writes:Years ago at a convention, I saw something that really sickened me – painted starship models dumped in a heap in a box, knocking into each other and scratching the paintjobs. The horror!
Over the years, I have struggled to find the best way to store, transport, and organize my painted star fleets. I've tried simply lining the bottoms of the bases with magnetic material. I've built complicated storage boxes designed to "lock" each ship into place. Nothing has reliably kept my models safe in storage and transport.
My latest "experiment" has built upon the fact that I'm using the magnetic adapters from Ninja Magic. Here are two ships I finished a while ago:
The adapter allows the ship and base to be separate pieces, held together by magnets:
Since the ship models are separate, I decided to try making some bases to use just for storage. I decided I wanted:
- something low, so the ships won't topple over if jostled
- something with a lot of surface area, so I can use flexsteel bases to secure them in magnet-lined storage boxes
Here is what I came up with:
I started with one of Litko's thick wooden bases, and some wooden dowels I picked up from a craft store. I used a mini-mitre box so that I could cut the dowel straight across. I drilled a hole in the wooden piece and glued the dowel in place. Then I glued an adapter piece to the dowel, painted the storage base black, and stuck flexsteel on the bottom.
The magnetic adapter should keep the model in place, and prevent it from swinging around. The base is large enough to provide a safety margin in the storage box, and the flexsteel holds well on the magnet-lined box bottom.
This seemed easy enough, so I will make more storage bases for my other models...