The Original Scrapbox - perfect for modellers?

[overscan]

A friend who's into scrapbooking shared this video of an awesome storage solution - I reckon it would be perfect for modellers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLBHXp5OBk

[Old Wombat]

Almost, yeah! Wow!

[Weaver]

£1450 in the UK (config as per the video), so that's not going to happen....

Like a lot of these things, it looks terribly impressive when somebody demonstrates it with the contents for which it was designed. My experience however, is that when you try to adapt your actual kit to something like this, things start to fall apart.

Points that immediately struck me:

1. The table isn't big enough. Get an A3 cutting mat, a decent size kit box and three or four sprues out on that and you'll be knocking things off the edge. Yes you can find ways around that by using some of the storage shelves as extra workspace, but if you've got to adapt your working methods to the workshop them the tail is wagging the dog.

My inclination would be to fit fold-down or pull-out auxilliary worktops to the folding sections, but if I have to start doing carpentry on a £1450 'solution' I'm not very impressed. They actually make just such a table for their Sewing Box but it's not an option for the Craft Box.

2. I don't see anywhere good in there to store modeller's tools. You either want these in a vertical caddy at deskish level (which would take up more of the limited table space) or in a shallow drawer that you look down into from your chair. All the shallow drawers and caddies in this are above eye level in the middle section and the caddies arn't shallow enough.

3. Likewise I don't see any good place to store paint tinlets. You can only see what colour these are by looking down at the lids, so they have much the same requirement as tools (see point 2).

4. I can't tell how rigid those fabric caddies are, but I'm not optimisitic. Such things generally have vey low weight limits before they buckle, wear out fast, and have internal seams that are great for hiding tiny bits of plastic.

5. Zipper totes stuck to a board with velcro are a spectactularly bad idea. You have to pull them off to unzip them, they carry very little weight, and most importantly, the velcro wears out quickly, leading to them falling off. I don't want large chunks of my everyday kit stored in travel packs: I want the travel packs stored so that I can fill them on the half-dozen occasions when I need to.

6. Why does the right hand bay have a vertical divider that forces you to use half-width totes in that side while the left hand bay has full width shelves that take full width or half-width totes? Are two half-width totes on a full width shelf significantly less 'organised' than two half-width totes with a wooden wall between them?


Now that all sounds very negative, but I think the real problem is that the unit as it stands is quite closely tailored around paper/fabric crafts, not model making. It's a pity they don't make it more modular, with the ability to customise the door fittings, add extra tables, drawers and pull-out shelves in a range of sizes, and choose clear plastic boxes instead of fabric ones. There's no reason they couldn't do any of this and I'd like to see their efforts if they did. At the moment however, I think I could make a better modelling setup from Ikea wardrobe components.

[Martin H]

Its a good start, now like weaver said, if they did a version optimised for modeling, it would be even better.

[zenrat]

Good points H.  If you design what you want i'll come and build you one.  If you food and board me then all you'll need to pay is the air fare for me and my tools and the cost of materials.

When I make furniture I point out to Mrs z how cheap it was to build and without fail fail she says "but what is your time worth?"

[overscan]

Good points H.  If you design what you want i'll come and build you one.  If you food and board me then all you'll need to pay is the air fare for me and my tools and the cost of materials.

When I make furniture I point out to Mrs z how cheap it was to build and without fail fail she says "but what is your time worth?"

I had a similar thing with making my own network cables at work years ago, my boss pointed out at my hourly pay rate it was in fact not saving the college anything

[Dork the kit slayer]

If it cannot be traded for and 1960s Starfix Spifire,some old yellow decals and free postage ,it wont go down well with a lot of people on ere....just sayin

[Weaver]

Good points H.  If you design what you want i'll come and build you one.  If you food and board me then all you'll need to pay is the air fare for me and my tools and the cost of materials.

Cheers, but I don't need it. I live on my own in a decent size house with rare and unfussy visitors. My modelling bench sits in a corner of the living room on permanent and unashamed display. The principle thing I want to do is get all of the stash and the once-in-a-blue-moon supplies down from the attic and into the spare bedroom so that they're more accessible. That's tile-puzzle problem that demands spending money elsewhere however, which is why it hasn't happened yet.

When I make furniture I point out to Mrs z how cheap it was to build and without fail fail she says "but what is your time worth?"

Fair comment, but when you find yourself thwarted or frustrated by an non-optimised workspace for the nth time, what's that worth?

[Weaver]

If it cannot be traded for and 1960s Starfix Spifire,some old yellow decals and free postage ,it wont go down well with a lot of people on ere....just sayin

There's an awful lot of negotiating room between a Starfix Spitfire and £1450. Just sayin'...... 

[zenrat]

The frustration is invariably odd sized spaces into which I am trying to insert bookshelves.
Hence building them made to measure,

[Weaver]

Another thought that's related to my point 6 (inflexible choice of boxes): whatever the craft, do you really want your small stuff divided into 26 small 'After Eight' boxes where you can only see the front item and they're split between two sides of the bench and high and low positions? Wouldn't you rather have more 12" x 12" boxes and have some of them subdivided so your small stuff is in fewer places?

Also, at 31" i.e. nearly 79cm, that Workbox unit is very deep: most wardrobes are only 60cm deep. If you're so short of space that you need a folding work station in the first place, then accomodating that is going to be a non-trivial exercise.

[Weaver]

The frustration is invariably odd sized spaces into which I am trying to insert bookshelves.
Hence building them made to measure,

Oh tell me about it. My house has alcoves alongside chimney breasts that are different widths, different depths, just in between the standard sizes of anything you can buy in the shops and united only by their lack of flat surfaces and right angles....

[Weaver]

Here's a better one at about the same price. It has far more table area, slim drawers below seated eye-height and uses generic Really Useful brand plastic boxes (which are very good):



From here: http://www.storage4crafts.com/shopx/product.php?productid=1665

[zenrat]

That one looks more practical although I can't see how you'd fit a Monogram B-36 in there or many or the larger armour kit boxes.

Obviously "Craft Shame" is a real problem with some people causing them to spend thousands so they can hide their hobby from visitors.

Having to pack everything up at the end of a session would be a real PitA and would stop me doing anything unless I knew I was going to get a good long time before I had to put it all away - which would almost never happen.

[Weaver]

If you're in a household where you have to hide your hobby, then where to put a Monogram B-36 before you build it is the least of your problems....

The other problem with hide-a-hobby is what do you do with paint and glue that's drying at the moment you have to pack up, and what about the fumes they produce?

A couple of times, I've made my living room unliveable for a few hours with glue spills...