"Strip & Profile" storage (Lumsdonia Tip 301)

[TimberSurf]

"Strip & Profile" storage (Lumsdonia Tip 301)
Keep all your brass/plastic tube, profiles, bar, wood sticks, etc. neat tidy and readily accessible with this easy to construct storage system
Source tubes by collecting toilet rolls, kitchen wrap/foil rolls, post tubes or other.
Wrap several in thin card and glue with PVA to make longer tubes.
Glue rows together on a flat surface. Glue first row to ply base, then subsiquent shorter rows to first row and base starting with the tallest. For further robustness, add plywood sides to form a box.
Start small and keep adding additional tubes depending the desired length (make the base larger than required to allow for future expansion)

Tube Tidy Parts.jpg (39.8 KiB) Viewed 549 times

Tube Tidy Finished empty.jpg (49.85 KiB) Viewed 549 times

Tube Tidy Finished full.jpg (49.77 KiB) Viewed 549 times

Also could be useful "Desk Tidy" for tools, etc.

Alternative:- uPVC 1 1/4” (32mm) or 1 1/4” (39mm) or 21.5mm waste pipe, 20mm and 25mm plastic conduit [As shown in pics, on Perspex base] use plastic solvent weld (plumbers waste pipe glue) to glue together

[Bufferstop]

Plumbers Solvent Weld, "Plastiweld or similar" Use it with care or you will be floating against the ceiling. Nice design but only really if you have plumbers to hand.
Another thought, we call them plumbers because of the work they use to do with lead (Latin Plumbum}, shouldn't we have a new name for them in this lead free century.

[TimberSurf]

Obviously if made from cardboard rolls, then any wood glue (PVA) will do.
If made from plastic, pop into your local "pipeist merchants", tins of solvent weld can be as little as £3, (£2.89 in Wickes), 2m of 32mm waste pipe £1.29! etc
For £5 to £10, you could have a robust plastic version that is huge.

To determine what lengths you need and how many tubes, rattle up a temporary version with cardboard tubes and hold together with rubber bands!

[Dave]

Lumsdonia Tip 301

What are the first 300 tips

[TimberSurf]

LoL
I knew someone would pull me up on that!

I have had a few tips on my web site for years, but recently have reduced time working away from home and therefor had more time to do modelling. As a function of this, I started actually doing something, instead of just designing, lurking on here, and purchasing a huge hoard of railway models. Thus, more recently been buying electronics, building materials, and building tools. This has lead to sorting out a workbench, storage systems, consumables, etc. As most others, I don't have an unlimited budget, I can afford to get stuff I need, but economise by building things that I think I can make cheaper or better. Being a design engineer, just seems natural to me, if I cant find a DIY alternative on the net (to crib, design better and build), I just design my own!
So a number of things have been created, others I just know/do and I thought I would share.
I will document each idea/tip on my website (and on here) and have divided them into categories, with a page for each and for my own benefit (and others to cross reference to) I have started to number them. 100 series is for 'scenery', 200, is for 'electrical' and 300 series is for 'Storage'.

Once I get a dozen documented for each series, I will update the website and post it on the Forum

[TimberSurf]

Here are a few (as yet unnumbered) for reference in the mean time

Layout Sounds
Wagon marking
Hot melt glue solvent
Foam track bed
Alternate smoke
Ballast storage
Timed cycle lighting