Printable Magnet Sheets? (PROJECT COMPLETE!!!)

[campsawyer]

Shad,

If you succeed, you must put a picture on of your first on-going battle with somebody or something upright next to it. This will prove you're not just using the old Batman and Robin TV series trick of inverting pictures etc to make them look as if they are on a sheer wall :-)

Yes but he would have to add the BANG and KER-POW bubble captions for the fighting.

[Shad]

I have found an appropriate online supply store here in China... the name translates to "Magnet King". This project is too interesting to pass up. At the least I will make a magnetic Airborne set as a prototype...

Interesting... the fellow sells A4 x 0.33mm magnetic printer paper for ~$0.75 a sheet. That's a good choice for maps because these soft magnets have very low grip "reach" so the thinner your map the better your counters will hold...

[Shad]

No bullshit from this fish! I just placed an order for 8 sheets of the "magnetic paper" -- A4, 0.3mm thick -- for $8.

           
(not my photos)

I plan to use 4 sheets to print one geomorphic map.

A4 dimensions are 297 x 210mm.
Geomorphic maps are 430 x 280mm.
A quad arrangement of A4 (= A2) would then be 594 x 420.

If you printed right to the edges you could increase the dimensions of one map to 594 x 388mm, or roughly 40% larger if my late afternoon arithmetic is correct.

If I leave a comfortable 10mm border margin on each page that's still a nice 30% enlargement over the standard size.

[Dean_P]

No bullshit from this fish! I just placed an order for 8 sheets of the "magnetic paper" -- A4, 0.3mm thick -- for $8.


(not my photos)

I plan to use 4 sheets to print one geomorphic map.

A4 dimensions are 297 x 210mm.
Geomorphic maps are 430 x 280mm.
A quad arrangement of A4 (= A2) would then be 594 x 420.

If you printed right to the edges you could increase the dimensions of one map to 594 x 388mm, or roughly 40% larger if my late afternoon arithmetic is correct.

If I leave a comfortable 10mm border margin on each page that's still a nice 30% enlargement over the standard size.

mm... Really??? have you been out of the country so long that you don't even talk in inches anymore?

[Shad]

mm... Really??? have you been out of the country so long that you don't even talk in inches anymore?

Hey man, I was a science major back in the day. I've been metric-ing for decades!

I'll tell you what gives me headaches - the metric equivalent of horsepower. My company sells products that include medium size engines with HP ratings... but we sell all over the world so we need to maintain both Imperial and Metric specifications for all of our toys.

Converting back and forth in length and weight is easy, but horsepower... ugh.

Allow me to quote the venerable Wikipedia:

Metric horsepower (PS, cv, hk, pk, ks, ch)

The various units used to indicate this definition (PS, cv, hk, pk, ks and ch) all translate to horse power in English, so it is common to see these values referred to as horsepower or hp in the press releases or media coverage of the German, French, Italian, and Japanese automobile companies. British manufacturers often intermix metric horsepower and mechanical horsepower depending on the origin of the engine in question. Sometimes the metric horsepower rating of an engine is conservative enough so that the same figure can be used for both 80/1269/EEC with metric hp and SAE J1349 with imperial hp.

DIN 66036 defines one metric horsepower as the power to raise a mass of 75 kilograms against the earth's gravitational force over a distance of one metre in one second; this is equivalent to 735.49875 W or 98.6% of an imperial mechanical horsepower.

In 1992, the PS was rendered obsolete by EEC directives, when it was replaced by the kilowatt as the official power measuring unit.[citation needed] It is still in use for commercial and advertising purposes, in addition to the kW rating, as many customers are still not familiar with the use of kilowatts for engines.

Other names for the metric horsepower are the Dutch paardenkracht (pk), the French chevaux (ch), the Swedish hästkraft (hk), the Finnish hevosvoima (hv), the Norwegian and Danish hestekraft (hk), the Hungarian lóerő (LE), the Czech koňská síla and Slovak konská sila (k or ks), the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian konjska snaga (KS),the Bulgarian "Конска сила", the Macedonian Којнска сила (KC), the Polish koń mechaniczny and Slovenian konjska moč (KM) and the Romanian cal-putere (CP) which all equal the German Pferdestärke (PS).

Yeah, that's a nightmare!

Don't get me wrong, "one horsepower" is an objectively idiotic unit of measure in the year 2012, but by virtue of age it has meaning. All the other equivalencies I have to deal with are maddening.

Oh, and then there's how American cookbooks allot ingredients by volume (inconsistent) but other countries measure ingredients by weight... yeah, there are benefits to living overseas!

[Dean_P]

mm... Really??? have you been out of the country so long that you don't even talk in inches anymore?

Hey man, I was a science major back in the day. I've been metric-ing for decades!

I'll tell you what gives me headaches - the metric equivalent of horsepower. My company sells products that include medium size engines with HP ratings... but we sell all over the world so we need to maintain both Imperial and Metric specifications for all of our toys.

Converting back and forth in length and weight is easy, but horsepower... ugh.

Allow me to quote the venerable Wikipedia:

Metric horsepower (PS, cv, hk, pk, ks, ch)

The various units used to indicate this definition (PS, cv, hk, pk, ks and ch) all translate to horse power in English, so it is common to see these values referred to as horsepower or hp in the press releases or media coverage of the German, French, Italian, and Japanese automobile companies. British manufacturers often intermix metric horsepower and mechanical horsepower depending on the origin of the engine in question. Sometimes the metric horsepower rating of an engine is conservative enough so that the same figure can be used for both 80/1269/EEC with metric hp and SAE J1349 with imperial hp.

