[GZG] Re: Bases

[John K Lerchey <lerchey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I too have beem making my own.  The Ninja Magic ones look like they'll be 
really nice, but they are a touch pricey. And they're not available, which 
is the worse case.

I've been using the following (rough outline) method.

I buy 11mm magnetic barrel clasps at jewelry stores. On sale, I get them 
for about a dime a piece, in packs of 8.  I then make a "post" out of 
aluminum tubing. The tubing is the same diameter as the barrel part of the 
clasp.  I cut a sleeve of aluminum tubing that fits over the "post" so 
that there is somehting to hold the magnetic barrel onto.  If you just had 
my post with it sleeve on it, it looks like a cannon with a muzzle break. 
These three pieces are superglued together so that the magnetic barrel and 
the sleeve are flush.  The sleeve (obviously) overlaps the barrel and the 
post to hold the barrel onto the post. :)

The post part of the clasp (the part that goes into the barrel) has a 
circular tab on the end.  I cut this off with a pair of nippers.  I then 
use a really smoothly operating electric drill at really slow speed to 
drill a wider hole in the bottom of my space ships  It's actually more of 
a crater than a hole.  This is where i glue on the magnetic post.

My base post gets glued onto... well, a base.  I'm using the old GeoHex 
bases for now, at least for my current fleet-in-production, or until I run 
out.  I drill a hole to fit the post into, and glue it into place.

> From this point, I paint the ship and paint the base.  Now I have a 
magnetic base for my ships.

Two caveats that I've run into.

1) Polarity.  Seems that not all of the clasps have the same polarity.  I 
sometimes notice that the base will actively repulse a ship. Irritating, 
but once I have enough bases and have them all decaled and labelled, it 
won't be a problem for me.

2) Spinnage.  SOME of the base are a touch loose, magentically speaking. 
Bump them and the ship will spin a bit.  This has not been a huge problem 
yet, but it could bother some folks.  The ninja magic clasps have those 
nice teeth on them which will prevent this.  Drool. :)

Hope this helps!

J

John K. Lerchey
Assistant Director for Incident Response
Information Security Office
Carnegie Mellon University

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, David Stokes wrote:

> James Moore wrote:
>
> > Ok, a little off topic, but bases were mentioned in the last reply, and I 
> > was wondering if anyone had seen the magnetic bases from Ninja Magic? I saw 
> > them at GenCon and have been waiting with baited breath for them to come 
> > out.
>
> As I understand it, Todd is having production problems with the bases. The 
> ones he got from his current manufacturer had lots of faults and have been 
> slow getting replacements, so he has tempoarily pulled them from sale. It's 
> not known when they will be available again. Pity, they do look nice.
>
> I've been making my own with GZG plastic bases, rare eath magnets and epoxy. 
> They work ok, but they have been a bit fiddly to make, so I would gladly buy 
> some professionally made ones.
>
> Link to info on the base situation is here:
> http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1534
>
> David Stokes
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