flattening bent foils
General forum
Posted on Jan. 15, 2015, 8:58 p.m. by scholar
Not sure if this is the right place, but yes I am wondering the best method or your method for flattening out foils that have bent/warped due to it being a foil and whatever physics phenomenon makes this occur.
Now the obvious thing is to stick them in/under a stack of big books overnight. I am just wondering if anyone has had any success with this method or perhaps another method I am overlooking? I've honestly never really done this before, but just got some pretty bent ones and wouldn't mind also flattening out some of the cards in my Legacy deck for random deck checks in REL competitive gameplay.
Would appreciate any advice! Thanks!
@slovakattack, they're not busted. Some of my foils in my Legacy decks are slightly bent, but enough for me to want to flatten them to avoid any REL problems in random deck checks.
I had just received four Fireblast from the PDS: Fire & Lightning in the mail and they are pretty bent. Probably 2-3x worse than my slightly bent foils in my Legacy deck, but still not enough to warranted being "busted".
What's your method exactly? How many books and for how long? Thanks!
January 15, 2015 9:02 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #4
Just put them in a perfect fit sleeve and leave them under 2-3 hard back books for a day or two. That's always fixed any warping I've had
January 15, 2015 9:07 p.m.
julianjmoss says... #5
Yeah if you put them in the perfect fit and then a ultrapro or kmc (dragon shield sleeves are kind of bent so dont use them) and then put them under books the warping is fixed.
January 15, 2015 9:10 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
TP is for organizing trades with other users. Moved to General.
January 15, 2015 9:16 p.m.
slovakattack says... #7
I dropped a few fairly heavy textbooks on the card while it was in a sleeve, and left it for a day. It seemed to help, although the card was not perfectly flat (once bent, nothing you can do will make the card completely unbend.)
January 15, 2015 9:17 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #8
Long term, I put all my curled foils face to face with each other and jam them into a full box of cards somewhere in the middle, then forget about them for a while. This is more of a long term solution though.
Ideally, you want to keep your foils in a dry storage space, because water getting into the paper backing is what causes them to curl (The paper expands, but because the card is 2 sided - a paper side and a metal foil side, the foil curls to make up for the difference in expansion).
If you want a short term solution, if for example you are heading to a tournament, I usually just bend the foils back a bit to help straighten them out, and jam some extra tokens in my deck box to help with the flattening. I wouldn't advise this for anything expensive of course, but for what you got it should work fine. If you aren't comfortable bending your cards, just use the book method described above.
January 15, 2015 10:43 p.m.
Thanks, ThatJunkMage. I take care of my cards, especially my foils, but there there is nothing I can do when I receive a foil that is curled from eBay and such.
January 15, 2015 11:02 p.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #10
As the dude who just commented in post #7 (sorry dude I couldn't quite feel up to typing your name) stated, the 'bent' look comes from humidity. I've placed my foils that have done this under a stack of heavy books and they've flattened without issue.
January 15, 2015 11:03 p.m.
MurderFaces says... #11
I keep Silica gel packets in my deck boxes for decks containing a high amount of foils. They absorb moisture which causes foils to bend. As for flattening them I suggest double sleeving and keeping the deck in a tight deck box, that keeps mine straight.
January 15, 2015 11:27 p.m.
Hjaltrohir says... #12
I tend to bend the bak a tiny bit then leave them in a full box of cards so the gradually bend. It has worked in the past but I am not sure I would do it to expensive foils.
January 16, 2015 2:01 a.m.
JUst double sleeve. KMC perfect fit with draon shields or something else work fine. They go back to shape fine. My from the vaults: annihilation were all super bendy. I double sleeved them and now they're fine.
slovakattack says... #2
It really depends on just how bent the foils are. I've had look with the 'stack of books' method, but then I wasn't doing it to a truly busted foil.
January 15, 2015 8:59 p.m.