Styrene Organizer - Version 2.0

Like most of you, I have suddenly found my nights and weekends free to do more modeling. As a result, my caboose finished up quickly and I am well on my way on my two scratchbuilt flatcars. Since I have been trying to avoid going out whenever possible, I have used Ebay to order everything from kit parts to styrene supplies to paint. It isn't always the most cost effective but it works. After recently receiving some tiny diameter brass, stainless steel, and styrene rods (used for making brake rigging and grab irons), my older styrene storage rack suddenly became overloaded. I had to build a bigger one (hopefully not like the Rich Young Fool described in Luke 12:16-21 of the Bible). 

My previous one was a compromise of sorts. It was built out of small dimensional lumber strips and dowels that I purchased at the store and it worked fine. It was also plenty strong, but bulky. However, because I didn't glue the wood dividers perfectly parallel some spaces were a little over size and some were undersize. For tiny strips of styrene it didn't matter, but for larger 1/4" square stock it was impossible to get everything in. And, because I had made the racks so narrow (5.5") I needed four of them to hold a sizable inventory. And they were just asking to be knocked over. I didn't want to go out for more wood and had no other material on hand except a huge amount of 0.040" styrene sheet. So, that is what I used. I was concerned that the thin 0.040" dividers might buckle and crack from the weight of the second shelf bearing on it but decided to try it anyway.

After cutting some pieces to the size of the base (12" x 15") and a lot more into strips that were 1/4" and 1/2" tall, I began the task of laying everything out and gluing it all together with MEK. How long did it take? Well, I managed to play three James Bond movies in the background during the project which I couldn't really watch but I could listen to (the car chase scenes are especially anti-climatic when you can't see what is going on). I took breaks every now and then to help clear my head because the measuring and cutting was tedious. Once it was all glued together, I went around and added trim pieces along the edges and in the gaps. I wasn't necessary but I was having fun and had nothing better to do.

Unlike the first design which used gravity to hold the shelves together, I added a wrap-around edge on the bottom shelf and this let the second shelf drop right in with plenty of clearance. Some more additional cross-strips along the top will prevent the styrene strips from bouncing out of the slots, but there is plenty of room to get a finger or pencil into them should I need to coax some pieces out. I did use some 0.060" I had on hand for some of the dividers, and a little bit of 1/4" square styrene rod to frame the edges and the inner divider for extra strength. All told, I used about $10 of styrene to build this and had I been willing to laminate 0.040" strips together more I could have probably gotten away with just using them, cutting the price in half.

I then noticed I was out of blue spray paint I wanted to use so I ordered some online. Since it was going to take several days to arrive, I got antsy and built a third rack that fits on top of the other two. I figure if I am in the mood to build them I might as well do it now instead of sometime in the future when I actually need them. If they sit half empty, who cares?

Then, everything received a bath in soapy water and when they all were dry I painted them with the same Rustoleum Satin Ink Blue paint as my old racks. I really like the blue color, and the white styrene really pops out visually. For fun, I also took some scrap cedar wood and 1"x4" stock and threw together a quick sheet styrene holder. It is essentially a large napkin holder. Excessive size styrene sheets are still on another shelf, but once they are cut down smaller they can migrate here. I still need to figure out something for my metal wire, but that shouldn't be too tough. I might glue small lengths of PVC pipe underneath the racks to serve as legs and holders, or perhaps I will build another shelf.