Blank Hexes

You can buy blank hexes in various sizes from this site:
http://www.muecke-hotelberatung.de/shop/

They're in Germany, so expect to struggle a little reading the site (though much of it is in English as well as German) and to find prices listed in Euros.

I recently placed an order with them for a bunch of hexes along with some colored wooden cubes and colored disc-shaped counters. They were very easy to deal with, and they speak English which is good if you have to send some special comments or instructions with your order. My order hasn't arrived yet so I can't tell you anything about the actual quality of their components.

Damn,
They have plastic tokens I've been looking for months. 10mm. Look like smarties but in plastics. In the Colour I needed on top.

Have to find out the shipping price to Canada.

I've just tried using my Xylon machine to put my artwork on one of the blank hexes. It seems to work really well! My artwork is in Photoshop and I was able to make my printed hexes the same size as the blanks. Cut out my paper printed hexes, run them through the Xylon with a sticky-back cartridge, then (carefully) apply them to the blank cardboard, and presto!

I used the "Repositionable Adhesive" cartridge, in the hopes that I could just peel off the artwork and reuse the cardboard if I needed to, but the adhesive seems too strong for that. This tells me I was correct to order extra hexes, in case my game design changes enough to require new artwork.

I wouldn't use this technique for a package I was going to sell, but for a prototype it is way cool.

Did I say "Xylon"? I meant "Cylon"... and if you've been watching Battlestar Galactica you'll know what I mean. ;-)

In the accidentally-deleted post I said that I had received my shipment of blank hexes, colored cubes, and colored discs, and that the quality of the components was high. Unfortunately my order was incomplete, being short one of the colored discs, and entirely missing some sheets of stickers for those discs. In addition, I paid an extra 10 EUR for airmail delivery (Germany to California) but the shipment was not sent airmail and took nearly two weeks to arrive. So... I like the materials, but at the moment I'm not real happy with the service. I've written back asking for the missing parts and a refund on the airmail charges, and I'll see what they say. I'm reluctant to do more business with a company so careless.

I said that the Xyron repositional sticky stuff wouldn't peel off properly. After some more fussing with it, I can say that it can be peeled off; it's just not easy. The paper I printed my artwork on tears and shreds instead of peeling off in a neat piece. But I found that the hex can be cleaned off if you're willing to keep scraping and rubbing to get all the paper and sticky stuff off. Takes a little time, but it's faster and cheaper than ordering new hexes!

And perhaps someone will find a printable material that will peel more easily. I suspect that the sticky stuff is designed for photographs, a paper that is slicker and tougher than what I'm using.