Organizing the Stash

[AeroplaneDriver]

Aircav;s thread a few weeks ago about organizing his stash in his hot loft got me thinking that I needed to do the same thing.  The stash has been growing this past year and no longer fits on the two plastic shelf units it started on.  The resulting pile of models on the attic floor has prompted more than one comment from SWMBO that perhaps it is time to either a) Stop buying models, or b)  Tidy it up a bit.  Since her preferred option (a) doesnt sound very attractive, I decided to go with plan b.

At the moment we have a small but completely empty room waiting to be painted next weekend.  So I thought instead of trying to organize everything in the hot (100+ F) attic I'd bring the stash down to the empty room till I can work out some new shelf arrangements upstairs.  Anyway, about 20 trips up and down the stairs later I was a bit surprised at how big the stash had become.  I counted 257 kits, including weapons sets and ground crew/pilot figure sets.   

Naturally I will blame the unsavory influence of you lot when the Lovely Wife sees the room full of models!

The stash today:





The stash in early 2006:

[Jeffry Fontaine]

One of the quickest methods of reducing the size of your model kits is to take your duplicate kits and double box them.  You have two kits in one box and to SWMBO, that is one box less that she will see in the pile.  Deceptive?  Yes.  Practical?  Yes.  I had to do this with many of my kits while I was in Germany.  Thanks to limited space in my apartment, I found that double boxing the kits reduced the overall footprint within the apartment without having to dispose of anything but the empty boxes.  Granted for a kit collector this may cause concern but my original intention was to build the kit not sit on it and wait for it to increase in value. 

While you are combining your kits it would also be prudent to consider placing your decals inside of a zip-lock bag.  The cheap grocery store variety work well for most decal sheets and they have two or three sizes to choose from which should accomodate most decal sheets.  The reason for this suggestion is that over time humid and dry conditions will play hell with the decals and protecting them in a zip-lock bag will increase the shelf life of the decals.  I suffered the misfortune of not protecting the decal sheet in my Tamiya Lancaster kits and suffered for it when I opened the box and found that the decal had adhered to the instruction sheet.  Not only was I out of a decal sheet but one page of the instruction sheet was damaged beyond repair. 

[AeroplaneDriver]

Not a bad idea with the double boxing Jeff.  I already keep all decals in ziploc bags downstairs in air conditioned comfort.   

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Not a bad idea with the double boxing Jeff.  I already keep all decals in ziploc bags downstairs in air conditioned comfort.   

I forgot to mention that one of the hazards of keeping your kits in the attic or a outbuilding without the benefit of insulation and a reasonable temprature is that your kits can be subjected to temprature extremes that will change the properties of the plastic.  I discovered this the hard way while living in Fayetteville, North Carolina which is no where near as cold as Northern Minnesota or Alaska but it was cold enough to stress the plastic parts in all of the model kits that I had stored in my garage which was insulated but not heated so it was almost like storing them outside.  I remember the Testor's kits were the most changed for some reason the U-2 kits in particular became very brittle and the coloration of the plastic changed from a dark gray to a light gray.  So if you can manage to reduce the footprint of the kit collection down to a size that is acceptable to SWMBO, perhaps you can convince her to allow you to keep the kits inside where the temprature is controlled all year round.  Never hurts to bribe her with chocolate and flowers before putting that question on the table.  Begging is also an option if you have some good knee pads

[AeroplaneDriver]

LOL, thanks for the heads up Jeff.  I'm in western NC so I get the same kind of weather as FAY.  I've never seen any problems with the plastic, but it's good to know it can happen.  Our plan in the next year or so is to either finish the attic as a family room/home office/hobby room or move, so hopefully it wont be an issue much longer.

[Captain Canada]

What a mess ! For sure, it's nice to have some kind of organization going.....jets, props, etc. Makes it way easier when you're digging for that part that you just know you have !

Can we see more pics of that sweet chocolate chat ?

[frank2056]

I have most of my kits in boxes kept in an indoor closet. No temperature or humidity problems. I also make a group photo of all the kits in a particular box, then tape the picture to the box; it's a lot easier than reading down a list. even if you don't place the kits in another container, photographing them helps for insurance purposes.

Frank

[K5054NZ]

I spy an Airfix Lancaster!  My stash isn't big enough to need organising as yet.....but I just visited my LHS' website to increase it by four 

[Shasper]

Taking the kits sans boxes & placing them inside an appropriate piece of furniture (like a cabinet or dresser) would also have the same affect as Jeff mentioned, and this would also permit the stash to be hidden in plain sight (I use my old toybox for this, definatly cut down on what I had up in the top of my closet)

Shas

[Weaver]

"Do you "Do you really need all those kits?"

"Do you really need all those shoes?"

The eternal battle continues........

[AeroplaneDriver]

"Do you "Do you really need all those kits?"

"Do you really need all those shoes?"

The eternal battle continues........

Lol...how true!

All the ideas for saving space are great ones, but the part of me that is a collector/pack rat likes the boxes.  I'm sure it's a symptom of some syndrome of other, but I enjoy having the boxes stacked neatly, with some ordered system.  It normally doenst last like that for long, but I still lke doing it.

[John Howling Mouse]

"Double-box duplicate kits..."

Who in their right mind would EVER buy more than one of any given kit?!?!   

[Aircav]

Like the Avro Vulcan box 

[BlackOps]

AD, those box tops make great decorations! They actually look really cool if you cover a whole wall with 'em (just to save you some grief, don't try to do the bedroom wall with them)   

[AeroplaneDriver]

You know, now that you mention it, one of these days when I have my custom built, dedicated model room a few nice framed boxtops might be a great way to decorate.