writes:
Back in 1998, I invited your thoughts on how to base low flying anti-grav vehicles, and then cut and polished my own clear acrylic bases.
At the time, I thought that was a reasonable solution to my basing requirements - yes, it was time consuming, but it was the sort of "mindless tedium" that I could do while watching television...
Nine years later, I'm not that patient. I have a few grav APCs I want to add to my imperial force. I know Litko works with acrylic - I wondered if they could do the bases for me?
Using the "custom bases" request form on their website, I asked if they could do clear acrylic bases, one inch by a half inch, with rounded corners. The next afternoon, I had a reply from one of their sales technicians - $25.99 USD for 100 bases (plus shipping). He included a link, so I was able to immediately place my order.
A week later, the bases arrived in the mail:
The bases have a thin paper coating on one side, which should be peeled off.
It looked to me like the grav APCs would be easy to glue to the bases, as they had a flat bottom "grav plate" (?) that would contact the base.
For my own convenience, I decided to use plain white glue (specifically, Aleene's Tacky Glue), as it wouldn't "craze" the bases, dries clear, and cleans up easily.
One difference between the old-style and the new bases is that I was able to polish all of the edges with the old bases, so that there were no "hard" edges. The new bases have rounded corners, but the top edges are still hard. I'm not sure which I like best.
So instead of hours of toil in cutting and polishing, I'm out a few dollars and ten minutes of time. Meanwhile, the sales tech at Litko said that they could also etch a "smoke" pattern into one side of the base if I wanted... I might try that, next time I run out of bases...
For those wondering what models I used for the APCs, I know they're from Irregular's 6mm science-fiction range, but I don't recall the specific code.