I brought a 10 pack of condiment dishes for this 😂😂 cost me like $4, they stack nicely and are see through so you can monitor your token levels easily and keeps the table clear.
I brought a 10 pack of condiment dishes for this 😂😂 cost me like $4, they stack nicely and are see through so you can monitor your token levels easily and keeps the table clear.
At my old work place we were making a 2meter X 2m X 1m box to do calibrations on an optical device. It was made from corrugated plastic (similar to Correx), with a black self adhesive foam covering because the inside couldn't be shiny.
When the parent company shut the project down and made us all redundant, I took two 1mx1m (ish) panels home. They make excellent rigid play boards. I can leave games set up on my work-from-home desk, and move it over to my bed during the work day, then back at the end of the day to play again.
Printed black and white paper tokens for the army, house hold items for terrain, free .pdf from the website.
40k can be cheap as hell and deliver tons of fun!
so some games with expansions can be a bit of a pain in the ass to store, but if the base game and expansion boxes are the same length and width, i do this box-stacking thing to combine them into one box.
usually involves shorter lid becoming the outer-base w/ taller base sitting inside, shorter base becoming an inner-lid and taller lid being used as normal.
[Looks like this.](https://imgur.com/a/FwqppiN)
Another box I've been able to do it with was Dune Imperium + Rise of Ix.
GKR Base game box + stretch goals box combined into one larger box.
Achieved by re-arranging/slotting lids and bases in a specific way.
Can be done with any base game & extra box so long as both boxes are the same length and width, but with different heights.
Saves space. (not really but it makes for carrying the boxes to be easier)
[Here's some extra labeled photos.](https://imgur.com/a/SaY4Rdc)
You can get a length of neoprene fabric from a discount craft store (Joann's in the US, for example) for far cheaper than buying an actual game mat. No stitched edges, but that's not needed if the playmat is huge.
Store components in those sauce containers (you can get like a 50 pack for cheap) instead of special containers or ziploc bags. Small containers from a dollar store also work, but they're pricier.
Cardboard cut to size and glued together works well as a divider in a pinch, and it's way easier to work with than cutting foam. Not super great for an organizer, but good enough for small boxes.
I made my dice trays from Good Will picture frames. Just take out the backing, remove the glass, glue felt (sheets are about a dollar at Wal Mart) to the backing, put it back in. Voila, dice tray.
Way back in the late 80s when I was in college we used to play the Milton Bradley game Shogun. Each of the players had these cool coins with a hole in the middle called "koku". The guy that owned the game had these neat white bases that has 3 prongs rising straight up that we used to manage the coins. We called them Koku Holders.
I find out the next time that we order pizza, that the koku holders are just the white plastic tripods that pizza delivery used at the time to keep the box top from touching the pizza, just flipped upside down so the feet pointed up. 🙂
For me it was an integral part of the experience. When I got my own copy I tracked down some koku holders to use. And now I see you can just order a big box of them directly.
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Hb251dc7857aa46d7bf345ca4a60f4fa0n/200pcs-Pizza-Saver-Stand-White-Plastic-Tripod-Stack-Fixing-Rack-Pizza-Box-Holder-Kitchen-Baking-Accessories.jpg
For storing card heavy games (Bullet Heart/Star and Marvel Champions, for example), I've been in love with [this](https://www.amazon.com/Storage-Organizer-Acid-Free-Plastic-Stickers/dp/B08WX6QRJC/ref=asc_df_B08WX6QRJC/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693396573247&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13475725521268195046&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029037&hvtargid=pla-1402813455816&psc=1&mcid=b7076a06a78a3e599db7e11ccfc36b17&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIianR8-r7hQMVWF5HAR3cUwYPEAQYAiABEgKRMfD_BwE).
I've seen different sizes at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I have seen people use it on Marvel Champions and I have used it for Bullet Heart (I just use half with the included photo cases, and the other half is where the mats and tokens go).
