CBulla:
BTW - just as an experiement, why punch each card individually? Leave them in the box, minus plastic wrapper, and with a nice NEW drill bit and slow speed on the drill (or drill press) put one even, clean hole in the right area, then all cards have the hole in the same place.
This was proposed. At least in my case, I dismissed the suggestion, as having drilled through paper, plastic, and other stacked thin flexible things, drill bit chatter tended to be detrimental to the integrity of the perimeter of the holes. Punched holes tend to be a lot cleaner than drilled holes, and a flaw such as a tiny tear could seriously impact the integrity of the card. (I have not done actual tear tests on the plastic cards, but one could if one so wished.)
The only way I can think of to drill a nice, straight hole with very clean edges through a deck would be with a good drill press, however, if you weren't precisely perpendicular to the deck or if there was a slight skew to the stack, you would introduce systematic error which could be used by someone who thinks too much (like me) to theoretically cheat. I'm also pondering the balance between speed, heat, and clean edges. Assuming you have a very stable drill press (so chatter isn't an issue), it would seem likely that the cleanest edges would be produced by high speeds, however high speeds create more heat, and with enough heat, you weld the deck together through the holes.
After pondering all this (and I have a nice drill press available, even, with brand new bits), I decided that shuffling followed by precision punching was the most reliable method with regard to clean-edged holes without any systematic error. I'll have to document my method of punching, I suppose... would photos work, or do I need to go with video?
(In case you're suspicious by now, yes, my degree is in chemical engineering, which is documented proof that I probably overthink things.)
And speaking of overthinking... The only thing I really care about is systematic error, as random error per card cannot be addressed. The printing process introduces small apparently random fluctuations in print spacing from the edge, and therefore, even with perfectly precise laser-cut holes through the entire perfectly-aligned deck, the position of the holes on the print on the card backs will include miniscule alignment errors. If you're playing against someone with an eidetic memory and very good visual acuity, you may want to special order some blank-backed cards and laser-cut those, should you want the playing field (er, pool? depth?) to be level.
Oh, and one more thing... has anyone found plastic jigsaw puzzles yet?
