Hi there, brand new to the forum here - signed up after learning about Terraclips. I've never done the papercraft terrain thing before (just picked up a couple sets here after being introduced to WorldWorks by the Terraclips ads) so I may be missing some things - so I apologize in advance for being a total newbie - some of these topics might already have threads devoted to them that I didn't see.

I got my first order of Terraclips (Streets & Buildings) a day or two ago and finally got the time to punch them out and play around with them. I have to say, they are amazing - the visual alone is worth every penny, but the functional design pushes their value beyond their price, for me.

There are a couple issues I've had, however. The first one was flashing left over on some (maybe two dozen?) of the clips in one of my boxes - I didn't notice this a first when I started fiddling around with the tiles. These sharp little slivers of plastic stuck on the edges (and sometimes inside the "clamping" mechanism of the clips) wound up cutting up a couple of tiles before I noticed them. The damage isn't a big deal, yet (I assume it will escalate over time as I clip and unclip over the scratches) but I wish I would have taken the time to look over every clip before using it.

Has anyone else noticed this flashing? I found it on clips from the first combo box I opened, but not on the second. I highly recommend you inspect your clips carefully the first time you use them to remove any such debris.

I've found the most difficult part of assembling the clips has been the ladders. Though I had no problem assembling (and gluing) the ladders from my Buildings set, the slots on the legs of the ladders in the Streets set seemed very, very tight (or, perhaps the cardboard for the rungs was thicker?) and, in fact, I wound up tearing a ladder while trying to fit it together. That was ... a shock. I made sure to expand the slots for my other two ladders before attempting to assemble them after that.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? Any recommendations for ladder assembly for other newbies? For my part, I tried to keep all the little rung spacers in-place when I was first putting the ladders together, to provide a bit more rigidity to the piece, but that didn't work out so well, usually (the die cut is just too good and the spaces mostly fell out as soon as I tried).

My final question is about the clips themselves - has anyone else noticed a tendency for the I-clips to tilt the tiles in one direction or the other? I noticed while assembling some long floors that if I kept the I-clips all oriented the same way (that is, the little "hump" on the inside of the clamping mechanism always on the upper arm) that the floor tended to bow - I found that if I alternated the orientation of the I-clips, the floor stayed a bit more level. This isn't a big deal, but the bowing caused a bit of tension on some walls, and seemed to actually cause some walls to bow in or out. I don't recall any tip for this being mentioned - it seems unavoidable given the design of the clips.

Just want to say - I am not complaining about any of these things, just curious if they are common and if there were any plans to address these or similar issues with a tutorial or some such. I am having a blast building with these things, and they've really inspired me to up my DMing and come up with some clever layouts for my next D&D session.

Thank you for an awesome product, WorldWorks.

Welcome.

* I haven't seen a problem with the clips, but I have only played around with one box of clips. I'll check my other boxes over before using them. I suspect you just got a bad box.

* The ladders are a little fragile. I got cocky as I punched out more and more pieces without problem, and tore one. So they need a little care, but I think they are easily repaired.

* The I-clips do angle the boards at first. Denny has said that once the pieces break in a little, this goes away. From what I've seen, I think he's right. Until then, a gentle wiggle should flatten out the joints for you.

Terraclips are pretty cool. Now we need that next print run to hit distribution so we can get all that we want.

Steve

Welcome to the forum armageddonsocks and thank you for your support! Great to hear you're enjoying TerraClips and also encouraging to hear that you picked up a couple of our terrain downloads as well

Sorry to hear about the hiccups. We're keeping a tab on all of these little points of feedback in order to ensure constant improvement on further manufactured runs of TerraClips.

On Clip flashing; I had six boxes of clips to play with for my demo/promo builds. I did have about 4 clips out of the 720 that had some minor flashing in the slot. I just assumed it was par for the course with injection molding. If you've got more than that don't hesitate to send the box back to the store which you received it from if you can't pluck the flashing out manually. It could be just a case of "end of the run" variances as this is the first report I've actually heard about.

On Clip tilt; So, the big thing to keep in mind is that the very subtle tilt created by the little gator bump is actually temporary during the break-in period and very easy to work around while getting through that phase. A gentle push in the opposing direction is all it takes to set the tile or wall section straight. After that, the clips form a natural depression in the material itself and the card is broken in.