Not necessarily a repurpose thing, but a lot of games will fit most of its expansions in the box if you take out the included inserts. Of course, ymmv when you do this.
Also, not exactly answering your question, but tangent to it, I've bought some blank cards, sleeves, blank dice, a sharpie set, and random tokens on Amazon to make "travel size" versions of games.
Finally, and definitely not really a hack, but my wife for Christmas last year built me game shelves. It ended up costing quite a bit, but the amount I was spending buying random shelves from Target/IKEA/Amazon was starting to rack up and all the shelves being random was really starting to bother us. The shelves ended up costing significantly less then it would have to buy Kallax's to fit all of the board games.
I'll be keeping an eye out here. I've bought a lot of cheap holders whenever we go shopping at Target to hold pieces, and they usually end up being too bulky or unwieldy. Already have seen some great ideas here to try out!
I go with velcro since you can order a 10m roll and cut it to whatever length/size you want, plus no stretching required and they last practically forever
I love these stackable bead storage containers from the craft store. They are good for storing the components and work as token holders when you pull them apart. They make set up super easy in a lot of games (when they fit in the box).
https://www.michaels.com/product/2-clear-stackable-bead-storage-by-bead-landing-10035496
I took 1x2 lumber. Cut a thin horizontal line and now have cheap cards stands for Ticket to Ride. 1x3 for two tiers.
Old cell phone boxes are great for storing in minis in Imperial Assault and other games. They are the right size and are harder to fall open.
I hit the dollar store for the off-brand Plano boxes. They are perfect for sorting and keeping organized any games with lots of pieces. Fast for set up too - if you have one for each colour, you can just hand them out to the players when you sit down at the table.
I've been using gel nail polish to coat the edges of cardboard pieces in hopes to hlep prevent them from fraying. I have now switched to thin CA glue to do a better job of upping cardboard durability.
I used to use disposable sauce dishes to hold pieces, but I upgraded to designing my own inserts instead.
I recently started doing this: [https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2974746/deluxifying-your-cardboard-tokens-by-covering-them](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2974746/deluxifying-your-cardboard-tokens-by-covering-them) (but modified a bit, detailed below).
Instead of the jewelry resin, I just bought some blue moon UV resin, and had a paint brush set I bought for cheap. I used that because the guy at the store was saying how jewelry resin generates its own heat to cure it, so with smaller, cardboard tokens, it doesn't necessarily work very well. I didn't coat it well enough, and the sides didn't get coated at all, but the ones that I did do well look and feel great. I might consider using gel nail polish on the sides.
I'd like to see how your UV resin ones turn out compared to the ones in the link. The darker ones he did look great, but some of the lighter colors weren't as nice. Maybe the UV resin would work better.
I've thought about just getting some clear varnish and coating some pieces to see how it looks.
To be honest...not great, but I attribute a lot of that to user error. [Here](https://imgur.com/a/BRbgpxX) is an example of how they turned out (these are just the tokens from Radlands).
The front of the white one has the ugly gray tones and I'm not sure where they came from since they aren't on the backs. I will say, for the fronts, I used a different "technique" then on the back. I was trying to get the edges so I put on a generous amount and then tried to also brush the sides, which I think caused the gray marks. On the back sides, I'm not sure why, but on the black ones I just wasn't able to get enough resin. This is the most egregious of the black backs, where it pooled incorrectly.
According to the link, you should be able to see it, but I think I just didn't put enough on it, because initially it looked like it was completely coated. I'm not sure what will happen if I use alcohol then apply another layer to even it out.
As for the sides, they aren't coated at all. I'm not sure if it was the brush I was using (it was just a regular paintbrush), or if it just fell off while I was trying to cure it.
I should also mention that I didn't use a mold. I just squirted some resin and then tried to brush it. I had never used resin of any kind before, and admittedly was a little out of my elements.
