Miniature designation question - answered

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sat May 26, 2007 3:05 am

After receiving several emails (off-list) and PM's (on-list) asking the same question, or at the very least - some variation thereof...

I hope you don't mind me asking, but how did you do (or where did you get) the lettering for ship designation on all the bases for your Star Fleet minis (i.e. D7-1, D7A-1, etc.)?

here is the answer:
The individual ship designations were typed in microsoft Word. I used 8-point Arial, white text with a black background. I did 3 of each label - 1 for the front of the stand, one for the back of the stand, and an extra - in case I messed one up.

I did several dozen ships at a time. The labels were cut out using an Exacto knife. I then mixed a weak mixture of Elmers School glue (as it dries clear) and water - 2/3's water 1/3 glue. Brush this onto the face of the base that will receive the label... apply the label... coat the label with a second coating of thinned down glue... and wait for it to dry. After it's throughly dry, I once again clear-coated the entire minature with a matte sealant to protect the figure during play.

I hope his helps.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Sat May 26, 2007 4:37 am

Well that's a pretty effective (and cheap!) homebrew way to do it. I was assuming you had used a label-maker or somesuch. I'm gonna have to give that a try.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sat May 26, 2007 4:05 pm

djdood wrote:Well that's a pretty effective (and cheap!) homebrew way to do it. I was assuming you had used a label-maker or somesuch. I'm gonna have to give that a try.

Cheap! Yep, that pretty much describes me. Being 17, married, and a parent when I discovered SFB... I pretty much had to find efficient and inexpensive ways to play the game. Now, there's 4 kids (well, actually there's 2 adults, 2 teens, 1 grand-kid, and 2 more on the way), so I still have to find "inexpensive" ways to do things, especially now that I've found Federation Commander to play in addition to SFB.

I tried several different methods of labeling them, from painting designations, to ordering decals, to even printing my own decals (but without a printer capable of printing white ink... that method sucked), to this method.

I have found that you need to use the thinnest paper you can get. I accidentally printed a page of these labels on a sheet of my wifes heavy bond, invitation paper once... those didn't work out too well. They were hard to cut and were rather obvious once applied to the bases.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » Sat May 26, 2007 4:47 pm

That's awesome, both in its ingenuity and its simplicity! You wouldn't happen to still have the .doc file(s), would you?

Barring that, is there a consolidated list somewhere of all the ship classes and variants (D7, D7A, etc.)? I'm not an SFU expert and don't know what's out there. I could use the ship classifications in Klingon and Romulan Borders (the 3 Attack modules are still in the mail), but I'm sure there are more types than that. Though I guess I don't need to do the designations now for the ships I don't have...Nevermind.

That's still a great idea!

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Sat May 26, 2007 5:20 pm

It doesn't necessarily have *every* variant, but the ship name list on the legacy site should have most of them ...and all the names...

http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents ... gistry.pdf

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Sat May 26, 2007 6:27 pm

Shadow wrote:That's awesome, both in its ingenuity and its simplicity! You wouldn't happen to still have the .doc file(s), would you?

That's still a great idea!

Actually, as long as you can handle a Microsoft Word file, I can send you (or anyone else) the file. It's about a half-page of designations based on ship class. I just change them to suit whichever miniatures have been recently painted, print them out, and then do it again a month or so later when the next batch of miniatures is completed.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » Sat May 26, 2007 7:39 pm

I already made up my own. It's a full page (01-04 for each class). I put every designation I have, that's in the mail or that I'm likely to get in the near future. Works like a charm!

Thanks again for the idea!

jmt · Post by **jmt** » Mon May 28, 2007 6:59 pm

Just finished doing my painted miniatures - but I placed only one label under the aft of the ship (port on the large ore carriers). I had to re-do some labels as the overwash futzed the ink from my printer.

All in all, a good way to track which ship goes with which SSD/Ship Card.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Mon May 28, 2007 7:53 pm

I've seen several that have only one label, and some with more than two. Aaron Staley, for example places a label on all 6 faces of his ships - and he uses custom made decals for the labels.

Unfortunately, I don't have the money for custom made decals on 2-faces of the 1000 or so I own, much less all 6 faces (and a few 1000 different miniatures at that!) - I'll stick with my method. Not only does it identify which of my ships is which, it identifies which of the miniatures on the table are mine, as well.