How to protect your miniatures during troop transport
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- How to protect your miniatures when you transport them from one location to another?
This week I discuss the options available when you want to take your miniature armies out on the road, to a show, convention, tournament or even just to a friend's house. The last thing you want is for your miniature works of art to be damaged in transit. So here are a few tips on transporting your troops safely from A to B, and back again.
Good video Lee, really useful boxes for me ,I then use magnetic tape to hold them in place
I've transported quite a few figures to the states in the last two years. Mostly 28mm fantasy and sci-fi but also 6mm WW2 and Renaissance. One or two arms came off those you put together, Northstar Stargrave Miniatures and GW Escher. All the others were fine, as were the associated buildings and scenic items. Most were packed away using bubble wrap and, if possible, put inside a building which was then placed into a plastic container and then into a suitcase.
My son did buy a KR carrycase which I use for my F&IW figures. Just a slight inconvenience with the flags but they seem fine.
Otherwise, it's box files for the 25mm armies, though these I don't transport around. And various small desktop style filing cabinets for various figures depending on the quantity of figures. Yes, it looks a little messy them not being all the same.
Enjoyable update Lee. Good to see you back at it and full of enthusiasm after your recent bereavement. Those hobby books are a great idea. I’m intrigued by the new project tease.
My 6mm metal men are stored for transport just as yours are... RUBs and Warbases MDF trays. I find them robust and breakages are rare. I always take repair materials and replacement brigade bases as well.
But....
I have about a five minute walk to the railway station, an hour's ride to Sheffield and another ten minute walk to the club. The RUBs fit nicely in a large travel bag carried on my shoulder. This hasn't been a problem, everything usually arrives OK. The only time I have any difficulties is when I'm simultaneously taking my custombuilt terrain...it can get cumbersome and a little heavy. The most problematic was the Battle of Gaines Mill a couple of months ago, I had a 3x3 foot table I'd built out of 18mm plywood... Including the hills it got to 54mm and was quite heavy but wrapped in tarpaulin, bungee corded to a rucksack frame I managed to transport it there. So public transport is doable as is man-portage, even of quite large loads. I would guess a bus would do, but for minis only really. I do find that 6mm metal minis are quite robust and as long as you varnish properly, they wear well even if they do escape the slots in the trays. You might have seen the Gaines Mill table... I photobombed quite a few FB pages with it's construction to battle story in multiple episodes.
For my 28mm rank and flank armies they have magnets in the model bases. Theses are then placed on movement trays that are ferrous magnetic sheeting stuck to 2mm mdf rectangles. They are then transported in plastic 40q containers with non-adhesive non-slip kitchen drawer liners held down by some double sided tape. With the low center of gravity and large areas of contact, this method has been incredibly effective for long distance transport by car.
Anything that does not have a movement tray is instead carried in a second container with ferrous magnetic sheeting stuck to the bottom and the magnets in the base prove sufficient. For games with vehicle or other baseless models, I have stored them in a container with the kitchen drawer liner and had no issues.
I will definitely consider tissue packing as an extra layer of defense in the future for all my cases.
Most of my figures have magnetic bases and I store them in Really useful boxes mainly the 11L size.
Foam cases are good for some stuff.
KR Figure foam cases has a 25% sale on till 2nd October.
Always remember my mates turning up with figures just thrown in a shoe box and one of my mate ignoring the this way up on the box and tipping all my figures on their side ..... not too much damage!!
I had to decant most of my figures a long distance a few years back and I invested in several second hand GW cases from ebay. These could be had in reasonable condition for about £15 for the standard size and worked quite well. The figures were mostly unscathed and any minor damage was probably due to my overenthusiastic use of the right foot on the accelerator. KR metal cases are nice. but a bit pricey. I wouldn't fancy transporting figures or the train or bus, especially in a big city.