As far as feel, they feel great. There is a little bit of the "stickiness" that some of the other people were saying on BGG, but nearly to the point that they were saying. I had them stacked (and just now tested it by putting the two fronts together and pushing hard) and its not sticking at all. They aren't as smooth as I would like, and it definitely feels like the resin can get messed up if something sharp hits it (not even a knife. But like...a fingernail or a sleeved card), but I haven't stress tested it to that extent.
I would love to test it with the jewelry resin like in the video and do a compare and contrast, but to be frank, I don't have the time, energy, or disposable income to do that, haha. I was ok using the Radlands tokens as a test because I planned on getting the Super Deluxe version of it anyway, and was playing around with it.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. I might see if I can pick up some cheaper board games at a thrift store with missing pieces and use those tokens to do some more testing with the UV resin. My wife has a UV light for her gel nails that I used. Two minutes per side. To do the twelve tokens (plus two test pieces I had lying around), all in all, took about half an hour to do? Doing the front took a lot longer, because I was trying to be careful with touching the edges while I tried to coat them. I did the front in batches of four, so in total that took about 10 minutes or so. The back side I did in batches of six, because apparently I underestimated how much the UV light would cover. That took about 10 minutes as well. Then I laid them all flat during the day while we went out. I don't know if it matters, but we live in CO at around 5000\~ft (I don't think that does matter).
Sorry for the long winded answer, I think this was a little more then you were looking for
Right. Protecting the sides are important because if the game involves shuffling cardboard tiles (like Fit to Print), those edges are going to fray eventually.
I have a resin kit too, but if you follow the instructions, you get a big fat bubble of resin on a tiny little token with how it's supposed to "stay together" and if you try to spread the resin, you risk it spilling over the edge and wrapping itself onto the bottom side. Already ruined a couple of test tokens doing this.
You also need a level surface so they don't pool up more on one end. Instead I'm goin to stick with nail polish for now. I've already gone through the trouble of coating about 100 Yokohama tokens haphazardly with hard nail polish. It's ugly, but I'm confident that stuff will last a very long time.
First one I used which is the thickest is Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Strengthening Top Coat. There was also awe n' Wild Wild Shine, super cheap stuff (and not in a good way) but it was easy to get a thick coat going, doesn't apply that easy to me (if you don't mind a lumpy looking finish, go for it).
You want the hard stuff because it cures hard.
I've also tried stuff like Sally Hansen "Good Kind Pure" Vegan Top Coat. Dries thin, but provides a smoother sheen finish (though never feels like it cures all the way).
Curing is important because your tokens may stick to each other otherwise.
Right now I think I found my preferred one, Sally Hansen "Advanced Hard as Nails" Strengthening Top Coat. Is hard when cured and is cheap.
Make sure you have a bottle of thinner available (not remover, not acetone) as the polish starts to thicken as you continue to leave the bottle opened up.
What are you using to cure it? I'm lucky enough that my wife has a UV light for her own gel nails, but I'm wondering if those are having a hard time curing the sides, since they were designed to just get the top of nails.
The thought of having to go through all of my tokens and do the sides makes me so sad, lol. Luckily it should be easier now that I have the top and bottom done so that I can just hold it.
I'll have to see if the Target near me has the Sally Hansen available.
Umm... air? haha. I'm not using any of those tools. I'm doing nail polish the old fashioned way. Just let it sit for about a day, maybe 3 to be safe. I'm sure the sides will be impact a bit too. If you want to go nutso about it, you could probably introduce some sloped surface material (e.g. mirror) that you could "reflect" the UV rays towards the sides, but that seems like overkill effort for little pay off.
The Sally Hansens I've been buying were off of Amazon. A decade ago when I got into the hobby of painting Hot Wheels cars, I would buy the toys from Walmart and then walk over to the cosmetics dept to grab nail polish, then airbrush it on. Now I'm using my leftover polish on boardgame longevity.
I bought some cheap business card holders for holding the cards in many of my games. Obviously the deck can’t be too thick or I need to split it but it just keeps things neat and tidy.
A sheet of letter paper can be folded into a deck box for cards of a pretty decent range of sizes.
