Really Useful Model Storage

 Welcome back to the Vault! Saturday's planned activities (not gaming related) were cancelled due to the ridiculous amount of rain that fell from the sky, but there were some definite hobby-related silver linings in those overlying clouds!

I picked up a paint brush for the first time in what must be weeks, and started laying down the base colours onto the Noxious Blightbringer, aka THE BELL MAN; when I've made some more progress I'll share some pictures.

The family also had a trip to the local DIY store. I do like a visit to the local Wickes or B&Q not because I enjoy all those jobs around the house (I don't, I'd rather be painting Plague Marines than walls), but because you can find hobby/modelling related bobbins. 

I wanted to pick up some more storage boxes for the ever growing model collection to replace tatty old cardboard boxes. I have a number of good quality figure cases with foam for transporting armies to events, but that's an expensive way to store everything. And so I tend to store a lot of models in cheaper (but still robust) containers, and swap around the contents of the figure cases when I am going to the club for example.

My preferred brand are the Really Useful Boxes; these come in a variety of sizes, and some are more useful than others for our purposes!

This particular box is the 9 litre option; it's 255mm x 395mm x 155mm. And it's just the right size for a decent number of Imperial Guard vehicles. The addition of some foamboard pieces has allowed me to double stack the models.

Let's have a closer look with the lid off. The top layer has enough space for 5 Leman Russ tanks:

Let's remove those (placing them on the lid which acts as a handy tray), take out the foam board shelf, and look at the layer below. 3 Chimera, 1 Taurox, and two artillery pieces:

That's 11 vehicles in this box (which it's pretty good given it's size). I'm not too worried about the models getting damaged/paint chipped in this arrangement but you could add dividers between models if you wished.

The two foam board supports at the side are just pushed into place, and can easily be removed.

No I haven't been too fussed about neat edges.

You can pick the 9L boxes up from a variety of sources, and at variable price points (typically 6 to 8 quid each). You could also use sturdy card as a cheaper alternative to the foam board if you wish (I hand a few battered sheets of foam board lying around in my hobby stash). 

There are a variety of tutorials for model storage solution on the internet; sturdy cardboard boxes with card inserts are popular and cheap, but I prefer the plastic boxes for a few reasons:

• Easy to stack
• Sturdy; they won't get crushed as can happen with cardboard
• Water resistant

I hope this post has given you something to think about, and perhaps inspired you to look at alternative figure storage solutions for yourself. Share any good ideas in the comments below!

If this post has piqued your interest, there are a couple of other box sizes I like to use for specific storage needs, and I can write a follow up post exploring those.