Beta Project - Card Sorting Tray

So, I’ve always wanted one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/BCW-Card-Sorting-Tray/dp/B00ILJ7FUK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1492182515&sr=8-4&keywords=card+sorting+tray

I didn’t want to spend $17 just to make sorting cards easier… But I have a laser!

It’s 1/8" clear acrylic. I glued the base pieces together, but the sloped trays are loose so I can change them around. I still need to make 2 more sets to fill out the “alphabet”. Came together in about an hour to 1.5 hours total from inception to glue setting, designed completely from scratch in AutoCAD, then put into Inkscape for conversion to SVG and addition of symbols and text.

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That is lovely! I think the clear acrylic really puts the card artwork on display.

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Your sorting tray is SO much better than the store-bought variety! So much more flexible and customizable.

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Totally cool! :smiley: (Much nicer than the Amazon job.)

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Great idea! Gonna have to do something like this for my son & all his Pokémon cards.

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So elegant! So useful!

I believe I will end up spending the most on acrylic.

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I finally got the rest of my sorting trays done, and now I have a complete sorting system!

Last night I played in the pre-release for the latest Magic the Gathering set, Amonkhet! If I’m building a deck (as I did last night), then I would sort by casting cost!

As a result of playing the tournament, I won some packs! Those combined with the packs I got in the pre-release pack means I have a lot to sort. To start, I sort by color!

Then, I would take each color and sort alphabetically!

I’m pretty happy with how it came out!

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Very clean and professional appearance. Simple can be very appealing. :thumbsup:

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It looks great, and I love the clever sorting strategy built into it!

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Came out so well! I’m so happy for you (and envious!) that you were able to do this! Best part is, it’s 100% yours! No off-the shelf for you! You’ve a frickin’ laser! :slight_smile:

I’ll definitely be following your lead when I get my 'forge. A couple weeks ago we bought Risk: 2210 A.D.. (Yet another Risk variant.) We got to play it last night. Definitely a fun game. It comes with a ton of cards you can play throughout the came yet absolutely 0 way to store them well. Not to mention the army pieces. The box the game comes in has no dividers at all, for anything. As we sat there with Zip-Lock bags and rubber bands we discussed a build idea similar to yours. My wife even decided that, while we’re at it, instead of separating armies by color, let’s go one step further and separate by unit type as well. And my son added that for our card holder we should use it not just for storage, but for game play and we’ll include discard slots for each card type. I see many sleepless nights in my future to allow me the time to 'forge everything!

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HOW did you refrain from telling them that their woes are only a few short months from being relieved when you get your LASER?

Props to you and your wife for being able to keep this a secret from them for soooooo long!

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So I don’t know. I just couldn’t do it anymore! So I brought them into the living room last week and played the promo video and said “We’re getting one of these.” The kids were impressed and started asking questions and thinking up things to do with it. Some of the things people here in the forums had done and I was able to show them some similar results.

I have some regret for telling them though. My son said yesterday “Daddy, I kinda wish you didn’t tell us until we were much closer to getting it. Because now all I want to do is make things with it and I can’t.” But, it’s out there now. And now they’ll start planning some cool things.

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Get him to start prototyping with cardboard and a box cutter. He can work out some rudimentary understanding of the transition from 2D to 3D, and appreciate the automated cutting far more.

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We’ve already talked about exactly those things! He’s also getting the idea of slices and how material thickness will affect things. The kid’s a real genius.

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