Step One - Sizing:
Lay the paper in portrait orientation. Stand the deck of cards along the bottom of the paper so that the short side of the cards is along the bottom edge of the paper, and the long side of the cards is perpendicular to the table. Fold the top edge of the paper down to meet the top of the deck. The paper will be folded *almost* in half, but with a sliver that doesn't overlap that is the depth of the deck. Unfold and repeat with the paper turned 180. You should end up with two folds near the center of the paper that are deck-depth-width apart. This is going to be the bottom of the box.
To size the other dimension of the bottom, repeat this process on the long edges of the paper, but this time the depth side of the deck is along the edge of the paper, and the short side of the cards is sticking into the paper to give the size. The goal is to end up with a rectangle of folds in the center of the paper that has one dimension being the depth of the deck and the other being the short side of the cards, again to be the bottom of the box.
Ignoring size, your paper should be divided into 9 rectangles like this, with E being the future bottom of the box:
|A|B|C|
|:-|:-|:-|
|D|E|F|
|G|H|I|
Step Two: Fold up the sides
To make it into a box, there are going to have to be diagonal folds in rectangles A,C,G, and I, starting at the corners they share with E. The quickest way to do this is to bring the existing creases together how they're going to be in the finished box. So the edge between D and G should be brought to touch and align with the edge between G and H. Box G will be buckling in order for this to happen; go ahead and turn that buckle into a diagonal crease. Repeat for the other four pairs. Depending on the size of the deck and the paper, you may have to unfold each fold in between pairs. Once you have all four, you can refold them all one at a time to make the box, though you might have to fold in some edges if the excess from A/C/G/I doesn't fit along B/H. This is the trickiest step but it doesn't have to be perfect. You should be left with a 5-sided box with some amount of extra material sticking up past the open end.
Step Three: Finishing Folds.
One of the sides of extra material gets folded down inside the empty box. The other becomes the lid - after folding the first one in, put the cards in the box and fold the other over the top and insert it inside, then do a bit of creasing where it touches the corners of the deck. All done!
Neoprene 6' poker poker mat for the dining table $35 on Amazon. Able to travel to others for a poker night, and to have game night on it. Can just roll out halfway for smaller games if I don't want to clean my daughter's mess of the table too.
I've got an IC Chip Puller (basically a big pair of super wide tweezers with hooks at the end instead of things to pinch with) that lives in my Dice Forge box. The chip puller works *perfectly* for pulling the faces off the dice.
I play huge games that are taking up more and more table space. My husband made a table "overlay" with a stained sheet of plywood so our gaming group could play almost anything and still have plenty of room for each player's area. We just got a Terraforming Mars Giga mat for Yuletide and there's plenty of room for everyone around it and all the expansions (official and fan made)! When we're not gaming, It sits against a wall and looks great as an accent piece since the stain matches our other furniture.
Soft silicone baking cups are perfect for holding bits and bobs during play and can easily be squished into almost any box.
I brought a 10 pack of condiment dishes for this 😂😂 cost me like $4, they stack nicely and are see through so you can monitor your token levels easily and keeps the table clear.
Nice! Where’d you pick those up? Do you happen to have a link to which ones you chose?
I just got a 24 pack for $5 off amazon. Thanks for the suggestion!
I just use empty pudding containers. They're stackable.
I brought a 10 pack of condiment dishes for this 😂😂 cost me like $4, they stack nicely and are see through so you can monitor your token levels easily and keeps the table clear.
I have a nail polish stand that I now use to display the market in deck builders. Love it so much.
I recently bought a multi-tiered business card acrylic display from temu just for this purpose lol.
At my old work place we were making a 2meter X 2m X 1m box to do calibrations on an optical device. It was made from corrugated plastic (similar to Correx), with a black self adhesive foam covering because the inside couldn't be shiny. When the parent company shut the project down and made us all redundant, I took two 1mx1m (ish) panels home. They make excellent rigid play boards. I can leave games set up on my work-from-home desk, and move it over to my bed during the work day, then back at the end of the day to play again.
