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After literally years of searching for something worthy of displaying my rc collection I have finally found something I thought was cool. Although my collection is fairly large I will simply rotate the trucks/cars from time to time to keep it fresh. I wanted something that gave maximum viewing exposure yet kept safe from dust and my cats. It's a little pricey at $249 Canadian plus tax but it fits my needs very well. It's the Fabrikor from Ikea. Blackfoot and Clodbuster are original, untouched since the 80's. Lunch Box is a re-re. Thought I would share if anyone else was looking for display case.

In true Mad Ax style, here's a new project thread posted before any of my other projects are complete. So what is this? Well, it's what it sounds like. It's a touring car shelf for my studio / mancave. I've had a set of shelves up for a while, made from a bunch of old Ikea shelving units that I didn't need after I moved house. The original shelf units (Flarke, I believe) had five shelves, each big enough for one touring car. Not quite long enough for two Minis and not quite wide enough for buggies. Dismantled, they've served their purpose well for displaying whatever I happen to own but for a long time I've wanted a better, neater solution. And I didn't want to pay for it! Here is my existing shelf: The shelves are held to the wall by shop-style bracketry that's now available from B&Q. I used the angle brackets to give a better display for the cars, but as you can see, it requires the use of that high-grip rubbery stuff for car boot floors to stop everything from sliding off. (In the last two years, there hasn't been a single car-fall accident from the sloping shelves.) I was looking to make the lower shelf a little deeper, so I could display my touring cars end-on. A solution to this problem came in the form of an old studio desk which I gleefully attacked with a circular saw. My plan to stop the cars from running over the end was to attach a piece of wooden batton along the leading edge. Here you can see the sturdy new shelf in place: In this early pic I'm using welding clamps to hold the baton in roughly the right place while I test it. Unfortunately, it didn't work: the baton is just about small enough to fit under the shells, but not big enough to stop the wheels rolling over it. I figured I'd think about that later - but in the meantime, I wanted to crack on and finish the shelf. I figured it would look best if the shelf had the appearance of tarmac, so I found a sticky-back plastic on Ebay that looks just right. It's labelled 'concrete' and you can get it here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171254468094?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT My shelf was just about 10mm longer than the width of a single sheet, so I needed something to fill up that space. Baton to the rescue! I figured that, painted right, the baton would look like a kerb stone to my tarmac road, and would give something to anchor the cars against, once I'd figured out how to do that. Sticky plastic ordered, baton fixed and painted, here's what I ended up with: The ripples you can see at the back are where it just slightly overlaps the shelf. This actually works well because it fills a void left by the shelf being on an angle. At first the plastic had a few bubbles in it but overnight they all disappeared. The result is awesome. So, how to hold the cars in place? I thought about several options but couldn't make them work for me. Some required too much work, some seemed unreliable. Some just didn't work. What I came up with is this: All made from leftover scraps of plasticard and plastic parts - I knew there was a reason I kept it all! The plastic foot rests against the baton and the raised leg hits the lower suspension arm, stopping the car from rolling forwards. My three display tourers fit nicely at one end of the shelf: And there's plenty of room for more cars!! So, what future plans, besides getting more touring cars? Well, I have enough offcut from the old desk to make another shelf to go above, big enough for M-chassis cars. I've got a small fleet of Minis that I'd love to display properly, so that's my next thing. I'd also like to add a backdrop behind the shelves that matches the theme - more to come later on that front. Finally, I fancy the idea of some scale roadsigns or even some streetlights, so the cars can be lit up when I'm sitting in my mancave at night. Actually, there's more - the space underneath would make an awesome scale workshop to host my half-finished projects. But that's for another day...