chubakka
New Member, Must Send First
Here are some insights on homemade acryllic glass displays, maybe this thread will be useful for some collectors.
The main idea is to prepare a "sandwich" made of acrylic glass. Nowadays a lot of cheap PMMA glass brands are available and many of them offer a high light transmission levels and excellent physical properties.
Initially I've found an example of such display for thick card on one Russian forum (LS) and liked it so much that decided to make my own one. At the beginning I wanted to buy a piece of PMMA glasses and then make all necessary holes for cards in it manually using milling cutter. But then it appeared that many local PMMA dealers have a laser cutter and the cutting service is quite cheap these days. I've made a decision to order already cut pieces of glass. I've looked at my 3-ring binder, made all measurements and prepared the blueprint:
The usage of laser cutter provides us two main advantages. The first one - the edges, they are kept totally transparent, the milling cutter makes hazy white edges. The second advantage - one can make complicated cuts, for instance I made holes similar to the holes of magnetic one-touch holders with a special room around card corners. Dimensions of holes for the binding mechanism depend on the final display thickness, nobody wants a display stuck anywhere on the D-ring of binding mechanism. I've made 6mm-wide holes (1mm wider than ones of usual ultra-pro pages) and it is enough for 7mm-thick display. The middle layer should has at least the same thickness as the cards you put inside, for Leaf Invictus cards it is 4mm. The design is limited only by your own fantasy and a common sense. I believe one can easily make holes for huge oversized cards or make the traditional 9-card arrangement. Outer glasses can be thinner, 1mm should be already enough, I used 1.5mm-think glasses. Anyway, thick outer layers should also look great due to a high light transmission properties of glass, when I look at my cards I don't feel that anything exists between the cards and my eyes.
The main problem for me was to understand which connectors I should use to combine all three glass layers into one display. I didn't want them to be too large or to bulgy. I've made 5mm-diameter holes inside all pieces of glasses using the same laser cutter. I advise to cut a little bit bigger holes in outer glasses (let's say 5.1mm, it assures easier mounting). But then I realised that there are no suitable connectors on the market at all, there are few thicker options but almost nothing for 5mm or smaller holes. Then I bought 5mm furniture fasteners with M4 bolts with flatheads and tweaked them a bit:
- drilled a 3.3mm-hole all the way through the female-fastener;
- cut M4 thread in them (the original thread is too short in fasteners);
- cut female-fastener to 5mm-length;
- cut male-fastener to ~7mm-length.
I had to make 40 connectors for 4 displays, it definitely took me some time. Looking back I see that 10 connectors per page is probably too many.
This is what I found on the market
and the customized version:
Now about the price, I spent $10 for each display, main expenses are the glass sheets. If you have free access to the laser cutter, the price is going to be 20-35% lower, depending on the total cutting length.
I hope this information will be useful for someone, do not hesitate to ask questions, I'll try to answer you.
Good luck!
The main idea is to prepare a "sandwich" made of acrylic glass. Nowadays a lot of cheap PMMA glass brands are available and many of them offer a high light transmission levels and excellent physical properties.
Initially I've found an example of such display for thick card on one Russian forum (LS) and liked it so much that decided to make my own one. At the beginning I wanted to buy a piece of PMMA glasses and then make all necessary holes for cards in it manually using milling cutter. But then it appeared that many local PMMA dealers have a laser cutter and the cutting service is quite cheap these days. I've made a decision to order already cut pieces of glass. I've looked at my 3-ring binder, made all measurements and prepared the blueprint:
The usage of laser cutter provides us two main advantages. The first one - the edges, they are kept totally transparent, the milling cutter makes hazy white edges. The second advantage - one can make complicated cuts, for instance I made holes similar to the holes of magnetic one-touch holders with a special room around card corners. Dimensions of holes for the binding mechanism depend on the final display thickness, nobody wants a display stuck anywhere on the D-ring of binding mechanism. I've made 6mm-wide holes (1mm wider than ones of usual ultra-pro pages) and it is enough for 7mm-thick display. The middle layer should has at least the same thickness as the cards you put inside, for Leaf Invictus cards it is 4mm. The design is limited only by your own fantasy and a common sense. I believe one can easily make holes for huge oversized cards or make the traditional 9-card arrangement. Outer glasses can be thinner, 1mm should be already enough, I used 1.5mm-think glasses. Anyway, thick outer layers should also look great due to a high light transmission properties of glass, when I look at my cards I don't feel that anything exists between the cards and my eyes.
The main problem for me was to understand which connectors I should use to combine all three glass layers into one display. I didn't want them to be too large or to bulgy. I've made 5mm-diameter holes inside all pieces of glasses using the same laser cutter. I advise to cut a little bit bigger holes in outer glasses (let's say 5.1mm, it assures easier mounting). But then I realised that there are no suitable connectors on the market at all, there are few thicker options but almost nothing for 5mm or smaller holes. Then I bought 5mm furniture fasteners with M4 bolts with flatheads and tweaked them a bit:
- drilled a 3.3mm-hole all the way through the female-fastener;
- cut M4 thread in them (the original thread is too short in fasteners);
- cut female-fastener to 5mm-length;
- cut male-fastener to ~7mm-length.
I had to make 40 connectors for 4 displays, it definitely took me some time. Looking back I see that 10 connectors per page is probably too many.
This is what I found on the market
and the customized version:
Now about the price, I spent $10 for each display, main expenses are the glass sheets. If you have free access to the laser cutter, the price is going to be 20-35% lower, depending on the total cutting length.
I hope this information will be useful for someone, do not hesitate to ask questions, I'll try to answer you.
Good luck!