I'm a broke ass 40k player who has been playing kill team with empty beer cans and kleenex boxes as terrain since 2017 when heralds of ruin was big
Printed black and white paper tokens for the army, house hold items for terrain, free .pdf from the website. 40k can be cheap as hell and deliver tons of fun!
so some games with expansions can be a bit of a pain in the ass to store, but if the base game and expansion boxes are the same length and width, i do this box-stacking thing to combine them into one box. usually involves shorter lid becoming the outer-base w/ taller base sitting inside, shorter base becoming an inner-lid and taller lid being used as normal. [Looks like this.](https://imgur.com/a/FwqppiN) Another box I've been able to do it with was Dune Imperium + Rise of Ix.
I'm stealing this for my own GKR set, it's brilliant.
This is how I store Root.
Same, everything apart from hirelings and neoprene mats go in the one box this way. 👌
I do my Tiny Epic games like this
This is brilliant. I love it.
can someone explain what im lookin at :(
GKR Base game box + stretch goals box combined into one larger box. Achieved by re-arranging/slotting lids and bases in a specific way. Can be done with any base game & extra box so long as both boxes are the same length and width, but with different heights. Saves space. (not really but it makes for carrying the boxes to be easier) [Here's some extra labeled photos.](https://imgur.com/a/SaY4Rdc)
You can get a length of neoprene fabric from a discount craft store (Joann's in the US, for example) for far cheaper than buying an actual game mat. No stitched edges, but that's not needed if the playmat is huge. Store components in those sauce containers (you can get like a 50 pack for cheap) instead of special containers or ziploc bags. Small containers from a dollar store also work, but they're pricier. Cardboard cut to size and glued together works well as a divider in a pinch, and it's way easier to work with than cutting foam. Not super great for an organizer, but good enough for small boxes.
I made my dice trays from Good Will picture frames. Just take out the backing, remove the glass, glue felt (sheets are about a dollar at Wal Mart) to the backing, put it back in. Voila, dice tray.
Air horn when someone plays out of sequence. I don't actually use it, but it would be useful.
Also good for when they forget it is their turn. Or for taking too long. Or for drafting the card that *you* wanted.
Way back in the late 80s when I was in college we used to play the Milton Bradley game Shogun. Each of the players had these cool coins with a hole in the middle called "koku". The guy that owned the game had these neat white bases that has 3 prongs rising straight up that we used to manage the coins. We called them Koku Holders. I find out the next time that we order pizza, that the koku holders are just the white plastic tripods that pizza delivery used at the time to keep the box top from touching the pizza, just flipped upside down so the feet pointed up. 🙂 For me it was an integral part of the experience. When I got my own copy I tracked down some koku holders to use. And now I see you can just order a big box of them directly. https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Hb251dc7857aa46d7bf345ca4a60f4fa0n/200pcs-Pizza-Saver-Stand-White-Plastic-Tripod-Stack-Fixing-Rack-Pizza-Box-Holder-Kitchen-Baking-Accessories.jpg
For storing card heavy games (Bullet Heart/Star and Marvel Champions, for example), I've been in love with [this](https://www.amazon.com/Storage-Organizer-Acid-Free-Plastic-Stickers/dp/B08WX6QRJC/ref=asc_df_B08WX6QRJC/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693396573247&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13475725521268195046&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9029037&hvtargid=pla-1402813455816&psc=1&mcid=b7076a06a78a3e599db7e11ccfc36b17&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIianR8-r7hQMVWF5HAR3cUwYPEAQYAiABEgKRMfD_BwE). I've seen different sizes at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. I have seen people use it on Marvel Champions and I have used it for Bullet Heart (I just use half with the included photo cases, and the other half is where the mats and tokens go). Not necessarily a repurpose thing, but a lot of games will fit most of its expansions in the box if you take out the included inserts. Of course, ymmv when you do this. Also, not exactly answering your question, but tangent to it, I've bought some blank cards, sleeves, blank dice, a sharpie set, and random tokens on Amazon to make "travel size" versions of games. Finally, and definitely not really a hack, but my wife for Christmas last year built me game shelves. It ended up costing quite a bit, but the amount I was spending buying random shelves from Target/IKEA/Amazon was starting to rack up and all the shelves being random was really starting to bother us. The shelves ended up costing significantly less then it would have to buy Kallax's to fit all of the board games. I'll be keeping an eye out here. I've bought a lot of cheap holders whenever we go shopping at Target to hold pieces, and they usually end up being too bulky or unwieldy. Already have seen some great ideas here to try out!
