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Ideas for moving models to new home


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Good afternoon folks. My family and I are purchasing our first house soon. No more rent!! Anyways, I have prob. close to 35 1/48 scale aircraft in display cases. I was wondering if you all could suggest some ways to safely transport them to the new house. I would hate to get there and find a massive pile of broken aircraft.

Thanks for any assistance folks!

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Congratulations on purchasing your new home. A big step up!

I've moved models a few times and the best (least bad) way I've found involves sealable plastic bags and plastic peanuts. It strikes a compromise between the hours long process of making jigs and temporary box for each model and just gently tossing them in a box.

The last two times, including a long cross country move with a commercial mover, I placed each model in it's own sealable plastic bag. Then, I generously layered plastic peanuts and models with enough peanuts in between to completely cover each layer of models. There's always some settling, hence the generous layers of peanuts. Heaviest models on the bottom later.

I usually use boxes deep enough to do five or six layers of models.

Once the boxes are sealed I write "This Side Up" and "Extremely Fragile" all over the boxes.

There's always some breakage, but the parts stay with the models in the individual bags.

YMMV. Good luck.

After the move, you might consider posting your method and results here as folks always seem interested.

Rick in Maine

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My setup. Plastic shoe boxes from the dollar store, a sheet of styrofoam hot glued to the bottom of the box and models retained with wooden cocktail sticks.

Three cross country moves, and the only break was maybe one broken off rocket on a hurricane. So yes, it works, it's cheap, and it's simple

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I've had 2 attempts at this.

1. Taking 2 1/72 models across Australia in a backpack on planes for the WASMEX comp. I built a special little jig in a cardboard box for them - all sides lined with sheets of polystyrene, slots cut in the walls to hold the wingtips firmly, pillars coming up from bottom of box to support underneath. Basically, most of the model was suspended in space, Bulletproof, but extremely time consuming.

2. Moving house (but within the same town), with a 6mth stint in a flat inbetween. Put some models on bottom of standard moving carton, no restraints. Put a cardboard shelf above those sitting on little polystyrene blocks glued to walls of box. Filled that shelf with unrestrained models, Repeat, repeat (4 layers per box, 2 boxes of all my models). But here is the clincher....I moved them myself, on the backseat of my old Hilux, never exceeding about 30kmh :lol: .This method would be an unmitigated disaster if you gave the boxes to a removalist :blink: BTW one shelf collapsed, but damage was minimal though there is one piece I can't find a model for :wacko:

RKic - there is no way your method would survive an Aussie removal company, they'd be scrap because they inevitably turn the box upside-down. But it is a great method if you move them yourself.

Rick In Maine - I can see how that might go OK. Did you leave air in the plastic bags so they formed another layer of protection? That would work well if the wingtips were tightly jammed against the sides of the bag to minimise sliding.

The Swanny method also looks good - but like any method, any decent shock is going to shake some bits off. And as for aerial wires :(

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All of these are great ideas! I have been thinking about using something like pillow stuffing... aka poly-fil to cushion the models in the boxes. Looking at this post also.... http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=255441

I like the idea of notching out the boxes and suspending them from the wings, that might work well also as we are moving roughly 60 miles. All will be secured in a U-Haul or my personal truck.

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My setup. Plastic shoe boxes from the dollar store, a sheet of styrofoam hot glued to the bottom of the box and models retained with wooden cocktail sticks.

Three cross country moves, and the only break was maybe one broken off rocket on a hurricane. So yes, it works, it's cheap, and it's simple

Sheer genius - one of the best tips I have ever gotten from this forum. Thanks for sharing this.

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