Wooden Squares

[davecooper]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a supplier of 25mm wooden squares (tiles), preferably with rounded corners. I have found a couple of UK suppliers on the net but they seem quite expensive for what they are. I have found someone in the US that does them for about $7 per 100 which is pretty good. However, you have to add postage to that. I need hundreds of these so obviously want to keep the cost down. Any help wopuld be appreciated.

[Fretnot]

I get a little annoyed with threads like this. 100 wooden squares for $7 from America, whats that, about £5, and the guy wants postage on top of that as well. You seem to think that the postage makes them to expensive. Tell me, how would you feel making 100 wooden squares for $7. I make 100 wooden hearts for 30p each but the customer supplies the material and picks them up unfinished. i just cut them for that.

You can buy laser cut shapes very cheaply and thats fine if you are going to paint them as laser cut shapes or most of them have burnt edges. I make shapes of all sorts and sizes but i would not lower myself to slave labour standards. The people that want wooden shapes want to pay hardly anything for them and yet the things you make using these you sell at a good price. If you want cheap shapes then look to China like a lot of jewellery makers do.

I make my living working with wood and I attend craft fairs. We are all going through a lean period at the moment and have to save money where we can. My prices are very reasonable and I have plenty of customers who come back time and time again.

[glenwood]

The cheapest way of doing this is to buy a length of 25x25 wood, a saw and cut them at any thickness you need.

[davecooper]

You may have misunderstood me or I didn’t word the question well. I do not want to source any items from abroad. In fact I would rather pay more for a UK produced item.

I am hoping to produce a limited run of a game with a view to placing some examples in local shops and taking some to craft fairs to gauge interest before deciding whether to progress the project further. I have had frustrating experiences with some companies who I approached with a view to getting some wooden components made. They were either not interested, or the costs would have been more than the suggested retail price of the game. I don’t mind breaking even for the initial run, but not make a loss. They were basically not interested in helping a start up.

That was some time ago. I am now looking at the game again to see how I can reduce the initial manufacturing costs. Yes, I could get things from abroad, of dubious quality, made by slave labour etc. However, I want to source in the UK from reputable and helpful companies. If I can’t, I will ditch the project.

I have been asked why, if I can produce prototypes, I can’t produce the finished items. Two reasons, the first, I could not achieve the level of quality required producing them at home and secondly, I could not produce them in any quantity if required. This is why I need to outsource, initially anyway.

For interest, the game I am hoping to produce is called Kertil and can be seen on my website at koolkatz.biz. I am not trying to incur anyones wrath on here, I just need some help for a new venture.

[Spencer101]

Hi! Sorry I can't help with the wooden squares, but would just like to say those games look very tempting! I'm a sucker for board games and always looking for something different. I shall be keeping an eye out on your website for something I just can't resist

[rubytuesday]

i use MrMDF - he has always been helpful to me and is reasonabley priced. Don't think i can put the web address up? as i haven't posted 25 times yet as i'm still a newbie ) (mr mdf then co. uk)

hope that helps x

[Pretty things]

I get 1" wooden squares from Jasmin Studio Crafts - http://www.jasminstudiocrafts.com The squares don't have rounded corners though. Very fast delivery too.

[davecooper]

Thanks for the help all. I am currently making some examples of this game to show to some prospective local manufacturers. I am using 1" square ceramic mosaic tiles for these which work well and look good. However, any production version would have to use wood or plastic as the weight of the tiles would make shipping expensive.