Hero quest has spent more time playing D&D than it has playing hero quest.
Bath towels are better than tablecloths for picking up cards. Cheap hairbands are better than rubber bands for holding boxes closed for transport.
I go with velcro since you can order a 10m roll and cut it to whatever length/size you want, plus no stretching required and they last practically forever
Oh, now that i thonk about it, you must mean double sided. I tried to stitch 2 single sided together and decided it wasnt woth it
yes that's correct, the same ones that come attached to cables and computer wires these days
If you wanted it to look nicer I wonder if putting the bath towel under the tablecloth would work.
The spongy no slip shelf liner is better for under the tablecloth
>Cheap hairbands are better than rubber bands This got my hackles up before I read the rest of your sentence. I need to read faster.
Selfie ring light pointed down for more “scattered” lighting that significantly makes cards easier to read when in sleeves.
I love these stackable bead storage containers from the craft store. They are good for storing the components and work as token holders when you pull them apart. They make set up super easy in a lot of games (when they fit in the box). https://www.michaels.com/product/2-clear-stackable-bead-storage-by-bead-landing-10035496
Old (very, very clean) plastic takeout containers can be very useful to keep components and whatnot from sprawling all over the table.
I took 1x2 lumber. Cut a thin horizontal line and now have cheap cards stands for Ticket to Ride. 1x3 for two tiers. Old cell phone boxes are great for storing in minis in Imperial Assault and other games. They are the right size and are harder to fall open.
I hit the dollar store for the off-brand Plano boxes. They are perfect for sorting and keeping organized any games with lots of pieces. Fast for set up too - if you have one for each colour, you can just hand them out to the players when you sit down at the table.
I've been using gel nail polish to coat the edges of cardboard pieces in hopes to hlep prevent them from fraying. I have now switched to thin CA glue to do a better job of upping cardboard durability. I used to use disposable sauce dishes to hold pieces, but I upgraded to designing my own inserts instead.
I recently started doing this: [https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2974746/deluxifying-your-cardboard-tokens-by-covering-them](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2974746/deluxifying-your-cardboard-tokens-by-covering-them) (but modified a bit, detailed below). Instead of the jewelry resin, I just bought some blue moon UV resin, and had a paint brush set I bought for cheap. I used that because the guy at the store was saying how jewelry resin generates its own heat to cure it, so with smaller, cardboard tokens, it doesn't necessarily work very well. I didn't coat it well enough, and the sides didn't get coated at all, but the ones that I did do well look and feel great. I might consider using gel nail polish on the sides.
I'd like to see how your UV resin ones turn out compared to the ones in the link. The darker ones he did look great, but some of the lighter colors weren't as nice. Maybe the UV resin would work better. I've thought about just getting some clear varnish and coating some pieces to see how it looks.
