Custom Set Advice/Set Ideas (1 Viewer)

[Marhault]

It seems that you might have misunderstood. What I meant was, if you look at all the original TRK scrown chips, they’ve never had a recessed inlay area. The CPC version is no different.

All the other CPC chips are the same as they’ve always been. Some have a recessed inlay area, some don’t

Ah ok yeah I misunderstood lol.

So with the scrown the inlay will be pressed in to keep it from being raised above the rest of the chip?

 

[RichMahogany]

Ah ok yeah I misunderstood lol.

So with the scrown the inlay will be pressed in to keep it from being raised above the rest of the chip?

No problem.

Yes, pressed flush into the chip face. Have you gotten a color sample set yet? There were some sets made on the scrown that have inlays with the color of each chip printed on the inlay. Good way to see for yourself and check out colors IRL at the same time.

 

[Marhault]

No problem.

Yes, pressed flush into the chip face. Have you gotten a color sample set yet? There were some sets made on the scrown that have inlays with the color of each chip printed on the inlay. Good way to see for yourself and check out colors IRL at the same time.

Yes but my color samples have hot stamps on them

 

[LinkyBabe]

So with the scrown the inlay will be pressed in to keep it from being raised above the rest of the chip?

As mentioned before by @allforcharity, inlays are heat pressed into ALL moulds. Inlays are quite thick (like a cut card) and need more of a recess than what you're seeing on your blanks. You noticed the biggest recess on the FDL blank but that isn't nearly enough for an actual inlay. The pics below show a murdered FDL chip as I had to do inlay replacement on my T500's:

With the original inlay popped out:

 

[allforcharity]

Wow, that inlay is actually very thick.

 

[LinkyBabe]

Wow, that inlay is actually very thick.

I popped out over 360 inlays... I'll never need to buy guitar picks again

 

[Justin Olson]

@Marhault
i would highly recommend getting shuffle stacks, sample sets of the CPC molds that you think you enjoy the most. Get 10 to 20 chips of each mold that you are leaning towards. Each set has a different feel, sound and look. If you are not lucky enough to have a mold that is a no-brainer for your theme, you have to rely on all the other factors.


also keep some of these in mind when looking at molds Great sets 19, Great sets 17,

 

[LinkyBabe]

The colors...they seem really muted. Do I need to oil these to get a real idea of the colors?

They are still muted even after oiling, especially if you're comparing them to Paulsons.

Also the weighted colors, how visible are the brass flakes in finished chips.

They are the same. If that's a concern then I wouldn't use lighter unweighted colours for your base colours as they'll be more noticeable over time.

I want to be happy with what I get so I'm glad I've got them in hand to see if they grow on me but if I'm being honest I'm not sold on them at the moment.

Four years ago I was exactly where you are now. My heart sank when I received my CPC colour sample set and that was before the dayglo colours had improved. The brass flakes and dull colours pretty much killed any excitement I had about getting a custom CPC set. The problem was I'd been spoiled by Paulson colours. To be fair, the darker colours and unweighted chips compare more favourably to Paulsons than the weighted lighter coloured chips do (although CPC still needs better yellows).

Then I remembered two of my favourite chip lines that use muted colors as well... BCC Protege and Samurai Palace. That's when I realized they don't need to be as vibrant as Paulsons to look good. Once I got over that hurdle I was able to go back to the Chip Design Tool and keep plugging away until I came up with a set I was happy with two and half years ago. To my surprise, that's also when I discovered the dayglo colours had been improved and so I designed a second set later that year. Fast forward to now as I'm wanting to add on to one of the sets and I just received a Scrown inlaid colour sample. I wish this mould had been available when I ordered my first set.

So my advice to you is be patient... let everything sink in for a bit as a set that pops is possible with CPC's. Here's a great example recently ordered by @bsdunbar1:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/clubd-cpc-set-pron.46231/

 

[Marhault]

They are still muted even after oiling, especially if you're comparing them to Paulsons.

They are the same. If that's a concern then I wouldn't use lighter unweighted colours for your base colours as they'll be more noticeable over time.

Four years ago I was exactly where you are now. My heart sank when I received my CPC colour sample set and that was before the dayglo colours had improved. The brass flakes and dull colours pretty much killed any excitement I had about getting a custom CPC set. The problem was I'd been spoiled by Paulson colours. To be fair, the darker colours and unweighted chips compare more favourably to Paulsons than the weighted lighter coloured chips do (although CPC still needs better yellows).

Then I remembered two of my favourite chip lines that use muted colors as well... BCC Protege and Samurai Palace. That's when I realized they don't need to be as vibrant as Paulsons to look good. Once I got over that hurdle I was able to go back to the Chip Design Tool and keep plugging away until I came up with a set I was happy with two and half years ago. To my surprise, that's also when I discovered the dayglo colours had been improved and so I designed a second set later that year. Fast forward to now as I'm wanting to add on to one of the sets and I just received a Scrown inlaid colour sample. I wish this mould had been available when I ordered my first set.

So my advice to you is be patient... let everything sink in for a bit as a set that pops is possible with CPC's. Here's a great example recently ordered by @bsdunbar1:

View attachment 338519

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/clubd-cpc-set-pron.46231/

I appreciate the pep talk. And if my chips turn out half as good as yours it will be completely worth it. I'm not giving up on them. I got into this knowing it could be a very long process. I just like to bounce ideas and stuff off people. I get bored at work and that manifests into trolling through the forums.

