In House production for the upcoming convention season.

[MatrixGamer]

6-22-06

I folded over and pasted the tops and bottoms of the 5 back covers I previously missed and then pasted on end papers. Then I clamped them to dry.

Next I pasted together the front and back covers of the 45 other games. I had time to paste over the spine paper and put in a backing of paper on 10 of those covers. They are ready for final assembly.

I'll finish up the rest of the spines tonight and work on assembly tomorrow (Saturday). That will mean I can do shrink wrapping on Sunday.

Inshaallah all will go well.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[MatrixGamer]

6-23-06

I pasted together  the front and back covers of the 5 Dead Duke games. Folded over the edges of the spine and added backing paper to the spines. Then I trimmed and folded 10 of the laminated maps for the games.

I used two layers of lamination on these maps. This leads to a lot of correction work. I have to use a travel iron to tack things down. I have a test map from last year that used only one layer of lamination film that does not have this problem. I'll try that next time round. Less material, fewer problems - all good.

6-24-06 Saturday

I started the day off pasting the rule booklets into the appropriate game covers. I am now in final assembly. Next I trimmed and folded the other 40 maps. In the afternoon I glued the maps into the covers using liquid nails. I clipped the maps into the cover using four office clips. Liquid nails does not take too long to dry but does take some time. It is an interesting material. Once you open the container the air starts a chemical reaction that leads to the entire tube drying. You use it all at one setting because even if closed it will set up.

The games are ready for shrink wrapping so I cleaned off the machine. While doing so I came across some failed prototypes of the folio game. I can sell them in clearance as seconds. This led me to look over the other clearance items: hardbacks from last year, laminated paperbacks from 2004 and non-laminated paperbacks from 2003. More than enough to provide something for the gamer without much money to spend.

6-25-06

I removed the clamps from the games and did some touch up work. In production things always get dinted and nicked. When I learned to do picture framing I was shown the cheats that hide the dings. In this case it means taking a black felt tipped marker and filling in the scuff marks on the spines.

This lead to the last step - shrink wrapping. I wrapped and shrunk the 50 hardback folio games, the 40 beginners games and the clearance folios. If you've never used a shrink wrapper they consist of a roll of film that forms a pocket. Roll it out, stick your item into the pocket and then place a heating arm behind it. My machine is 30 years old (my Dad bought in new in the 70's) so it has a separate heating arm but I've seen newer ones where the arm is like the arm of a paper cutter. Press the button and the arm heats up, melting the pastic. Pulling on the item separates it from the roll. Then use the arm a second time to seal the pocket. The shrinker is effectively a hair drier. Before you use it though you prick a hole in the wrapping to let the hot air out. The blower shrinks the plastic wrap tight.

With that the work I set out to do three weeks ago is done.

LIGHTNING STRIKES!

One of the cool things about owning the means of production is that sometimes the energy hits you and you can pull together amazing things in no time flat. At 5PM I was done with production. The only game I didn't get done was Mongolian Goat Rodeo. I told a fellow at Marcon (a Columbus Ohio science fiction con) that I would have the game for Origins. I knew I couldn't do a hardback folio but it occurred to me that I could do a lamination only folio and try out using only one layer of film. I had everything written and most of it laid out but that had to be scrapped because I could make the maps an inch larger. Anyway I decided to try making the game.

First I made a slightly larger map template (complete with lines because this game uses squares.) I dropped the maps in the template and figured out how the folio had to be laid out to fold correctly. By 7PM I started the printing. I printed 10 copies of the game. Then I did trimming and moved on to assembling. While I taped up the folios I had the laminator heating up. Some time around 9PM I was done with the assembly and the laminator was warmed up. I did the laminating and then trimmed down the folios and folded them up. I'm including stickers of counters which were stuffed in the fold of the folio. That done, I moved onto the shrink wrapping. By 10PM I was done!

This adds $145 more in product and means I'm taking 100 new games to this year's conventions a total of 13 new titles. The products fit in three boxes which are now packed waiting transport to Origins - two days from now.

SO IT'S ALL DONE, RIGHT?

Done? Hummmm...? Not for me. I an the Hamster's bitch after all. No, next up is to get the puppets and toys priced and packed (largely my wife's job) and for me to get the show booth displays together. I don't have much time for this so I think Origins will be pretty spartan. I can do that tomorrow. Tonight I think I will return to the project I was on before June. I need to do a hardback proof of a science fiction novel for Scott Palter - Final Sword Productions. I may not get it done for Origins but Scott will be happy to know I'm back on his project.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[MatrixGamer]

When I get back from Origins I'll look into putting up pictures of the machines used in this little adventure.

Thanks for reading. I will post one more entry on this thread telling where to see the pictures. I invite questions about anything but if there are none then this thread is nearly over.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[MatrixGamer]

A link to a picture of a laminator

http://www.officezone.com/ez27lam.htm

A link to a business selling binder board

http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific.cfm?ClientID=15&ProductID=23279

A link to a picture of my small paper cutter

http://www.machine-solution.com/product-cutters11-273.html?source=froogleAd#

A link to a picture of a machine similar to my large paper cutter (the top one)

http://www.binderytools.com/productsdisp.asp?dep=3

BTW I've bought a couple of big machines from these guys - they are solid.

This picture at the bottem of this link is a newer version of a Smyth sewing machine. Mine is older. I didn't use it in this job but I will be using next week on the job I'm doing now (Astaria - a science fiction novel by Terri Pray).

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sntfworld.com/images/threadbooksewingmachine.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.sntfworld.com/sntf_prod_bindingequipments.htm&h=263&w=324&sz=36&hl=en&start=31&tbnid=Ctzb09a8nUaZ9M:&tbnh=92&tbnw=114&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnational%2Bsewing%2Bmachine%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

The other tools I used were brushes, wood boards, office binder clips and c clamps. You can imagine what they look like. I will end with a link to a good source of Yes Paste.

http://www.misterart.com/store/view/003/group_id/8785/Yes-Paste.htm

With that this thread is closed.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games