Completed Kit Box's, Old Sprue & Parts

Boxes normally end up in the trash, though I try to keep them as long as can. Eventually the wife come through and starts complaining about empty boxes so out they go. I think about cuting them down and saving the tops but never have done that....yet.

Sprue is cut up and most gets tossed but I keep some to make things with.

Extra parts get thrown into a box to keep just in case I need them in the future.

I hope to come somewhere in between saving all the good parts and stuff I could use someday and not being a packrat all at the same time!

• Cool idea about using the box art there, Gerald, though I wouldn't want the ones that use photos of the completed kit. Real photos or painted pictures would be ok though. Too bad I threw out old boxes.

Spare parts are stripped from the sprues, except for small parts and tossed int a box. I have no idea what half of them are, and somehow it seems like good parts end up in the spares. It must be elves or brownies that move my stuff around and put them there.

Sprues are cut up and some of that has gone into the building of work stands. They are great for susspending a kit above the table when decaling or adding small parts. 

For now I display my builds,still have room,I imagine older builds,ones that I am not so happy with will eventually be replaced.

Boxes:box art is cool,but i have no interest in collecting or displaying them,so they go out with the recycling.

Old parts: definitly save,they always come in handy.

Borg R3-MC0 wrote:

I also have all the old kits I have build as a kid.

I used to have mine up till nearly 8 years ago, when a house fire wiped them out. While not directly hit by the heat, the smoke damage to the paint and plastic was non recoverable (same with box's spares parts and spare decals), thankfully insurance covered it. Until last week I had not completed a model since then.

Thank Goodness for these forums

Andrew

Konigwolf13 wrote:

What do you do with them? Do you just toss errr, recycle the box's? Collect or toss the sprue? How big's your unused spare part collection? Just completed my first kit in years, about to finish a few more so it got me wondering... Andrew

The boxes get tossed nowadays, I use to collect them but I didn't do anything with them, so out they went!

Sprue also gets tossed unless it a special diameter or shape. 

Unused parts get collected in a box, old instructions in another box and decals in a third (seperated by paper and with some bags of silica against any moisture)

I also have all the old kits I have build as a kid. The first ten/fifteen years of my modelling career I never painted them. This means I have a huge (100+) stash of unpainted models. I use them for "what if builds".

I keep all left over parts because you never know.  I went and picked up some PLANO plastic compartment boxes.  one is just for German AFV and related, one for US and two small ones for the figures and equipment and yet a sperate one for AC parts (bombs, missles).  I have them marked so when I need it I know which one to grab.

Bob

HawkeyeHobbies wrote:

tigerman wrote: Now that my son is over 18, I'm about to take over his room and convert it into my mancave. I do hope he has moved out first. There are those whose children move out and return just when you figure that they won't. Fortunately for me, mine stayed gone. They only come tovisit with the grandkids.

Actually, he lives with my ex. I'll be keeping his bed for him and other guests. In addition, I'lll be moving my bookcase and getting a new desk. 

I threw out all of the boxes from my model-building youth, when I hit 18 and went off to college.  I wish I had kept them, though.

Some box lids I cut apart, with a vague idea of framing them some day, boxes like those from Revell's warship kits.  But those all went into the trash, too.

I think that I saved many, if not all of the instruction sheets, and all of the copies of Shep Paine's "Tips on Building Dioramas" that came with my kits, but I can't find them now, so they may be lost.  All of my copies of the newsletter from Revell's Master Modeler Club are gone, too, I think.

This time around, I'm saving the boxes, putting instruction sheets in a binder, and putting spare parts and decals in ziploc bags, so I can keep them in some kind of organization.  Sprues are cut into their longest lengths, and go in a box, with all of the small pieces in another.

Not really as organized as it sounds, it still means I'm a pack rat.  Maybe I turn up on that "Hoarders" show someday...

tigerman wrote:

Now that my son is over 18, I'm about to take over his room and convert it into my mancave.

I do hope he has moved out first. There are those whose children move out and return just when you figure that they won't. Fortunately for me, mine stayed gone. They only come tovisit with the grandkids.

Parts...KEEP 'EM I have a Plethora of Parts.

As far as boxes, well that is up to you. I like to cut the pictures out and use them for decor in my manspace.