The ladders; This is completely a case of the factory dies becoming "de-tuned" over the course of a manufacturing run. The ladders use really small tolerances, so little variances that happen over time to the die while it's cutting through the punchboard can have an effect. What I received worked 100% ok but that was likely because I received a copy that was early in the production run.

Speaking of which I just found a ladder video from early editing (good chance to show how easy it was on my end I suppose):

<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c_nb3Gtt-Qs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wish my ladders had been that easy. Still other happy with mine and waiting on the next print run for more.

From my experience, it looks like the Buildings sets were all done early in the run (I have 3 sets from that, and all of the ladders went together very easily), while Sewers was done late in the run (late in the run, had 2 ladders I clipped one of the hinges off of because it wouldn't fit, and actually broke one of the ladders while putting it together).
Overall, 3 sets with only very minor issues. I'm loving it, and definitely looking forward to playing some war games on it (plus the custom tiles I'm putting together for myself).
Magius out.

I had a similar experience with the ladders. My Buildings ladders worked perfectly, but the slots on my Sewers and Streets ladders were off, with the holes being too narrow to fit the crossbar tabs.

I, too, destroyed the first Streets ladder I built, and I hand-cut the holes on the rest. Still, considering the amount of detailed diecutting involved, I'm quite impressed with that, compared with other diecut game stuff I've bought in the past.

I haven't come across any clip issues.

I had about 4-5 clips out of 3 boxes (All L's) that had flash still on one side. Un-noticed by me, I almost destroyed a couple of walls trying to get the clip on. I hadn't realized that there was some extra platic blocking the piecr from entering the clip.

Hi all,
just started playing with the sewers i received, and i had the same issue on ladders that Armageddon noted.
Stupidly, i put glue on the steps without trying to first fit them throught the slots...and using fast-acting glue, the steps ended up getting glued somewhat awkwardly.

Lesson learned: always try fitting before applying glue

yep, same here: the street ladders fit like the ones from the vid, but the sewer ones.... well must have been rotten wood in the sewers

Overall I'm happy with the product. I've haven't had a chance to utilize the sets like I want, but I've been pleased with the look and feel overall, however ...

I have big and clumbsy hands so I've torn most of the ladders. Super glue fixed all of them. I have had problems with other weak joints in the card stock (mostly doors and arches), but that is to be expected with even a small amount of rough handling. Again a dab of glue strenghtened the joint so it stopped being so problematic.

I have broken several clips while taking apart test builds. I was being relatively careful, but I started to notice missing tabs on the clips. The joints at the center of the clip are not very resilient to flexing of any kind.

broken clips? haven't expirienced something like that so far.
watch the tutorial videos for the correct handling of clips and tiles.
found them very useful and makes building and unclipping much easier!

I have had one clip break and it was while putting things together. Looking back at the T-clip afterwards made me think that the clip was just brittle. A fluke that I haven't seen from any of the other clips.

Understood that I need to be gentle, but these buildings are meant to be played with and flexing will occur as a result. A few broken clips is nothing I'm worried about at the moment and a lot of it was probably rough handling on my part at the time.

I still think it's very important that customers tell the developers about their experience with the product, including encountered issues. This ensures that they become aware of the things that slipped through beta-testing, so they can improve future products in this line. And no, I am not implying here that customers are treated as lab rats, as far as I can see the experiences have been overwhelmingly positive so far. Anyway, thanks for providing us as customers and the developers with your insights!

I noticed some discoloring on some of my clips, I hadn't noticed before, when I built my last build, didn't think much of it, at first. Then I had a clip that wouldn't grip a tile, it was just loose, I noticed it had the same discoloration I had noticed, but worse, and part of the clip just fell off while I was checking it out. I was almost done with my build when it happened, and haven't taken it down the yet, so I haven't been able to go back and check those other clips yet. I thought maybe it was an isolated incidence, but maybe not.

the only issue i had involved the snall stairs.....
it's really hard to punch them out manually without damaging them (solved using an x acto blade),
then the anchors are sometimes bigger than the holes where they are supposed to fit into (i had to use a pincer) applying a minimal excess of force means destroying them.

i STRONGLY suggest to glue them and leave them permanently built. (i've also did it too for the large stairs)