Infinite Dungeon Tiles?

[demonsquidgod]

I noticed that home laminating machines have gotten down to the 40 to 60 dollar range. I was wondering if one could combine such a device with cardstock and online art/maps to produce and infinite supply of dungeon tiles?

Would this work? Would it be time/cost effective? Would there be problems with making them different shapes?

I've never actually used a home laminating machines.

 

[Treebore]

I noticed that home laminating machines have gotten down to the 40 to 60 dollar range. I was wondering if one could combine such a device with cardstock and online art/maps to produce and infinite supply of dungeon tiles?

Would this work? Would it be time/cost effective? Would there be problems with making them different shapes?

I've never actually used a home laminating machines.

If you plan on using it to make endless amounts? Heck yes. Personally I just laminate by hand. Its even cheaper.

 

[bagger245]

How do u laminate by hand?

 

[Treebore]

How do u laminate by hand?

With the rolls of glue based laminating stuff in the kitchen section in Wal Mart.

 

[Festivus]

With the rolls of glue based laminating stuff in the kitchen section in Wal Mart.

Do you mean decoupage? If that is the case, mixing plain white wood glue with water has worked for me in the past.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I noticed that home laminating machines have gotten down to the 40 to 60 dollar range. I was wondering if one could combine such a device with cardstock and online art/maps to produce and infinite supply of dungeon tiles?

Would this work? Would it be time/cost effective? Would there be problems with making them different shapes?

I've never actually used a home laminating machines.

I've often used such a machine, but never tried to do floorplans with it. I see two possible problems:

1. For durable results you need to lamitate with overlapping foil, thus your printed floorplans will not have a few millimeters duistance between them. This effect grows when you build your scenery from a lot of building blocks. If, on the other hand, you place your floor plans overlapping be sure that they will be accidentily shoved around a lot.
   
2. Larger laminated pieces of paper produced with one of those little machines for home use tend to bend, which makes the whole arrangement harder to handle.

Personally I mostly use WotC's Dungeon Tiles which offer a big bang for the buck. Improvised larger maps are drawn on a battle map. For special as well as specific cases I prepare my own floorplans, which will be printed out but not laminated.

I can think of two more points to consider:

• Don't underestimate the amount of time it takes to laminate a lot of tiles. I consioder my time as a prescious commodityI'd rather spend on other things. Hence, the bang for the buck comment.
  
• You self-laminated floor plans will still be flat, not as thick as the commercial ones. I personally like handling thick cardstock stuff much better than fiddly laminated paper.

 

[TheNovaLord]

OTOH

i have an A3 laminator and home lamination is very good for making a specific large map*, not so good for making tiles u wont to use over again because as mentioned in no time at all the edges start to come loose.

*in the past i have made 3 or 4 A3 sized laminated maps, tape them together so they stay together and fold away nicely in an A3 case.....to create a map this size would take a ridiculous amount of dungeon tiles and they would move if knocked by someone at the table, and would take a long time to layout in play..

the laminator is also good for making rpg-specific, or even adventure specific GM screens