U-Line Polyester Adhesive Mailing Labels instead of paper

[gloriousbattle]

This stuff appears to be tough, and is supposed to be able to withstand the exterior elements.  It is meant to make labels for chemical drums and similar that will be outdoors year round.  Much more expensive than printing on paper adhesive mailing labels, though still relatively cheap compared to 3d.


Anybody tried this stuff?

[gloriousbattle]

Well, just printed out a new army on this stuff, and thought I'd give an update.

I am printing out a "D&D" army, drawn from Patrick Crusiau's FREE ON THE WEB Nottingham figs, one of his Swiss (the arquebusier) and a few from his fantasy line (since he puts these up for free, I hope I am not breaking any rules by posting here, if so, please just remove them and let me know. I will just avoid putting up any figures in the future).

Anyway, I made 27 sheets of these (for "battalions" of 24, +3 for errors) which makes a total of 324 pieces if I don't screw anything up. More realistically, maybe about 300. Still, enough to field two armies of about 6 "battalions" each per side. I will do fantasy figures next, but this makes for a good, basic starter set.

POSITIVES

So far, it seems to be well worth the price. I always used to give my pieces the "scratch test" which meant taking one unfortunate soldier and subjecting him to light-to-medium-hard scratches with my fingernail to see how long he would last before the picture started to degrade. Usually this would happen at about 25-30 scratches. With these guys, it took about 80 before there was any noticeable loss of color.

Also, as polyester is effectively a plastic, rather than paper, they are pretty close to invulnerable to water, and this stuff is supposed to be used for toxic chemical drum labels, but I draw the line at subjecting my toys to hydrochloric acid. Still, I will coat them with clear contact paper just to be sure.

Also, the sheets are pretty physically tough. I tore up two sheets of the polyester labels, and it was pretty darn difficult to do. They folded well and with a halfway decent light table (I made one out of a piece of glass, a milk crate, and a 250 watt halogen lamp) they were still easy to see through to line up the red boxes.

The also cut well with a pair of decent sewing scissors. 

NEGATIVES

Only one so far. Running a sharpie-marker along the edge is very difficult, for some reason, probably because the plastic is not absorbent, while the paper edge would be.  Still, this is a pretty minor quibble, considering all of the positives.  I may try to edge them with black enamel paint, and see how that works out.

JUDGMENT SO FAR

Thus far, I am very impressed.

[cowboyleland]

I often have debates with friends who suggest that paper isn't durable enough. I point out that most of us have books on our shelves that belonged to our parents and we are now middle aged. Without actual abuse, paper lasts a long time. In the case of accidents: a brand new one can be printed for a few cents.

Anyway, if it is worth it to you, carry on.

[cowboycentaur]

I've used name badge labels for item cards to had out during d&d games, I think these would work well if you have plenty of the materials available. Printing them on cardstock and spraying with a bit of clearcoat might work just as well though, those labels can get pricy

[gloriousbattle]

Sept 17, 2018 4:54:53 GMT -9 cowboyleland said:

I often have debates with friends who suggest that paper isn't durable enough. I point out that most of us have books on our shelves that belonged to our parents and we are now middle aged. Without actual abuse, paper lasts a long time. In the case of accidents: a brand new one can be printed for a few cents.

Anyway, if it is worth it to you, carry on.

Paper is, in its way. tough stuff.  There are paper documents that have been around since the middle ages, at least, though I'm not sure I'd try to break them out and play games with them.

Anyway, paper can last, but it has two big, and symbolically opposite enemies: fire and water.

Fire is comparatively easy to deal with.  In most homes, as long as you are careful with the stove, the furnace and the occasional cigarette lighter, you will probably be okay.

Water is far more insidious.  Unless you live in the deep desert, it is pretty much everywhere, and the more humid the climate, the more your figures are attacked.  I lived for several years in Georgia (very hot, very humid) and my paper rulebooks suffered from the climate.

There are ways to protect against this, of course.  Most people spray their figures with some type of sealer, and clear contact paper greatly improves things.

But there is no denying that plastic is, at least potentially much more resistant.  With the labels I am using now, you could potentially game with your goldfish in their aquarium, though I leave you to determine whether that is particularly helpful.

