TGPO's World War II Online^TM Maps

How to put the maps together

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Here's what you'll need:

• A means to trim off excess edges of some of the pages. Some form of inexpensive mechanical trimmer is best, you can get one at any crafts store, but in a pinch a razor blade or Exacto knife will work fine. Use scissors only as a last resort.
• Something to cut on top of, like a firm piece of cardboard or a kitchen cutting board, whatever cutting surface you choose needs to be smooth.
• A large, flat work surface for joining the maps after trimming them, a kitchen table is great.
• Masking tape or Scotch tape
• A keen eye
• A steady hand
• One set of "Six-Pack Map Attack!" 3x2 maps

First, lay out your six pages on your work surface, set them up the way they fit one another so you can see their relationship to one another.

In figure 1, the six sheets are arranged correctly and we can see how they'll fit together. Notice the bright yellow bands on some of the edges. These are the areas we'll be trimming off to fit the pieces together. DO NOT trim of all of the adjoining edges! It will make fitting the maps sheets together very difficult. Only trim off the yellow sections show in figure 1.

When trimming, try to use a straight-edge and trim off ONLY the non-printed margins as diagrammed. Try not to leave any white and try not to cut into the printed portion, the more carefully you cut, the easier it will be to fit the pages together.

Get sheet #1, the northeast sector of the map, and flip it face down. Make yourself a square of tape (masking tape will work best, but Scotch tape is okay) and apply it to the back of sheet #1, along the inside edge, so only a small corner sticks beyond that edge, maybe an eight of an inch of the tape's surface, as in figure 2. This is how we're going to "tack" the sheets together to make sure they align properly. Doing this will allow us to correct any positioning mistakes and try again without shredding any paper. Put two or three of these, distributed fairly evenly, across the inside edge of sheet #1.

Tip: You don't HAVE to flip the sheets over to apply the tacking tape. If you're careful you can just slide the pieces of tape, face up, under the appropriate sheet and then press the paper down to affix them. This is a good way to go because then you don't have to lift loosely adjoined sheets and risk a piece falling off.

Next, take sheet #2 and carefully trim off the right edge of the sheet. Use a straight-edge if you have one and be careful to leave all of the printed area of the page and only trim off the white space.

Once you have trimmed off the right edge of sheet #2, place it with the trimmed edge down, on a small angle so that you don't have it laying on the tacking tape, over sheet #1. Align the sheet left and right so that it matches sheet #1 and then make certain that the "76" grid lines match up. Once you've got it where you want it, gently lay sheet #2 all the way down. Take a piece of blank paper and lay if over the joint between the two sheets and press down lightly to tack the two pages together. Don't press hard just yet, you might need to adjust the pages in a minute. The blank paper isn't necessary, but it'll keep you from smudging the map, especially if you have an ink jet printer.

Grab sheet #3 and follow the above procedure again, this time tacking sheet #3 onto sheet #2.

Carefully flip the three adjoined sheets and apply four or five pieces of tacking squares to the back of them, across the bottom edge. Flip these sheets back over, facing up.

Grab sheet #4 and trim off the top edge, leave the "76" horizontal grid line if you can, without leaving any white to the below it. Align the top of sheet #4 with bottom of sheet #1. Once you have it so that all grid lines appear to be aligned, carefully set sheet #4 down and apply light pressure where the tacking tape is.

Trim sheet #5 and #6 as shown in figure 1, removing the top and right edges of each. Follow the same procedure for adding sheets #2 and #3 above, except this time you need to pay attention to the alignment of two edges for each sheet, not just one.

Once you have all of the sheets adjoined, the map should lay flat on your work surface and all of the connecting grid lines should match. If not, it's easy enough to pull up a sheet and adjust it without shredding the whole thing. Make adjustments until your map lies flat on the work surface.

Lastly, go ahead and apply FIRM pressure to all of the adjoining edges of the map, Flip the map face down and run strips of tape along the joints to firmly secure the sheets to one another. If you like, you can also apply strips of tape to the front joints on the map, to keep those joints down.

After you do this a couple of times, you'll be a master mapmaker and you can thrill your friends and family with your new talent! No, wait! You haven't got time for that, there's a war waiting for you!

Good luck, see you in the game!

World War II Online is a trademark of Playnet Inc.
Courtesy of www.tgpo.net