Friday, July 11, 2014

Help: Miniature Storage Options


So, I have finally after living in my house for 6+ years gotten to within sight of finishing my basement project.  I hope that this means I can get some of my gaming stuff better organized as this shelving unit that I used to use years ago will now be used for other stuff and I will try to get my stuff out of the blue plastic tubs in the garage.  My stuff only fits in those tubs now since it is not painted so can be crammed together in model unsafe ways.  I have a ton of 28 mm scale figures to store but luckly I am light on tanks and those larger scale items.

I am looking for an economical storage solution that can travel.  Anyway have any suggestions?  All the case companies seem pretty pricey for such a collection.  I looked at KR Multicase but even though basic cardboard case with foam is like 50 dollars shipped.  I have been investigating making my own card+foam where you can buy 20 handled cardboard mailers that are 20*11*5.5 inches for like 70 dollars shipped.  The foam costs more but even pull and pick foam to fill one cases adds up to about 15 dollars which is less than half the costs of the KR case.  So about 20+ dollars a case if you include some plasticard to help with layer separation.  When you are talking about 1000+ minis to get out of piles in megaforce boxes or white citadel boxes, you do need to watch the cost.

Those 20 boxes will take up about 18 cubic feet which is about 1 shelving unit which will still need to be supplemented with things for storage of the game boxes that I want to keep.

7 comments:

  1. You might want to check out this blog post
    http://dagreenskins.blogspot.com/2009/04/army-storage.html

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    1. Thanks for the suggestion. Those types of boxes are very inexpensive with great storage capacity.

      Sort of reminds me of this where someone lined the bottom of IKEA drawer sets:

      http://miniatyrmannen.blogspot.se/2012/12/storing-your-minis-ikea-way.html

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  2. Sorry for posting a second comment. You could cut down a foam tray or make your own to fit in the banker box. They are cheap and it is not hard to cut them down. It is a great solution and I have been using them for years.

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    1. More comments the merrier. I think if I was going to cut foam I would go with a tab locking box since I have some of those already and they do well but are all random sizes with mismatched foam.

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  3. A friendly reader PM'ed me a suggestion of using Jewelry boxes since they are designed for stacking and available in various heights plus are pretty inexpensive:

    http://gemsondisplay.com/shopexd.asp?id=816

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  4. If you want something proper cheap, I would just suggest buying egg foam (used for soundproofing). You can buy online for like $35 6' x 6' that should fill a good amount of boxes.
    Then you can use whatever size boxes you like - it fits any model without waste. I'd suggest you could use the boxes they sell boots in, living where you do if you asked your friends by the end of winter I'm sure you could have a bunch, they are solid and close tightly. Either do two layers of egg foam or pack styrofoam underneath.

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    1. I have some boxes with egg foam in them already and the issue I get is when you have multiple layers in one box the foam general does not lift out very well.

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