Topic: How I store and display my loose collection...

[Darth More]

The original arrangement allows up to 8 floors. The maximum possible amount of floors in this cabinet is 5 for 3.75" action figures. But the boards that came with it, are too thick. So I could only fill 3 floors properly with action figures.

Therefore I decided to gain the missing two floors by replacing the boards with thinner ones. I also made them 5 mm wider. So I ended up with dimensions of 77 x 7.4 cm and used MDF of 4 mm thickness.


Since this was only 1/3 of the original thickness I needed to support the boards with angle skirting. And after I had already paid 27€ per cabinet, I wanted to continue going low budget on their modification. Don't get me wrong. I mean 27€ instead of 60€ was a steal of a deal for such a cabinet. But I didn't want to end up paying the same amount just on modifying it. I went to different stores and got the materials I needed:

- white paint (750 ml): 5.50€ which was an awesome deal
- 3 rests MDF which the hardware store sold for 1€ each. I got 12 floors out of them. That's enough to modify 3 cabinets.
- 3 angle skirtings of 1 m for 2.50€ each. I cut them into 10 pieces each, which are enough for almost 4 of the 7 cabinets I got.

I had all the other materials in my inventory. But the amount of time (and nerves) that I put into this project generated additional costs that made it almost not worth the effort. At least I made it myself and similar cabinets costs a hell lot more.








Since I had already assembled the first one, I decided to leave it with 8 floors, only with thinner boards. It provides more than enough space for all my minis now:




For the 3.75"/10 cm figures I drilled new holes 12.4 cm away from the floor above, so that figures up to 12 cm can be displayed. That included Wookies, Droidekas and Mr Grievous.



Two of those 4" angles were super-glued 10" apart from each other. That was enough for a sufficient stabilization.

[Tamer]

Wow, this look great. Thanks for showing us how you did all this.

Off to share on the front pages.

[Darth More]

Thanks for the frontpage. Even though this project ate up a lot of free time, it was still worth it. I learned a lot! Especially about painting MDF with a foam roller. I had to paint the boards twice to fully cover the wood and to achieve a nice and shiny surface. It's also worth comparing prices. As you all know one can spend a lot of bucks just for paint. I wanted to complete this project so badly since I got those cabinets last year. I'm tempted to display my TVC figures in the first one, but I think I'll just go with the TCW collection, which I learned to appreciate over the past years. The good news is that I have 3 more cabinets ready for assembly.
Eventually I want to stack them all on top of each other, 3 on each side and my other shelf in between.



This one has 6 floors for each Episode that I consider canon.

And the depth of this cabinet allows to display some smaller dioramas and even vehicles.


I didn't go with glas to replace the floors of the latest cabinets because having glass boards cut individually costs a fortune here in Germany. I might try it myself some day. How do you display your collection? Feel free to share some pictures down below or on the forum's facebook page.

[Tamer]

Are these new display cabinets? If so I need to get these on the front page.

As for me. I have dabled in building my own display area in my man cave that is now a disaster area of boxed up action figures. I put up all those images when I was building it, but photobucket was the main phota app site and we know what happened with them daggone it!

[Darth More]

No, they're not new. Just part of the plan. Some day I want to arrange all the displaying furniture together. Got most of the shelves used or on discount. I know what you mean. It's been the same boxed art with my collection as well over the past decade. But I want to change it step by step and put it back on display, again.

I started with the The Clone Wars collection, which I learned to appreciate over the past years. As mentioned above I got all these as bycatch, never collected this line actively. And I got all these as part of other lots of realistic style figures - except for about a dozen, which I bought separately.
It was so much fun to get them out of the baggies again, that I couldn't stop 'til 4 am last night. I listened to some Star Wars music until I almost fell asleep standing.

Hope you enjoy this setup of 142 figures with some space left to fill the gaps. On the top shelf are the first 27 of 2008. Going down are some figures of the following lines of TCW red line, Shadows Of The Dark Side/Dark Skies and Movie Heroes including Exclusive figures. And on the bottom are some Battle Packs and 2-Packs.

I used the most amazing archives of galacticfigures and rebelscum for reference.

[Darth More]

I went to a store for furniture and home goods yesterday. Höffner is similar to Macey's and they had 40% off in all departments on almost their entire assortment for Black Week.
So I got a few things I needed and had on my wish list for quite some time.

And I found these cabinets here:








These were on sale for 599.-€ each instead of 1.215.-€. And I could easily see myself displaying my Endor figure collection in there or even my fossils! An AT-ST and some Ewoks would look awesome in there! What you think?

[Tamer]

Wow, those are sweet. I like them a lot!

[Darth More]

Me too! I used the time over the Holidays to extend my shelf-space. When I stood in front of my shelves, I had the spontaneos idea and re-arranged my book. You can find my trips to a couple DIY stores here.

I won about 18 feet of shelf-space with a depth of 1 foot. The two boards cost 42€. And here's the result:

[Darth More]

Just a quick update on one of my white cabinets. It could be an inch deeper, but the height is perfect to fit 3 floors of 6 inch figures. I want to make space in my other cabinet and prepare one or two like this for my Black Series figures. I might fill one with my favorites and sell all others that don't fit in there.
I hand drilled four holes at 17 cm heigt. Don't have a power drill, so it took about 10 minutes for each hole and got me a blister, but it worked well. Here's the result:











Again, could have a little bit more depth, but it works fine for 6 inch figures and perfect for 3.75" figures. Just needs a little modification. Here's the link to Amazon to get yours:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=glass+cabinet+white&crid=C6TO6YLJYZN4&sprefix=glasscabinet+white%2Caps%2C191&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

[Starchaser]

Nice! That works really well - and it doesn't hurt to have tools

[Darth More]

Thank you, Sir. You're absolutely right. I borrowed this 5 mm drill from my dad, but didn't take the power drill for a reason. I bought 12 of these cabinets used and already assembled for 20€ each.
If I use the power drill I could drill 2 of 4 holes within seconds. But since the back wall is already assembled, the power drill would be too thick. This was an experiment for all other assembled cabinets I have and it was successful. Precise hand drilling led to an even third floor. More on Sunday.

Thanks for coming by!

[Tamer]

Nice. I have a little attachment that goes into the end of my drill like a flexible tube for those tight spaces to still be able to drill. Something like this:

https://amzn.to/3oSjr2I

[Darth More]

Nice. I have a little attachment that goes into the end of my drill like a flexible tube for those tight spaces to still be able to drill. Something like this:

https://amzn.to/3oSjr2I

Hey, that's a neat add-on! Thanks for the link, Shawn! Back home I can use my gimlet, but I might buy this set for wider diameters in the future.

[Starchaser]

Nice. I have a little attachment that goes into the end of my drill like a flexible tube for those tight spaces to still be able to drill. Something like this:

https://amzn.to/3oSjr2I

Hey, that's a neat add-on! Thanks for the link, Shawn! Back home I can use my gimlet, but I might buy this set for wider diameters in the future.

I haven't heard someone mention a gimlet in ages! That's too fun.

[Tamer]

It is crazy how sometimes the bulk of the drill will interfere with where you want to drill and this takes care of a lot of those troubles. I used this to great effect when I was making cabinets for my man cave, ah back when it was not a cluttered mess.