Anyway, and as you say, "if it is worth it to you, carry on", and if not no big deal, but it is a fairly common reason I have heard among those who do not use paper flats for why they avoid it.

[gloriousbattle]

Sept 17, 2018 7:38:08 GMT -9 cowboycentaur said:

I've used name badge labels for item cards to had out during d&d games, I think these would work well if you have plenty of the materials available. Printing them on cardstock and spraying with a bit of clearcoat might work just as well though, those labels can get pricy

They are fairly pricey.  I can do decent quality 8.5 x 11 paper labels for about 25 cents apiece, while the 8.5 x 11 plastic labels cost about 90 cents apiece.  However, at about 12-20 figures to the page, and even after factoring in a 50 cent printing cost per sheet, that still only comes down to something like 7 cents a figure at the maximum,  which is darn cheap compared to around a dollar apiece for even a very cheap, unpainted solid figure.

In the end, its all a question of where you want to spend your money.  I'm just pointing out what I think is a good option.

[gloriousbattle]

Another update.

One thing I find as I make these, is that they seem to fold much more exactly than paper, which I think is also important.

Let me explain that one a bit. When I got started in paper minis, many moons ago, everything was pretty much done "red box style", which meant that the figures were meant to print out on a single sheet of 8.5x11 paper, with the right and left (or front and back) sides printing in two red boxes. The sheet would be folded down the middle, and the two red boxes lined up so that they would stick together, and you would then print out a squad or so (between maybe 6-20 figures, depending on their size) as a group, and cut them out all at once.

For whatever reason, I always found paper to be a bit "stretchy", and, the farther away from the center fold they got, the less likely the figures were to match up exactly, making cutting them out more difficult, and, in extreme cases, unworkable.

For some strange reason, I find this to be less of a problem with the plastic/polyester sheets. Seems strange, as you would think plastic would be more stretchy than paper, rather than less, by why argue with success?

One minor problem seems to be that air bubble between the sheets are a little MORE likely, but, since the sheets are plastic, and not water-soluble, I don't find that this effects anything. A quick needle through the offending air bubble is unnoticeable, as it seals instantly, and takes care of the problem.

[oldschooldm]

The "puncture" suggestion for adhesive is a clever tip!

[cowboyleland]

Sept 29, 2018 7:26:29 GMT -9 gloriousbattle said:

For whatever reason, I always found paper to be a bit "stretchy", and, the farther away from the center fold they got, the less likely the figures were to match up exactly, making cutting them out more difficult, and, in extreme cases, unworkable.

I think this can actually be from variance in printing. It is one reason folding a line of figures at a time (instead of folding a sheet in half) has become the standard. Over a smaller distance, there is less room for variation between the front and back.

[gloriousbattle]

Sept 29, 2018 12:35:55 GMT -9 cowboyleland said:

Sept 29, 2018 7:26:29 GMT -9 gloriousbattle said:

For whatever reason, I always found paper to be a bit "stretchy", and, the farther away from the center fold they got, the less likely the figures were to match up exactly, making cutting them out more difficult, and, in extreme cases, unworkable.

I think this can actually be from variance in printing. It is one reason folding a line of figures at a time (instead of folding a sheet in half) has become the standard. Over a smaller distance, there is less room for variation between the front and back.

I guess I can see how that could happen.  If the figures took a lot of ink in a certain area, the moisture might be enough to change the size of the paper in that area, probably making it slightly larger.  If this area were close to another area that required less ink (maybe printing a black dragon and a white dragon next to each other, perhaps) I can see how that might cause a slight 'ripple' in the paper.  Maybe just enough to distort the area in the fold.

[Vermin King]

It's probably more a question of length from fold (assuming the fold was spot on, which it probably wasn't). A 1% difference on an inch would hardly be noticeable. A 1% difference on a mile is huge. In the middle is the 5.75 inch range, but a small error in the fold will still create more problems on a sheet folded in half than just on a row of figures. That's why no one designs minis that way any more. Too much chance of end-user error. And designers can't control what happens by the consumer. So, they just design so that errors are less likely to occur. Better to keep the customer happy