Subject:
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Re: Need alternative storage recommendations
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.storage
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Date:
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Fri, 20 Apr 2001 23:14:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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3173 times
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In lugnet.storage, David Simmons writes:
> Greetings all,
>
> Currently I have eight 11 gallon and six 7 gallon Rubbermaid storage tubs
> filled with my Lego collection. Most of the tubs comprise one color broken
> down in different bags of special pieces. The basic bricks and plates are
> loose on the bottom. My trouble is that almost all the tubs are overflowing
> and I'm thinking that I need to commit to a radical rearrangement of my
> storage system.
>
> Instead of keeping all the colors separated, I think I need to break
> everything down by part and mix the basic and special pieces together by
> color as well. I have a 27" x 50" x 60" closet area to play with. Should I
> stick with these storage tubs and buy a few more or can someone recommend an
> alternative that won't break me financially?
>
> Thanks in advance for your advice.
>
> Dave
Dave,
You'll see a number of discussions about sorting and storage techniques
under the lugnet.storage newsgroup. You should definitely read back through
the wealth of information found here before you commit your hard earned $$$
to any approach. That being said, I'll repeat a small amount of my own
advice from earlier threads...
I have my LEGO collection sorted into Akro Mils storage drawer units. My
favorite is a 23-drawer unit which is available for under $11 apiece at
Wal-Mart. These drawer units are well-suited to LEGO dimensions; the
drawers are about 8 studs wide and over 16 studs deep. The 23-drawer unit
has various size drawers that I have found correspond well to the typical
distribution of LEGO pieces. They come with dividers that can be used to
keep small parts separate in a single drawer, and the units interlock for
better stability when stacked.
There are other manufacturers of drawer units as well, and you may have luck
with those. Just make sure you'll be able to live with a whole wall of them
before you buy a single bin from any supplier. Like all things plastic,
these things seem to breed in captivity!
I use one 23-drawer unit per color to hold the basic bricks and plates, and
then I have additional drawer units each devoted to a general category like
Technic beams, gears & connectors, minifigs & accessories, wheels, overflow
from other bins, etc. I originally started out with six drawer units, and
slowly bought more as my collection grew. I am currently using about 30 of
these drawer units, though only about half of these are truly categorized --
the rest are just jammed with the overflow and are not as organized. I use
blue LEGO tubs stacked underneath my building table to store BURPs and large
volumes of basic brick.
One other consideration for you is portability. If you can build where you
store, then drawer units are the way to go. I can immediately put my hand
on virtually any part that I have in any color that I want without even
getting out of my chair. But if you store everything in a closet and take
it out into another room for building, you might want to get sealed
tackle-box organizers like those made by Plano, and also available at
Wal-Mart. Drawer units must be moved carefully; tip too far, and you'll
have to sort it all over again. Sealed tackle-boxes can be more easily
stacked and moved without mixing or losing pieces. (The disadvantage there
is that, since you're constantly sifting through stacks of bins, it can be
hard to pout your hand on the right bin when you need it. With drawer
units, everything stays put, and you always know where to find each drawer.)
Of course, the more that you compartmentalize your bricks, the more space
your collection will take up. If you have the bottom quarter of an
11-gallon container full of basic brick, you should expect it to take up a
lot more than three gallons of space when properly sorted. So if your
collection already fills your available space the way you store it now, you
might be asking for trouble by trying to sort things any further.
From the sound of things, you must go crazy digging through the bottom of
those large Rubbermaid bins, looking for certain piece among all that
same-color brick. Once you are able to sort your basic brick by size as
well as color, you should find that you are able to build faster, with fewer
distractions. You'll never be left wondering whether you have any more of a
certain piece somewhere in "that big yellow pile." And your LEGO won't get
scratched up from the constant churning.
My last piece of advice is to do this slowly. Buy a few bins and fill them,
then buy more bins as you need them. This spreads the cost of the project
out, and makes sure that you don't buy more bins than you really need. For
a collection the volume of yours, you could easily fill a couple hundred
bucks worth of bins. It may sound like a lot, until you think about how
many thousands of dollars worth of LEGO you are sorting and protecting in
those same bins.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Need alternative storage recommendations
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| (...) I dunno if they're still around, but a Wal-Mart near me was clearning a "gift set" out that included this, the 60 drawer unit, and six "akro-bins" for $8ish. Not a bad deal. (...) I've got a mixed set of Akro-Mils and Plano. The Akro-Mils (...) (24 years ago, 23-Apr-01, to lugnet.storage)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Need alternative storage recommendations
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| Greetings all, Currently I have eight 11 gallon and six 7 gallon Rubbermaid storage tubs filled with my Lego collection. Most of the tubs comprise one color broken down in different bags of special pieces. The basic bricks and plates are loose on (...) (24 years ago, 20-Apr-01, to lugnet.storage)
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