Good day to you all.
So does have enybody expirience with lasercutterrain in smal scales?

Saw a lot of intressting terrain for the bigger scales and instantly felt i should try it myself. You don't need a 3D tool and its fairly cheap. SUre it will not look as good as 3D printing but for building big city this could be a good solution.

Or maybe even a titan who knows.
THe website i will use is ponoko. Mainly because they have a germen partner at producing lasercut stuff.

I am sure i am not the first. Show it to me!

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Bioframe - my first wargame:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=31704

I think you might be...

Litko have been doing laser cut bases,

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My shifting projects

Gamecraft miniatures do a good range of 6mm laser cut buildings so it is possible to make useful models at this scale.

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Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

Yes. The club I've been going to, the Blind Pig in Brisbane has people who have their own set-up and make laser cut terrain and they have a load of prototype epic laser cut wooden terrain. It's seems a little out of scale (I'm not sure if accidentally, due to constraints of the process) but looks great and I think they either are commercially selling laser cut terrain or are thinking about it. I have a photo of it during a game I played recently (note OOP models pictured please do not ask) see here for a photo. I'm not sure quite who makes it or what the deal is (I'm new at the club) but there's a Blind Pig section on the Wargamer au forum, try posting there asking.

I like those, any close up pics?

_________________
Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

I uploaded the full 5MP image from my phone so you can zoom in and see better.

That's the only photo I have though sorry and it's not come out very well, but I was pressed for time that day as I was meant to be playing a 3k and 4k game. I'll try and remember to take more photos next time.

Thank you for the pictures. I will use formulor.de for my first tests, as i hope they will be cheaper in postage. But from what i see they are very expansive. But i could not really find any german competition in my quick google search. :/
Anyway, first things i want to build will be simple. An industrial bridge and a landing plattform maybe some custom bases as tests.
After that i will try to find a cheaper service and try somthing more complex.

I upload every design into this forum. Use it if you like.

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Bioframe - my first wargame:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=31704

A first update on my experiments.
Formulor is expansive! It has a really nice store and a cool online tool. Lots of materials to use. I use custom bases as test for pricing.

The bases are made of two parts. a simple 25mm round base and a 25mm base engraved and with holes cut out. Both are 1mm thick. At least that is the plan.

The testfile :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107 ... K5DW_0.svg
These are 8 bases made of 16 parts.
I saw that most companys like sarissa use .dwg files for their lasercutters. So this file will maybe only work with ponoko.com and formulor.de.

So here ist my problem with these custom bases.
Plywood, 1mm - 10,31 € (£ 8,82)
Cardboard, 1mm - 6,58 € (£ 5,63)
Finnpappe(could not find the englich word) 1,5mm - 6,72 € (£ 5,75)
Kraftplex, 0,8mm - 11,28 € (£ 9,65)
Acryl,transparent, 1mm - 12,69 (£ 10,86)

There are dozens of shops in the UK where you can buy 20 mdf bases for ONE quid. Of course these are not customised. But this feels expansive non the less.

The bridge cost around 7,60 € (£ 6,50)at the moment and is far from finished. Ah, before i forget. Postage is 7,90 €(£ 6,76). Wich is about the same as shipping from the UK.

So maybe ask FenrisGames or GameCraft for custom stuff?

€ to £ converted by yahoo at 2013/06/30 - rounded by me

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Bioframe - my first wargame:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=31704

bases are always going to be cheaper.
Does the economy of scale kick in if you order say 100 bridges at a time?

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My shifting projects

Not necessarily, In my understanding of lasercut there are only three things that matter.

- Material cost
- Laser operation time - I think its called laser minute or something. Cutting is more expansive than engraving. Some materials need more time to cut etc.
- Handling through the employee - starting the file, putting the material into the cutter etc.

So if i made a Brdige with the same laser operating time and the same material the price should also be same.


The shop is mostly automated and so far i can't see any effect of making lager orders. Only the Postage stays the same. Wich is their "Flatrate" offer for shipping.

So at the moment the unfinished bridge is cheaper than the bases i made. I think when finished it will double the cost.
I tested some simple base design. 49x 25mm round bases on a 181x181mm mdf board.

You can see simple bases would cost me 17,60 €. That is a BIG difference to 2-3 GBP that i would have to pay on warbases or some other place.

So here is my question... How do they do these dirt cheap prices?

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Bioframe - my first wargame:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=31704