hobby cutting board, sticky-side up. Then plop whatever side of the dial half, template etc. you want protected firmly down on it. Then CAREFULLY using an Exacto knife around the edges of the piece and then removing the excess. Rinse and repeat for the other side of the piece. Don't forget to cut out the hole of the dial pieces! Then just assemble the dials as usual. I did it again yesterday with newly bought X-wing and Y-wing and by then I'd gotten really fast at it :-)

I cut out some extra contact paper ones and upgraded the dials in the demo copy at my FLGS last night.

That demo copy is getting a lot of use while we're waiting for the restock ship to come in.

Litko makes some generic dials that you ca buy. They have all the manuevers but not specific to each ship.

VR
James Mattes

I have tried using a brush on mat varnish on the faces of the dials as these seem to take the most wear. this seems to have worked well so far. I have also used a black paint and matt varnish mix to paint all the edges of movement dails, ship tokens, movement templates,and all tokens in the hope to improve their lifespan as i play this game to death.it takes a while to paint these but if your going t spend money on games its worth doing your best to preserve the contents.

I hate that they wear out it looks terrible…

KnightShift said:

I just did mine today, thanks to this thread. I was happy to find the exact same Con-Tact sheet at my closest local hardware store. I only protected the side of the dials with the movements printed on them, but seeing TK's pic, I guess I have to resign myself to protect the outer faces of the dials as well, yeeoch!

I am going with the washer route but also picked up some Magic Cover 20 inch by 15 feet Self Adhesive Decorative Covering in clear. Not sure it is acid free. Anyone know for sure. It is made by Kittrich and I think I got it from Michaels Crafts.

VR
James Mattes

I use the contact paper in the exterior faces, I think is were the damage occurs, and now is protected, greettings.

vojvoda said:

Kittrich is con-tact's parent company.

mrgoodtrips said:

I plan on using the same varnish that I use on my miniatures for Warhammer 40,000 on the maneuver dials. It protects the paint of my miniatures quite well…it should do the same for the dials.