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kitnut617 · Last edited by kitnut617 on Tue 21 Aug 2007 22:50 pm; edited 2 times in total

I'm sure that quite a few of us have had to pack and move your model collection for a house move at sometime or other. Years ago when I emigrated to Canada I had a similar problem but the solution then was easier to make as I didn't think the collection I had then would survive the crossing -- so I gave the whole she-bang to the neighbour's kid.

But just recently we (me & the wife) sold our house in Calgary and moved out into the countryside. This time I wasn't going to dump the collection which I have invested in quite a bit over the years, but then I was faced with a problem of how to pack and move the models. The unbuilt kits I have weren't the problem, it was all the built ones (250+) ranging from the smallest I have, a Supermarine SB-6, to the biggest, a B-36. All in 1/72 scale except for a couple of odd scales.

I've seen at model shows how some people pack and move their models, some are packed in styrofoam peanut packing, others individually packed and others just brought in on the back seat of their cars. But my collection was going into storage for a while so I had to come up with something else. Plus the boxes would be moved around a lot as we would have to search for something for the house that was needed but got packed away. I realised that what other people were doing wasn't going to work for what I had in mind. The peanut route is not the best as small bits can get knocked off even when packing the model (I found out quite quickly at the beginning) and finding enough individual boxes for all the models was going to be expensive.

But luckily, whether by design or accident, I found that most aircraft had basically the same dimensions for different time eras, which made it easier to catagorize them by size. And boxes for moving come in certain sizes too so here is what I came up with.

I bought some packages of 3/4" styrene board which were 24"x48" and had six to a pack, and after figuring out which models were the same size I made some strips from the styrene and glued them inside a box. But before I did that I cut thin wedges out of one edge so I could slip wing tips into them. These wedges would vary depending on what aircraft was going to fit into it. In the pics below is a box which I managed to pack 40 models in, you can see how I went about it. This is the bottom layer:

and this is the top layer:

And a box of jets and larger prop planes (sorry about the photo quality)

But I now faced another problem when I came to pack my much larger models. I couldn't find a packing box big enough as the moving companies just don't have them. My biggest built model is my B-36 and after measuring it I found I would need a box about 36" square but where to find one or two this size. Having them custom made was way to expensive but then one day I was over at my brother's place where he was showing off his new TV, all 50 inches of it when I asked him where the box was that it came in. Unfortunately he had already got rid of it but it gave me a line of thought on where to find a big enough box. I called a furniture and appliance outlet (in my case - The Brick) and found that the shipping manager would give me some boxes (after I had explained what I needed the boxes for and found they just throw away all their shipping boxes) he even went as far as to suggest some other box sizes for our other packing needs (wall pictures and such). Anyway after going to the store to see what he had to offer and do some measuring, I found that a box that a washing machine came in would be just what I was looking for.

The next thing to do was to figure out how I was going to pack the models into it and I remembered how my Dad had pack our flying gliders we had built many years ago when we took them out to fly.

This next set of pictures shows how I did it. Using the styrene boards I made frames which I cut profiles of the wings and fuselage into, the bottom ones I glued to some 1/4 inch plywood then to keep the top frame in place, pushed some nails through. I then made another plywood and styrene level until I could fill the box. A good thing to keep in mind with boxes this size is to make sure you can get them out the doors of your house.

This box I used was 30 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 29 inches deep and this is the bottom level:

The next level:

Then the next, here you can see I cut a hole in the plywood so that some parts of the lower level poked through which saved me a bit of space for the other levels:

Here's a side view of the stack of levels:

And the box all taped up. You can get an idea how big the box in by the models on top which still have to be packed:

I was able to go back to the regular moving boxes for the rest of the models but I used the same method to pack and stack them:

Some models proved to be quite a bit different in size so I did pack them individually and others which were in a half built state with no small bits to knock off, I did find a big box which I filled with the peanut packing material for these.

Cheers,

Robert
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kitnut617 · Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2007 18:13 pm Post subject:

Some other types had to be pack differently, helicopters and delta jets particularly.

Fortunately I only have these three helicopters built so far but there's many more in the stash.

Deltas and swing-wings:

When packing the jets I had to make a decision off deliberately breaking off some of the underwing loads like wing tip missile launch rails and other pylons as these didn't allow for the wing to slip into the wedge slots.

Here's a pic of some boxes which have the stash in, packed to the ceiling LOL.

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The Migrant · Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2007 18:27 pm Post subject:

That's pretty amazing Robert, must have taken you hours and hours to plan all that, let alone construct everything. Brilliant. I guess the big question is, did everything survive the move?

kitnut617 · Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2007 18:33 pm Post subject:

I think it took me about a week to pack everything Mike, but I won't find out how successful it is until I unpack them. I did though after each box was taped up, give them a little shake to see if anything moved and I'm happy to report that I couldn't feel anything moving around. Time will tell I guess.
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Ratch · Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2007 21:34 pm Post subject:

What ingenious solutions

There might be a world-wide market

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kitnut617 · Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2007 23:27 pm Post subject:

Azgaron · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 05:42 am Post subject:

No small amount of models to move, and it looks like an excellent solution. I hope I remember this thread if I ever move somewhere.

Azgaron

Richard M · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 06:22 am Post subject:

Ingenius use of materials. May do something similar to ease my storage problems. I've chatted the girls at the local bun shop into giving me some cardboard cake boxes. Trouble is there's quite a bit of dead space, although the boxes do stack neatly. We've got loads of boxes etc kicking around at work, have to see if I can find some suitable ones. Thanks for sharing this with us, fingers crossed everything moves OK.
Best
Rich
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joe · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 09:37 am Post subject:

Amazingly done. Great job!

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Ciarán Galway · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 10:10 am Post subject:

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kitnut617 · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 13:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks everyone, I hope it helps with someone else's move should it ever happen.

Robert
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Shuck · Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2007 20:06 pm Post subject:

I think you should get that idea copyrighted pretty damn quick and make some cash out of that, mate. It looks like you've found a niche in the market.
Very impressive!
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Mossie · White Star Joined: 27 May 2006 Posts: 63

That is genius! I'm now trying to adapt the general principle for my own purposes because I do have this tendency to build Handley Page O/400s and Gothas - big biplanes have their own quirks (rigging, miniscule wing to fuselage contact points etc)

But the massed ranks of single-engined fighters almost look like a display in their own right. I am seriously impressed, sir!

kitnut617 · Posted: Sat 08 Sep 2007 16:31 pm Post subject:

Thanks Simon.
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van883 · Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2007 21:23 pm Post subject:

Great idea for storage-where can I get polystyrene like that in the UK?

Van

farmroad38 · Posted: Mon 10 Sep 2007 22:18 pm Post subject:

kitnut617 · Posted: Tue 11 Sep 2007 12:51 pm Post subject:

Yes that's where I got mine, Home Depot or Rona (here in Canada that is) and it comes in different thicknesses, I used 3/4 mostly but the pink board was 1/2" (I didn't use too much of the pink board as it is quite expensive per sheet.)
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van883 · Posted: Tue 11 Sep 2007 16:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks for letting me know

Van