DIN 66036 defines one metric horsepower as the power to raise a mass of 75 kilograms against the earth's gravitational force over a distance of one metre in one second; this is equivalent to 735.49875 W or 98.6% of an imperial mechanical horsepower.

In 1992, the PS was rendered obsolete by EEC directives, when it was replaced by the kilowatt as the official power measuring unit.[citation needed] It is still in use for commercial and advertising purposes, in addition to the kW rating, as many customers are still not familiar with the use of kilowatts for engines.

Other names for the metric horsepower are the Dutch paardenkracht (pk), the French chevaux (ch), the Swedish hästkraft (hk), the Finnish hevosvoima (hv), the Norwegian and Danish hestekraft (hk), the Hungarian lóerő (LE), the Czech koňská síla and Slovak konská sila (k or ks), the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian konjska snaga (KS),the Bulgarian "Конска сила", the Macedonian Којнска сила (KC), the Polish koń mechaniczny and Slovenian konjska moč (KM) and the Romanian cal-putere (CP) which all equal the German Pferdestärke (PS).

Yeah, that's a nightmare!

Don't get me wrong, "one horsepower" is an objectively idiotic unit of measure in the year 2012, but by virtue of age it has meaning. All the other equivalencies I have to deal with are maddening.

Oh, and then there's how American cookbooks allot ingredients by volume (inconsistent) but other countries measure ingredients by weight... yeah, there are benefits to living overseas!

I hear ya... BTW, i work for a certain US space agency that has real trouble converting units... and when we make a mistake, it costs hundreds of millions... if not billions of dollars

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco990930.html

By the way, how well can those magnetic sheets stack and then separate? I'd imagine a stack of magnetic counters could get difficult to separate

[Shad]

By the way, how well can those magnetic sheets stack and then separate? I'd imagine a stack of magnetic counters could get difficult to separate

I have no idea, to be honest. I should have the map sheets by the end of the week. First step is to see how well they can be printed on, and their own magnetic properties.

If that all goes well I will focus on counter solutions. Right now I'm thinking 1mm thick rubberized magnetic sheeting with single-sided counters. I have no idea if those will actually stack or not.

We're experimenting!

[Shad]

My magnetic paper came today. This stuff is cool!

It's slightly thicker than a photo print, and slightly thinner than that poster paper you can buy at the office supply store which is glossy on one side and matte on the other. Not sure what that's called but we used it all the time in school back in the States.

It's definitely very weakly magnetic but affixes stably to a filing cabinet or white board.

Tonight I will scan the Airborne map at super hi-res and tomorrow morning I will either:

• (a) print out a kick-ass magnetic map across 4 sheets of this stuff
  
• (b) destroy a behemoth $400 HP combo scan-fax-laserjet printer
  

Either way, tomorrow morning promises to be interesting!

   

[Dean_P]

My magnetic paper came today. This stuff is cool!

It's slightly thicker than a photo print, and slightly thinner than that poster paper you can buy at the office supply store which is glossy on one side and matte on the other. Not sure what that's called but we used it all the time in school back in the States.

It's definitely very weakly magnetic but affixes stably to a filing cabinet or white board.

Tonight I will scan the Airborne map at super hi-res and tomorrow morning I will either:

• (a) print out a kick-ass magnetic map across 4 sheets of this stuff
  
• (b) destroy a behemoth $400 HP combo scan-fax-laserjet printer
  

Either way, tomorrow morning promises to be interesting!

Is this yet another Poll? If so, I pick A...

[Shad]

Awesome!

Workflow:

1. scanned my Airborne map at 300dpi this morning
   
2. lightened it a bit in Photoshop (I don't care for the gothic midnight palette)
   
3. sliced it into 4 pieces
   
4. arranged it across four A4 sheets using Illustrator at 130% size
   
5. saved to PDF
   
6. printed one sheet at a time in the laserjet printer
   
7. cut-away borders with scissors
   
8. slapped up onto the backside of my office whiteboard
   
9. felt like a super cool dude!
   

The printing was a bit touch-and-go at first. I removed all the paper from the tray and placed one magnetic paper sheet inside, then reloaded the tray. When I sent the single page print job the HP first sat there for a good 3 minutes (no exaggeration) trying to decide if it had paper or not before finally believing me and then sliding the magnetic paper through without complaint.

In reality this stuff prints very easily, but the printer does need a little coaxing to "feel" it. You can't lay multiple sheets in because they do adhere to each other. It has to be one by one.

They adhere nicely to sheet metal - both the whiteboard backside and my filing cabinets. They also adhere to each other so you could conceivably print out a terrain modification piece like turning a field to forest or adding a beach+ocean and slap that neatly into place atop your original map.

The map slices are curling a tiny bit at the edges after having been run through the printer, but I'm optimistic some time spent between heavy books will cure that. This only appears to be present when they are not attached to something metallic, such as right now as they rest on my desk.

Sometime today I will order materials to make counters. I could always just use more sheets of this 0.3mm magnetic paper to make single-sided counters, but I'm afraid the thinness will make them too hard to lift, which will result in pinching, which will damage the counters long term.

I'm going to order some 0.5mm and 1mm thick magnetic sheets with adhesive and print countersheets on regular paper to lay atop and then slice. We'll see how that goes.

All in all, though, so far so good. Step 1 - magnetic maps - was a resounding success! I'm pretty pumped!

The following photos depict:

• original sheets post-printing and waiting to be cut
  
• fully assembled on the back of my whiteboard
  
• close-up of the layout showing that these are, indeed, magnetic