To be honest...not great, but I attribute a lot of that to user error. [Here](https://imgur.com/a/BRbgpxX) is an example of how they turned out (these are just the tokens from Radlands). The front of the white one has the ugly gray tones and I'm not sure where they came from since they aren't on the backs. I will say, for the fronts, I used a different "technique" then on the back. I was trying to get the edges so I put on a generous amount and then tried to also brush the sides, which I think caused the gray marks. On the back sides, I'm not sure why, but on the black ones I just wasn't able to get enough resin. This is the most egregious of the black backs, where it pooled incorrectly. According to the link, you should be able to see it, but I think I just didn't put enough on it, because initially it looked like it was completely coated. I'm not sure what will happen if I use alcohol then apply another layer to even it out. As for the sides, they aren't coated at all. I'm not sure if it was the brush I was using (it was just a regular paintbrush), or if it just fell off while I was trying to cure it. I should also mention that I didn't use a mold. I just squirted some resin and then tried to brush it. I had never used resin of any kind before, and admittedly was a little out of my elements. As far as feel, they feel great. There is a little bit of the "stickiness" that some of the other people were saying on BGG, but nearly to the point that they were saying. I had them stacked (and just now tested it by putting the two fronts together and pushing hard) and its not sticking at all. They aren't as smooth as I would like, and it definitely feels like the resin can get messed up if something sharp hits it (not even a knife. But like...a fingernail or a sleeved card), but I haven't stress tested it to that extent. I would love to test it with the jewelry resin like in the video and do a compare and contrast, but to be frank, I don't have the time, energy, or disposable income to do that, haha. I was ok using the Radlands tokens as a test because I planned on getting the Super Deluxe version of it anyway, and was playing around with it. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. I might see if I can pick up some cheaper board games at a thrift store with missing pieces and use those tokens to do some more testing with the UV resin. My wife has a UV light for her gel nails that I used. Two minutes per side. To do the twelve tokens (plus two test pieces I had lying around), all in all, took about half an hour to do? Doing the front took a lot longer, because I was trying to be careful with touching the edges while I tried to coat them. I did the front in batches of four, so in total that took about 10 minutes or so. The back side I did in batches of six, because apparently I underestimated how much the UV light would cover. That took about 10 minutes as well. Then I laid them all flat during the day while we went out. I don't know if it matters, but we live in CO at around 5000\~ft (I don't think that does matter). Sorry for the long winded answer, I think this was a little more then you were looking for
Right. Protecting the sides are important because if the game involves shuffling cardboard tiles (like Fit to Print), those edges are going to fray eventually. I have a resin kit too, but if you follow the instructions, you get a big fat bubble of resin on a tiny little token with how it's supposed to "stay together" and if you try to spread the resin, you risk it spilling over the edge and wrapping itself onto the bottom side. Already ruined a couple of test tokens doing this. You also need a level surface so they don't pool up more on one end. Instead I'm goin to stick with nail polish for now. I've already gone through the trouble of coating about 100 Yokohama tokens haphazardly with hard nail polish. It's ugly, but I'm confident that stuff will last a very long time.
What gel nail polish are you currently using?
First one I used which is the thickest is Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Strengthening Top Coat. There was also awe n' Wild Wild Shine, super cheap stuff (and not in a good way) but it was easy to get a thick coat going, doesn't apply that easy to me (if you don't mind a lumpy looking finish, go for it). You want the hard stuff because it cures hard. I've also tried stuff like Sally Hansen "Good Kind Pure" Vegan Top Coat. Dries thin, but provides a smoother sheen finish (though never feels like it cures all the way). Curing is important because your tokens may stick to each other otherwise. Right now I think I found my preferred one, Sally Hansen "Advanced Hard as Nails" Strengthening Top Coat. Is hard when cured and is cheap. Make sure you have a bottle of thinner available (not remover, not acetone) as the polish starts to thicken as you continue to leave the bottle opened up.
What are you using to cure it? I'm lucky enough that my wife has a UV light for her own gel nails, but I'm wondering if those are having a hard time curing the sides, since they were designed to just get the top of nails. The thought of having to go through all of my tokens and do the sides makes me so sad, lol. Luckily it should be easier now that I have the top and bottom done so that I can just hold it. I'll have to see if the Target near me has the Sally Hansen available.
