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Blogging the New York Toy Fair

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gameprinter
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Well, it's that time of year again: The New York Toy Fair is once again blighting my life. Er, I mean, lighting up my world. For those of you who've never been, its amazing. All the giant toy and game people are upstairs in these mammoth booths and exhibits with their Bratz dolls and licensed games, while all the cool stuff is downstairs in what I lovingly call "The Games Ghetto". It's where all the cool games and small press stuff is.

This year should be a very interesting year. For one thing, I'll be blogging the show from my iPhone during the day and typing up some full reviews at night. I can't promise any insider info, but we'll see what happens.

Why am I blogging the show? What's the URL for it? I can't tell you yet! There's going to be a Press Release going out Sunday night or Monday morning with a big announcement. Once that goes out, I can tell everyone what I'm up to these days. Suffice to say, the Gamepieces blog has a new home.

More soon!

Ben Clark aka gameprinter

MatthewF
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Joined: 07/22/2008
That's really great news,

That's really great news, Ben! Looking forward to it.

gameprinter
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No PR Announcement - but the new site is up

Ok. Between slow lawyers and bad Internet connections, I can't give everyone the whole story about my new company, but you can now access the web site and my blog.

www.imagigrafx.com/gamepieces

The short version of the story? We print games. Stop by the site. I'm writing the whole web site AND trying to do a whole bunch of other things, so its not 100% yet, but you can say "you were there when..."

InvisibleJon
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Congratulations!

gameprinter wrote:
I can't give everyone the whole story about my new company ... The short version of the story? We print games.
Awesome! Congratulations. 125 years in the printing business? Sounds stable. That's nice.

gameprinter
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RE: Congratulations

InvisibleJon wrote:
gameprinter wrote:
I can't give everyone the whole story about my new company ... The short version of the story? We print games.
Awesome! Congratulations. 125 years in the printing business? Sounds stable. That's nice.

I hope! So far, I'm more excited about some of the new equipment I have at my disposal. In line UV, among other things. DeLano was in business for 99 years, so I'm tempering my excitement at the length of time in business!

In the meantime, I'm just trying to get through another day at the Toy Fair. I'll be really busy when I get back.

bluesea
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Joined: 07/28/2008
Excellent news! Especially

Excellent news! Especially coming from our beaten down but beloved home state. Congrats. Next time I'm on I-94 I'll call and take you out to lunch to celebrate! (might not be for a while...but I'll let you know. :) )

Question 1: Is an in-line printer the same as a flat-bed printer?
Question 2: If so, can it print directly onto thick chipboard?
(I'm sure you see where I'm going with this...)
Question 3: If 1 and 2, could the printed chipboard be die-cut (pre or post printing) and reinforced to form a quadfold board. I've often meant to ask you this question, just never remember to do so. (I'm assuming here that the printer will print directly over the reinforcing material as well.)

Question 4: Do such printers have a router option that would in effect allow you to *carve* into the surface of the chipboard? Is there such a machine and would it be relatively affordable?

MatthewF
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Congrats, Ben, it looks

Congrats, Ben, it looks great!

bluesea wrote:
Question 4: Do such printers have a router option that would in effect allow you to *carve* into the surface of the chipboard? Is there such a machine and would it be relatively affordable?

I know that I've never heard of such a thing in printing. Pretty sure boards like that are always die cut and assembled.

SiddGames
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Joined: 08/02/2008
Grats!

Hope all goes well on the new venture.

gameprinter
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bluesea wrote:Excellent news!

bluesea wrote:
Excellent news! Especially coming from our beaten down but beloved home state. Congrats. Next time I'm on I-94 I'll call and take you out to lunch to celebrate! (might not be for a while...but I'll let you know. :) )

Question 1: Is an in-line printer the same as a flat-bed printer?
Question 2: If so, can it print directly onto thick chipboard?
(I'm sure you see where I'm going with this...)
Question 3: If 1 and 2, could the printed chipboard be die-cut (pre or post printing) and reinforced to form a quadfold board. I've often meant to ask you this question, just never remember to do so. (I'm assuming here that the printer will print directly over the reinforcing material as well.)

Question 4: Do such printers have a router option that would in effect allow you to *carve* into the surface of the chipboard? Is there such a machine and would it be relatively affordable?

Got back home yesterday afternoon. Slept about 13 hours! I'll update my recap of the show tonight. In the meantime, let me try and answer your questions...

1 . "In Line UV" simply means that the UV coat is applied during the press run. Well, just after the press, but part of the same machine. Oftentimes, UV is done seperately, which requires a second set up, making it more expensive than a regular Aqueous coat. So the answer is, no. It is not a flat bed printer. Our max stock is still going to be 24pt, like alot of folks running offset presses.

2. Sadly, this means that no, we can't print directly on thick board.

3. Also, no. I think GMT games uses 24pt board that is scored and folded to make their oversize maps and DeLano has done some small 48pt boards that are scored and folded, but never did a really large one.

4. No routers that I know of. Imagigrafx has some AWESOME, spot UV and embossing samples that I can't wait to show off, but I don't know of anyone with a router like capability. The only thing I can think of that would be close would be Blue Panther laser cutting stuff. They can cut paper with it, but they have to be careful with the laser not to scorch. It's slow, if I recall and it costs more as a result...

Thus, we have some cool new stuff compared to DeLano, but not anything radically outside the box. Evolutionary rather than Revolutionary, as it were!

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