Mounting mapboards

[Nat Mallet]

Has anyone ever tried to solidify the paper mapboards that come with a few ASL products? I'm thinking about buying a few maps, but I'm worried about longevity by having paper maps being folded and unfolded.

I was thinking about laminating them, but it might be a tad expensive for 50+ boards.

I was also thinking about gluing them on stiffboard, and coating it with an acrylic laquer or something. The designers on "While You Were Out" (I was watching it with my girlfriend, honest!) did something similar with a map to create a serving tray.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,

Nat

 

[klsmith]

mounting

The old school mounting-paper-on-board method was rubber cement, and that still may be the best for professional looking hand made stuff (there's technique there, though--if you decide to do it ask someone first).

Coating the board/paper with polymer (eg: Elmers) will work, but it's messy and somewhat uncontrollable, and sometimes makes the ink run.

Professional heat mounting would be the best probably. Also expensive. (then there's laminating with professional heat mounting - - top of the line, I imagine).

In the long run, cheapest/safest might be buying a laminator and doing it yourself. They're not that expensive, and you'd have it for other cool lamination projects, and laminated boards are nearly indestructible. Of course then you'd have to tape it down or cover it with plexi to get it to lay completely flat while you're playing. And with 50 boards, it's gonna be a big project, any way you look at it.

good luck with it

Ken

 

[apbills]

I went the professional laminating route. I also went with 10mil plastic - no curling at all. Yes, a tad expensive, but they are great. It cost me just slightly less than the actual board for the lamination, but as long as I don't lose them, they should last several gamers careers.

In addition, the laminating route makes overlays real easy, your can use lots of methods to attach and they come right off with no damage to teh boards.

I also laminated my overlays after ASLOK. These I did myself in Kinko's, with I think 3mil plastic. Now they are mounted on transparent sheets so I can find them all easily and they don't go scattering about when I drop the box. I have them in a Croix de Guerre box for transport.

 

[Anonymous]

I've seen laminating the standard mapboards work quite well. Some of these were even resized to about 1" hexes and then laminated. We still used the original map for LOS and vehicular bypass though. Plexiglass works better for the HASL or oversized maps IMO.