I spent 5 hours a few evenings ago applying Con-Tact clear to EVERYTHING that could possibly see wear and tear.  The top of the movement dials, the bottom and speed/direction side half of the dials, the movement templates, the range ruler… everything.  It's *all* protected now!  It took some time, but in the long run it oughtta be **well** worth it.

My technique was to put the piece of Con-Tact sheet on a hobby cutting board, sticky-side up.  Then plop whatever side of the dial half, template etc. you want protected firmly down on it.  Then CAREFULLY using an Exacto knife around the edges of the piece and then removing the excess.  Rinse and repeat for the other side of the piece.  Don't forget to cut out the hole of the dial pieces!  Then just assemble the dials as usual.  I did it again yesterday with newly bought X-wing and Y-wing and by then I'd gotten really fast at it :-)

I am going with the washer route but also picked up some Magic Cover 20 inch by 15 feet Self Adhesive Decorative Covering in clear. Not sure it is acid free. Anyone know for sure. It is made by Kittrich and I think I got it from Michaels Crafts.

VR
James Mattes

I have tried using a brush on mat varnish on the faces of the dials as these seem to take the most wear. this seems to have worked well so far. I have also used a black paint and matt varnish mix to paint all the edges of movement dails, ship tokens, movement templates,and all tokens in the hope to improve their lifespan as i play this game to death.it takes a while to paint these but if your going t spend money on games its worth doing your best to preserve the contents.