 

[LinkyBabe]

With the molds. I've for sure narrowed down the molds I like through simple elimination (don't like figure headed molds and want at least a 1 inch inlay) so I'm down to the small crown mold, hourglass mold, and Fleur-De-Lys mold. Anyone have any distinct opinions or advice on those 3 in particular?

Each mould has varying degrees of texture on the inlay. Of the ones you're interested in the FDL has no texture; the Scrown has slight texture; and the Hourglass has coarse texture. This will affect the look of your artwork so just be aware of that also.

If you haven't already, have a look through this thread for great examples of mostly custom sets... Hourglass and FDL are well represented here:

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...en-pr0n-now-with-pr0n-of-over-200-sets.13031/

 

[David Dobbs]

I guess another possibility for theme could be "Law enforcement" just because that's what I do for a living. Not sure what path that could go down honestly.

Making a dollar amount with "Private Card Room" is something I would like to make. Like Paulson's.

 

[Marhault]

So I've tabled the ND idea till I can work through what I can legally use and what I can't. In the meantime I had a shower idea yesterday and I've been kicking it around a little bit.

So a little back story. I work at a Federal Prison. I've worked at my current institution for 15 years, I worked for the state of Missouri for 4 years prior. So I've been doing this for almost 19 years. Almost everyone I play poker with either works at the prison or in law enforcement in some way. So I've come up with a theme involving working in law enforcement.

The couple working names I'm going with is "Penitentiary Poker Club" or "Lockdown Poker Room" which would be displayed on the inlay somewhere. What I'm looking to have done is adding an image of a tower from our joint. There is a really good pic of one of our towers where the spotlight is shining in the distance at night. I'll add below a pic of a tower, as well as a reproduced image of the spotlight version on the cover of a book that one of my coworkers made about the prison.

What I'd like is to have the tower on the inlay offset enough where the spotlight can shine into the space below the tower where it will "illuminate" the denomination of the chip. I would also like some form of color matching in the spotlight, maybe a light fading on the edges of the light? Not sure I'm just kinda laying down ideas, maybe even the demon can be color matching. I'm wanting it on a black background with the tower and words in white (silver?)

This gives me many more options as far as chip design not having to match university colors, while at the same time giving me something that's very close to home for me and my poker playing friends.

The name and colors are all up in the air, I'd love to hear some ideas from you guys because my creativity isn't exactly great (although I do like my tower design idea just not sure on details)

I don't know if I'm to the point of hiring a designer yet I wanna get some details lined out, especially the name. Maybe someone could enlighten me on how difficult it would be to take that picture of the tower (there are also plenty of other pics I can get for angles and such) and make it a black and white drawing essentially on an inlay.

I'll attach some other pics drawings of the towers.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

How about The Big House or Municipal Workers Club

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Or Penal Poker Palace (not to be confused with penile)

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Or Lockdown Louie's

 

[Marhault]

How about The Big House or Municipal Workers Club

I like The Big House...not sure where Louie came from though lol

And we're not exactly municipal workers. I work at a Federal Penitentiary.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

It's a Rounders reference

 

[Saoliver]

It's a Rounders reference

"Municipal workers, huh?"
"What? These guys work for the city."
"They work for the state, you idiot."

 

[Marhault]

"Municipal workers, huh?"
"What? These guys work for the city."
"They work for the state, you idiot."

I'm slow, forgive me.

 

[RichMahogany]

Panopticon poker room, or a variation of

 

[Marhault]

Panopticon poker room, or a variation of

While I appreciate the originality I'm afraid there would only be 3 people in the room who might get it lol.

 

[Poker Zombie]

I'm personally a fan of "the Big House".

I also like "Cell block X", where X = one higher letter/number than your prisons highest cell block.

Lots of thematic ideas abound here as well, like a table with a barbed wire betting line, a black and white chip, and a dealer button with a spotlight or an escaped prisoner.

 

[Irish]

"The Big House" = "Michigan" in my mind.....

 

[Poker Zombie]

"The Big House" = "Michigan" in my mind.....

Secretly, the reason I think it's great. I also got them to name one of our fire stations "the Big House". A thorn in the side of the Tennessee fans here.

Now if Michigan can just return to their former glory...

 

[allforcharity]

"Poker Prison - All in, few outs"

 

[Marhault]

I do like The Big House but Irish is right it does remind me a bit too much of Michigan.

I guess I'm kinda back to the Penitentiary Poker Club. I've kinda been bouncing it off my poker players and they dig it. Said it should have something about "Doin Time" on there, one said "Doin time at the bet line" which sounds cool and all but is basically impossible to put on a chip lol.

Another suggest "Prison Rules Poker Room" which seemed alright but I'm not sure what he's implying!

 

[Irish]

"Get busy living, or get busy dying"

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Greybar Hotel and Casino or Hoosegow Social Club

 

[Josh Kifer]

I've always been a fan of adding social club to end of titles...

Cell Block Social Club?
Missouri Penitentiary Social Club?

 

[Marhault]

I've always been a fan of adding social club to end of titles...

Cell Block Social Club?
Missouri Penitentiary Social Club?

We've actually had T-shirts made that say "Club Fed" then a picture of the fence and razor wire and under that it says "We'll leave the light on for you"