Bakelite tile manufacturing.

I think www.bluepantherllc.com can do acrylic tiles.

A few years back we tried to get our hands on mahjong tiles - blank ones - with a similar idea. The minimums wer3 50000 plus pieces.

You may want to contact the manufacturer of Hive to find out where they got theirs done.

If you can get the pieces, we can try engraving a shape on them for you.

SJ
Blue Panther

We've had similar problems getting anything remotely resembling this kind of plastic. I don't think we had any minimums as high as 50,000 pieces, but they were high enough that most small press titles wouldn't be able to hit it.

55 Porter St
Providence, RI , 02905-4520
Phone: 401-461-7200
FAX: 401-785-3750
eMail: crisgame@aol.com

http://www.toydirectory.com/CrisloidPlastics/
http://www.macraesbluebook.com/search/company.cfm?company=434791
http://www.thomasnet.com/heading.html?cov=NA&which=prod&what=dominoes&he...

"Manufacturer of dominoes, chess, checkers, cribbage, mah jongg & bingo games for adults."

I can testify that Steve / Blue Panther not only does exceptional laser engraving, he does so at VERY reasonable prices. Check the gorgeous dice he did for my EXPRESS LINE here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39975

I was able to procure the blank dice, have them shipped directly to him, and after he was finished with them... well - check for yourself!

I'll also vouch for his integrity on the customer service side. There were some miscuts in the final batch. I emailed him the list and had the replacements toot-sweet, no problemo!

When you find somebody that takes care of business, don't be afraid to give them a shout out. That's something I look for here on this website.

Good luck on your project!

Have any of you considered using Delrin?

It will take a bit of hunting, and I'm not sure it'll work the way you want as I really like the idea of custom "clacky" domino/mah-jong pieces. Some Delrin rod comes in a hexagonal shape. Different colors are available, but they can cost a bit more. It also comes in "Natural", which is white. <--You might be able to use RIT dye on these to get the color you want.

These guys sell the hexagonal rods. Looks like they want a 10 foot minimum order. http://www.hexrod.com/Delrin.html

I don't really know how you'd cut it, but it's supposed to be pretty easy to work with. I think the easiest thing to do would be to get an electric chop saw, (or Miter Saw) and set the thickness with some type of stop. Seems like a metal blade, or hacksaw blade would work well. Now just feed the rod 'til it hits the stop and viola! You've got your first piece! Now just keep feeding it and cutting 'til you get the number you want.

OH! You know what else might work? Could you use poker chips? There are tons of manufacturers of custom poker chips online. They're not hexes, but they might be just the ticket for that nice, clacky feeling.

Wow! Thank you!

Can you cut this, Steve?

:)

Hey! I'm glad I was able to offer a potential solution to your problem! I read a bit more about that company. Looks like they're pretty knowledgable folks. I also checked and they're willing to cut the rod for shipping. They're also willing to provide smaller sizes, so perhaps you won't be committed to a 10 foot length of the stuff.

Interesting information about certain plastics working well for laser engraving and certain plastics not working so well. It never occurred to me, but it makes sense. They're different materials. I would imagine some plastics would just melt and not hold the shapes properly?

I really hope this works out. Would you please keep me in the loop on this one? Perhaps a post in the prototyping section if you're happy with the results? Even if this doesn't work, I'd like to learn from it, so posting anything you find would be great!

I enjoy the journey.

:(

Well. I'm keep thinking...

GAH!

Dang! I was hoping that would work. I'll keep looking around.

In the meantime, I wondered if hexagonal ceramic tile might work? Our City Hall was restored a couple years ago and they remodeled the restrooms with neat little 1" hexagonal tiles. I found a cool website that gives you a bunch of colors to choose from:

http://www.hextile.com/MelangeSeries.shtml

Poke around here a bit. Looks like you can get about 85 tiles for $11.95. They're pre-meshed, which I think means they're on a 12" x 12" square to remove the tedium of placing individual tiles. So....you'll have to cut the tiles off the mesh material. Each sheet weighs 1.80 pounds (lbs). Might make the game heavy and I don't know if I like the way the tiles will sound when they click together. Might be okay...might not. Perhaps there's some type of treatment that could be done to them...a spray, or perhaps dipping them into a rubbery solution of some kind might do the trick to make 'em seem less like ceramic tile and more like game pieces? I don't know what it's called, but they've got this stuff you can put on tool handles that insulates them and makes them more comfortable to use. You just dip the handles of...oh let's say pliers...into this stuff and when it dries, you have a rubberized set of pliers. Would dipping the tiles into that stuff work?

I forgot to respond to this one. I LOVE this Dental Stone idea! BUT...do you know how to make the molds? I spent a long time on the website with the links you provided. Really interesting stuff there. WizWar is one of my favorite games and creating a board like that would be awesome.

So...if I wanted to make my own custom pieces, how would I create the molds? I suppose I could just Google "mold making", but I'd rather get a recommendation from someone here instead of searching around (read....I'm being lazy) :)

Thanks for your post!

As a slight aside....you can buy magnetic ink jet paper. I was thinking I'd print out my board on this stuff, line it up on chipboard and then sink a nut or washer into the molds so that my little space ship pieces would'nt fly all over the place while playing the game. While the dental stone is still wet, do you think I could hide a washer or some other piece of metal so the pieces will adhere to the board, but not so tightly they can't be moved? I think if the washer (or nuts) are completely covered, they won't be as likely to rust, will they?

Concerning your idea of using magnetic boards. I've done a magnetic board game before. It used magnetic tiles on a non-magnetic board. If you want to use cast items, I would suggest placing a small, strong magnet inside the actual cast item, and then building the board out of a ferrous, non-magnetic material. I prefer a thing called Rubber Steel (http://www.magnetking.com/#rubbersteel) which is very similar to magnetic sheets, except without the magnetic properties. So magnets will stick to your board but nothing else will. As a plus, this stuff can accept any kind of vinyl printing or just plain old label paper.

GAH!
Well THAT's embarrassing! Here I've told you I spent a lot of time on the website and right there in front of my face is how to make the molds ON THE SAME WEBSITE! <--smacks palm of hand into forehead.

Thanks! I'll check it out!

Are you hardwired into plastic? Have you asked anybody about wood? You might be surprised.