Hex map tiles anybody interested?

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Jovus

I'd be potentially quite interested, but would need both more time and some pictures.

No problem; it will probably take us a couple weeks to get all this together anyway, and give people time to join up. I'll PM you my email; email me and I will send you a 3d mock up of what the tiles will look like.

[DeDiceManCometh]

I was thinking along completely different lines. You folks know the kind of plastic typically used in packaging of kids toys (particularly Barbie and Polly Pockets stuff)?? It's thicker than a sheet of acetate, slightly thicker than the typical plastic used in a water bottle, but much thinner than plexiglass. I wonder what the cost of creating a "20 x 30" sheet of that would be -- with a (slightly) raised 1" hex grid on it? I suspect that stuff is super cheap.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by DeDiceManCometh

I was thinking along completely different lines. You folks know the kind of plastic typically used in packaging of kids toys (particularly Barbie and Polly Pockets stuff)?? It's thicker than a sheet of acetate, slightly thicker than the typical plastic used in a water bottle, but much thinner than plexiglass. I wonder what the cost of creating a "20 x 30" sheet of that would be -- with a (slightly) raised 1" hex grid on it? I suspect that stuff is super cheap.

We actually asked about having the 1" grid beveled in or raised and it turned out to be quite difficult and expensive. I don't think Bruno got hard numbers but the company straight up said that it would be WAY cheaper to just print lines in vinyl on the tiles. In the event that a line got scuffed here or there you could probably do touch-up jobs with a black permanent or paint marker. The tiles are going to be anti-scratch coated though so I doubt you would have to do this unless you drag them over a big pile of dirt or something.
We went with the 3/16 acrylic because we wanted the tiles to have a little bit of heft to them to hold down a map they were placed over. I suspect that a 20"x30" sheet of thinner material would be susceptible to breakage. Since the 6" tiles can easily be stacked they will be much more portable. Also, they will be much more resistant to breakage than the toy plastic. You could drop these all over the place and not crack them unless you actively throw them at the ground. Note we strongly discourage using the tiles as throwing stars. @:-)

[Crakkerjakk]

Speaking from personal experience over the past several weeks, the edges of 1/4 in acrylic will chip if dropped on a cement floor. Not much, but small divots do tend to chip out. They should be fine on carpet. They definitely won't crack across the plate though.

Acrylic is generally poured, so the only way to get a raised hexagon pattern is to custom make a casting (at about $1000 USD just for that part, minimum) or to machine it, which involves paying a machinist.

In case anyone has been wondering, yes, I have been pricing out acrylic parts for my senior project.

[Warlockco]

Would be interested if I had a source of income at the moment :(

[eustakos]

In tiefer dankbarkeit :)

i will take possibly take 40

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I wanted to do a "jigsaw puzzle" edge to lock them together but the cost just skyrockets, and it gave me a headache trying to figure out how to do the jigsaw edge so the hexes would line up nicely from tile to tile. That's also, incidentally, why they're hexagonal tiles - very easy to flow the pattern from one to the next. Square and rectangular tiles induced more headaches.

I thought about suggesting that to you, some kind of interlocking edge system thing, but I figured you had already thought about it yourself.

I'm not interested; I have my huge 4x8 foot MondoMat from Chessex (and expensive it was too, and shipping cost wasn't fun).

If I was, though, I'd be a bit concerned about how transparent your acrylic hex tiles are, if that they are still see-through in somewhat poor lighting conditions. And also how light reflects off the surface (is "glare" the right word for this kind of problem?). Chessex-style mats have a lot of advantages (and the smaller ones, smaller than 32 square foot Mondos, are reasonably cheap), so your product better be competetive in usefulness, not just flexibility ("use as many tiles as your table can fit") and cost.

Posting the mass per tile, or per 8 tiles, would perhaps also help those who are interested with calculating shipping costs... Anyway, it sounds like a great project, but I don't need it...

edit: Okay, I just re-skimmed the OP, and he says "completely clear", so I'll assume that that is a case of truth in advertising. I'm still "theoretically concerned" about glare problems, though.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If I was, though, I'd be a bit concerned about how transparent your acrylic hex tiles are, if that they are still see-through in somewhat poor lighting conditions. And also how light reflects off the surface (is "glare" the right word for this kind of problem?).

They are similar to regular glass in terms of glare; I have some acrylic panels on some shelves I built and they are quite transparent, even in bright lighting. Again since they are relatively thin the glare effect will be minimized somewhat.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Chessex-style mats have a lot of advantages (and the smaller ones, smaller than 32 square foot Mondos, are reasonably cheap), so your product better be competetive in usefulness, not just flexibility ("use as many tiles as your table can fit") and cost.

Just to spell it out; Bruno and I are not making any money on this, so it's not a commercial product per se. Bruno just did the legwork to see how much it would cost. When we found out we could get a price break per tile from the company if we were able to order over 500 we thought we'd post the offer here and see if we could save a few bucks for ourselves and give people the chance to have an interesting map alternative. Regarding the mats, the drawback to them is they are not clear; you have to draw your map ON them. These tiles can be laid over an existing map, surface, or drawing. That way you can use big sheets of cheap paper to sketch out a map and then lay down some tiles to get the hex grid. Also, the tiles can be stacked up and carried in a purse or small bag. The smaller mats can do this, but with the tiles you could have more coverage in a more transportable volume.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Posting the mass per tile, or per 8 tiles, would perhaps also help those who are interested with calculating shipping costs... Anyway, it sounds like a great project, but I don't need it...

Probably a good idea. Hopefully Bruno can get a weight estimate from the company. They shouldn't be overly heavy though. I would expect 20 of them to weigh as much as a CD spool as I mentioned before. We should have some exact numbers soon.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

edit: Okay, I just re-skimmed the OP, and he says "completely clear", so I'll assume that that is a case of truth in advertising. I'm still "theoretically concerned" about glare problems, though.

They will look very similar to glass, but be lighter and less fragile.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Speaking from personal experience over the past several weeks, the edges of 1/4 in acrylic will chip if dropped on a cement floor. Not much, but small divots do tend to chip out. They should be fine on carpet. They definitely won't crack across the plate though.

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend using them as throwing stars but as long as you don't drop them on concrete or whip them at the ground you should be OK. Even if you do chip an edge the tile should still be quite usable as well. Bruno said she'd be using newspaper or other suitable padding for shipping to make sure they arrive unmarred.

Acrylic is generally poured, so the only way to get a raised hexagon pattern is to custom make a casting (at about $1000 USD just for that part, minimum) or to machine it, which involves paying a machinist.

These guys have a big automated cutting machine and a vacuum former. They often do jobs for the local universities so they frequently have to create oddly shaped parts out of acrylic and lexan while doing it cheaply. They have lots of very nice toys in their shop for handling these materials. They were able to offer us a price of only 6.50 CDN per tile (5.50 if we order more than 500) because they already have all the gear on hand so setup costs are minimal.

In case anyone has been wondering, yes, I have been pricing out acrylic parts for my senior project.

Anything with little fiddly bits would be quite expensive, (that's why we had to drop the interlocking puzzle piece idea) but they assure us that this simple hex shape should be quite cheap to produce. We already have a commercial quote from them for this value so the price per tile is already fixed.
The place doing the printing is SIGNS.ca while the plastics place which will probably end up doing the cutting is CANUS plastics. SIGNS is run by a forum CANUS employee so the two companies are apparently quite close.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by Warlockco

Would be interested if I had a source of income at the moment :(

Well, we're probably going to need a couple weeks to collect orders and information from people, so if you happen to fall butt-first into a job and/or money we'll be here.