Metal Magic Cards
Gear forum
Posted on March 31, 2016, 8:41 p.m. by enpc
Specifically for commander.
It's not uncommon to see people have alternate / full art commanders. But I have been toying with the idea of a full metal commander card.
The idea would be to take the chosen card design (which would be high constrast - black/white) and have the result etched into a piece of metal (in this case 304 stainless steel) which would then be cut to size.
Has anybody attempted something like this?
Gidgetimer says... #3
Sounds pretty cool, and with commanders no longer going to the library/hand it makes it more feasible.
March 31, 2016 9:36 p.m.
Do it and post the results and I really want to see just how badass this is.
March 31, 2016 10:53 p.m.
RegisteredDecksOffender says... #9
Do it and I will buy it at a high price.
April 1, 2016 12:12 a.m.
So I found some 0.8mm x 200mm x 300mm plate on eBay for <$10. So that should be the easy part. I think the best thing to do will to get the metal laser (or water) cut prior to actaully doing the acid bath.
Now comes hunting down a laser cutting machine I can use (not keen to buy one though...) as I think it will get the best finish.
April 1, 2016 12:44 a.m.
Am interested in buying after seeing some of the finished work.
April 1, 2016 9 p.m.
PistonGolem says... #14
And I thought foil was the coolest type of General. I want to see how awesome this looks...
April 3, 2016 9:30 p.m.
Minor update - I have been looking into different etching techniques and have decided to steer clear of using acid for now. Something about chemical burns.
Instead I have been looking into electro-etching (example here). I have seen some people use a cotton tip (q-tip) dipped in brine instead of immersing the material to be etched, giving you a bit more control over the etching surface.
The really cool thing is that you can use AC power to blacken the surface of the metal as well, getting some really cool effects.
Hopefully this week I can get the linework of the card done (or at least started). I have decided to use my own art as it is going to need to be very stylised to work correctly. Luckily, my sister is an animator and has offered to give me some help with the whole thing (including using photoshop / illustrator which I have no idea about). She also has a bucket load of really good art books, including te art of HellBoy which I think will provide me with some good references in monochromatic design.
Think along these lines:
Hopefully more updates to come in the next few days when my test steel arrives.
April 7, 2016 7:50 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #18
Can lasers be turned down so they don't cut all the way through?
April 7, 2016 8:27 p.m.
shinobigarth: They absolutely can - it's called laser etching. You set the speed and intensity of the laser so that it will cut into the material but not through.
For this project however, I am keeping this one up my sleeve only as a last resort. The reason being that I don't own my own laser cutting bed, meaning that I have to send out for each design to be cut. I'm really trying to avoid this as it means not only is there a lead time on all cards being made but it also becomes much more expensive.
I am happy to get hte card outlines sut however as the laser cutter will yield a better result than an angle grinder or hacksaw and they are all a standard size so I can get multiples cut at once.
April 7, 2016 9:46 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #20
But whatever method you're using is a CNC machine? Just cause doing it by hand would take forever and wouldn't yield as good a result as what a computer controller machine does.
April 7, 2016 10:03 p.m.
shinobigarth: I will provide the metal cutting place with a vector graphic (CAD file) of what I want them to cut. The actual etching process will use a computer generated transfer which will blank out certain sections so that they won't be etched. From there, the time taken will be proprtional to the depth of etch required.
In response to your question though, no, I won't be using a CNC machine. While this is an option, it follows the same path as using a laser cutting table. I don't personally own either of these and I am trying to be directly involved in as much of the process as possible.
Employing these methods, quality wise the result should still be good. I need to run some tests to find out minimum line thinckness that I can get from the transfers (which will mainly affect text on the card / fine detail on the image). However even with laser etching or CNC machining, you will still have a minimum cutting size which relates to the laser / tooling bit.
April 7, 2016 11:39 p.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #22
Back in high school I did some etching to get out of sketch works in art, if you use a less caustic acid you can avoid any real burns. Worst I ever got was some whiting to my nails.
I don't know if you've looked into how to do the negatives but this guide has a very budget friendly way of doing it.
http://steampunkworkshop.com/etching-tins-salt-water-and-electricity-compliment-steampunk-bible-article/
Also copper relief would look amazing too.
April 20, 2016 11:13 p.m.
Postmortal_Pop: Cheers for the link - this is basically the idea that I'm looking into using to do the whole thing. I've decided that electrolytic etching seems like the easiest way do do everything and all of the circuitry is much more straight forward than dealing with chemicals.
I thought about using copper for the cards and if the stainless steel turns out ot be too hard to work with then it could very easily be a fallback. I like the silvery look more than the copper finish but for some designs I think the copper would be cooler.
April 21, 2016 2:34 a.m.
Postmortal_Pop says... #24
Actually I was thinking a copper plating so the black section of the image as an alternative to just etching on a few designs. Copper plating is super easy and it stands out beautifully on polished steel.
April 21, 2016 1:49 p.m.
Would it also be considerable for you to do it in a way where instead of etching it you cut out the "black" or "white" parts and then it would look something like this or this
May 8, 2016 12:23 p.m.
I'd do Stitcher Geralf so then my commander can be a Full-metal Alchemist.
May 17, 2016 11:23 p.m.
Lokotor: unfortunately those have been printed onto clear acrylic. Because you have the potential for concentric shapes that need support, you can cut the whole way through the metal. But yeah, the final result will have the same kind of vibe as those pics.
Sorry everyone that I haven't posted in a while on this. Unfortunately the project is running way more behind than I would like it too due to work/life schedule. I have some prelimiary designs that are kind of done, however actaully putting them together and being happy with them is the next step. I have some time off work in the next few weeks though, so I'll see if I can at least get to the point of having full balck/white images of what I want the card to look like. But no promises T_T
May 19, 2016 2:01 a.m.
I've toyed with this idea a fair bit. I'm going to be buying a CNC machine in the next year or so, so definitely will experiment at that time. If I like the results, I'll contact Wizards about a license.
May 23, 2016 6:52 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #31
There was a guy that made plastic, and wood tokens, and mentioned doing commanders. I will have to try to find that thread.
greyninja says... #2
Sounds fucking awesome
March 31, 2016 8:51 p.m.