Special Unit Customization G40

@The-Captain
I used 3mm thumb nuts drilled out to fit 3mm acrylic rods. I used a number of 3d printed jigs for cutting the rods, assembly of the stands and gluing the magnets. If I remember later I’ll attached some pictures of the jigs/stands

@Lompestein Awesome work! Big thanks for including the .xcf’s and brushes as well, that should help others get a leg-up on their own projects.

Lompestein, thanks for the complements, pretty much everybody else was underwhelmed. I mounted a 5 ft version on press board I cut into a circle and mounted on a lazy susan so you could spin it. Played twice on it but the guys I played with were interested in the regular maps.

I made this after injuring my leg at work and was immobile for a while. It took a long time, about a couple of months of daily tinkering. I enjoyed it, kept me busy.

What I had to do was cut the map into about 16 to 20 horizontal strips. I didn’t keep the original files they died with an old computer I used. I used the polar function in gimp under distorts to spin the map into a circle.

I would then individually stretch vertically the strips to account for distortions at the outer and inner extremes. Spin unspin adjust, spin unspin adjust.

All the graphics had to be erased before doing this.

Repair all the borders. I also had to tweak individual land masses and continents by cutting them out and pasting them on new clear layers stretch and pull trial and error.

I believe the xcf file still has the graphics on a transparent layer over the map.

Feel free to do whatever you want to it and send me a pic of your results.

My motivation was the Gleason New Standard Map of 1892
https://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-Map-Gleasons-Rowbotham/dp/B01GQUW6PO?th=1

There was also a similar map used in WW 2 for people to track the progress of the war at home.

There is a golf Tee system used by one of the players here in Toronto. Met him at YG’s Tourney this year. Pretty cheap. Two tees of the same colour. One goes in country of origin, and the other goes into the battle territory. Just need to paint a few sets of Tees different colours, or use ones that are already coloured. Worked out nicely. If they are small enough, they aren’t very intrusive at all.

Thank you for both the response and all of the info. Any recommended material to print on? Vinyl seems pretty common so far but I’m not sure if there is better.

If you go to a local printer, make sure they do everything in house… if they outsource it and problems arise, it will be a headache getting your money back from that middle man because they can’t absorb the cost the way they would if it was their own print.

Regarding prices, here are some quotes that I got from two different Southern California print shops  (I had posted this also on the thread entitled Ambilzi & Grasshopper’s 1940 Global Map)

The first print shop provided the following estimates (note the $52 set up fee):

SET UP:  $52.05 ( digital color file set up, latex printer set up)

48" x 105" vinyl $142.63  print digital color 4/0 on white smooth vinyl (15oz)

48" x 105" canvas  $300.13  print digital color 4/0 on canvas

48" x 105" versa fabric  $273.88  print digital color 4/0 on versa fabric

53" x 116" vinyl  $174.63 print digital color 4/0 on white smooth vinyl (15oz)

53" x 116" canvas $368.13  print digital color 4/0 on canvas

53" x 116" versa fabric $335.88 please note: print cannot be any larger, printing on a 54" rolld

A second set of quotes from a different Southern California printing company for printing on vinyl (the type of material used for advertising banners):

48"x105" ,  white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $230.80

53"x116",    white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $258.78

56"x122.5",  white 64" Roland EcoSol Banner, solvent 6 color Roland 4sf  $277.42

(I might check on the AliBaba website to see what I can find for printing services in China.  Also, I’m checking on the possibility of printing on upholstery vinyl and marine vinyl).

I’ve updated the approximates sizes/scales for some basic and alternate units.  Keep in mind that many classes of ship and aircraft, though in the same class, varied in size so my sizes will be off on some units.  If your like me I want to be able to visually distinguish between units quickly so keeping classes similar in size I find works the best. Below is my guide/attempt to standardize my pieces where they are relatively the same size for their respective class.  I’ve added some alternative classes that I use in my games and ties in some of the alternate pieces that HBG is putting out.  If you need something scaled and not sure how to do it let me know and I’ll do my best to help.

Carrier 6.5 cm 1/3700
Light/Escort Carrier 5cm 1/3100
Battleship 6 cm 1/4000
Cruiser 5.5 cm 1/3700
Light Cruiser 5 cm 1/3400
Destroyer 4.8 cm 1/2400

(cm is for the wingspan)
Heavy Bomber 4.7 cm 1/700
Medium Bomber 3.5 cm 1/600
Light Bomber 1.7 cm 1/600
Heavy Fighter (Twin engine) 2.8 cm 1/600
Fighter 2.2 cm 1/500
Light Fighter 1.7 cm 1/600
Dive/Torpedo Bomber 3 cm 1/500