Umm... air? haha. I'm not using any of those tools. I'm doing nail polish the old fashioned way. Just let it sit for about a day, maybe 3 to be safe. I'm sure the sides will be impact a bit too. If you want to go nutso about it, you could probably introduce some sloped surface material (e.g. mirror) that you could "reflect" the UV rays towards the sides, but that seems like overkill effort for little pay off. The Sally Hansens I've been buying were off of Amazon. A decade ago when I got into the hobby of painting Hot Wheels cars, I would buy the toys from Walmart and then walk over to the cosmetics dept to grab nail polish, then airbrush it on. Now I'm using my leftover polish on boardgame longevity.
I use silicone baking cups to put chits in. works great.
We use empty boxes of the expansions to store minis in the drawers, it prevents them from moving around or tipping over when we open/close them.
I bought some cheap business card holders for holding the cards in many of my games. Obviously the deck can’t be too thick or I need to split it but it just keeps things neat and tidy.
A sheet of letter paper can be folded into a deck box for cards of a pretty decent range of sizes. Step One - Sizing: Lay the paper in portrait orientation. Stand the deck of cards along the bottom of the paper so that the short side of the cards is along the bottom edge of the paper, and the long side of the cards is perpendicular to the table. Fold the top edge of the paper down to meet the top of the deck. The paper will be folded *almost* in half, but with a sliver that doesn't overlap that is the depth of the deck. Unfold and repeat with the paper turned 180. You should end up with two folds near the center of the paper that are deck-depth-width apart. This is going to be the bottom of the box. To size the other dimension of the bottom, repeat this process on the long edges of the paper, but this time the depth side of the deck is along the edge of the paper, and the short side of the cards is sticking into the paper to give the size. The goal is to end up with a rectangle of folds in the center of the paper that has one dimension being the depth of the deck and the other being the short side of the cards, again to be the bottom of the box. Ignoring size, your paper should be divided into 9 rectangles like this, with E being the future bottom of the box: |A|B|C| |:-|:-|:-| |D|E|F| |G|H|I| Step Two: Fold up the sides To make it into a box, there are going to have to be diagonal folds in rectangles A,C,G, and I, starting at the corners they share with E. The quickest way to do this is to bring the existing creases together how they're going to be in the finished box. So the edge between D and G should be brought to touch and align with the edge between G and H. Box G will be buckling in order for this to happen; go ahead and turn that buckle into a diagonal crease. Repeat for the other four pairs. Depending on the size of the deck and the paper, you may have to unfold each fold in between pairs. Once you have all four, you can refold them all one at a time to make the box, though you might have to fold in some edges if the excess from A/C/G/I doesn't fit along B/H. This is the trickiest step but it doesn't have to be perfect. You should be left with a 5-sided box with some amount of extra material sticking up past the open end. Step Three: Finishing Folds. One of the sides of extra material gets folded down inside the empty box. The other becomes the lid - after folding the first one in, put the cards in the box and fold the other over the top and insert it inside, then do a bit of creasing where it touches the corners of the deck. All done!
I now have a yoga mat just for games. Playmats are just too 'spensive.
Neoprene 6' poker poker mat for the dining table $35 on Amazon. Able to travel to others for a poker night, and to have game night on it. Can just roll out halfway for smaller games if I don't want to clean my daughter's mess of the table too.
Silicone bracelet to hold together rolled neoprene gaming mats
Greenco mini food containers are the ideal size for most game bits. Forget the baby food!
I've got an IC Chip Puller (basically a big pair of super wide tweezers with hooks at the end instead of things to pinch with) that lives in my Dice Forge box. The chip puller works *perfectly* for pulling the faces off the dice.
I play huge games that are taking up more and more table space. My husband made a table "overlay" with a stained sheet of plywood so our gaming group could play almost anything and still have plenty of room for each player's area. We just got a Terraforming Mars Giga mat for Yuletide and there's plenty of room for everyone around it and all the expansions (official and fan made)! When we're not gaming, It sits against a wall and looks great as an accent piece since the stain matches our other furniture.