23 April 2016

Movement Trays

I am looking to create a bunch of movement trays soon to help encourage me to finally get this solo gaming experiment off the ground. I hate making movement trays. It's tedious. But it's less tedious than dealing with units of individual figures every time you move them, game after game.

My recent switch to multi-bases is a good solution that would help me avoid needing trays... except I still have all of these old single based figures I also want to use. So new movement trays it is.

I don't recall if I published this diagram here before. This is my old method of basing, trays, and transport/storage boxes. All magnetized to avoid damage, and also make it easy to pull out full units of figures at the time of gaming. I used to hate spending a half hour arranging figures into units before a game.


The steel I use is galvanized steel from the hardware store. It's usually with the HVAC duct parts. It can be cut with a pair of snips or robust scissors. I use it in the bottom my my carrying boxes, and used to use it on old movement trays.

But then I discovered "ferrous rubber" or "magnetic receptive rubber."  Easier to work with and store. It's available from various sources. I think I first bought some from the Gale Force Nine booth at a convention long ago. But I've discovered I can get that as well as magnetic sheet direct from a local supplier for far less.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#magnetic-receptive-flexible-sheets/=123nd19
http://www.mcmaster.com/#flexible-magnets/=123ncm2

My movement trays are cut from either matte-board or chipboard from the art store, or polystyrene sheet, and if I add a"lip" or outer edge, that's either basswood or polystyrene.




4 comments:

  1. If making your own movement trays gets tedious, check out the metal movement trays from Shogun Miniatures.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the tip, I will think about those. They look nice & simple, pretty affordable, and I can still stick magnet sheet on the bottom for transport. One concern I have is that I wonder if the edges & corners of the steel are sharp. One reason I started using the ferrous rubber is because I cut myself on the galvanized steel a few times.

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  2. I find that the flexible sheets are much less attractive to magnets than sheet steel, bit it's only really been an issue with heavy (metal) models on 20mm bases. For your 40x40mm basing scheme I think you'll be fine.

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  3. I find that the flexible sheets are much less attractive to magnets than sheet steel, bit it's only really been an issue with heavy (metal) models on 20mm bases. For your 40x40mm basing scheme I think you'll be fine.

    ReplyDelete