Display Cabinets

I guess like many of you out there, we want to display the fruits of our labours. This can simply be through pictures on a blog such as this, or perhaps something more physical - a display cabinet perhaps?

Top half of second cabinet

For a number of years I've had a selection of miniatures displayed in a couple of IKEA Detolf glass cabinets.

Bottom half of second cabinet

These are good value for money, simple designs, that fit in anywhere and look quite classy in my opinion.

The only complaint I have is that they only have four shelves (if you include the base) so there's a lot of wasted space.

Zulu Wars 1879 - Warlord Figures on a perspex shelf

Recently I was browsing the Just Lasered website, having been pointed in their direction by the Doctorphalynx blogspot. Whilst most of their products are laser cut mdf buildings and custom cut foam inserts for Really Useful Boxes, they also supply additional shelves for Detolf cabinets!

Heavier display on original glass shelf

These are cut from 3mm  glass look perspex (with a pleasing green tinge) and are designed to rest on four cable clamps (also provided) at whatever height you wish in your cabinet.

At £9 or so each I thought this was just what I'd been looking for and ordered 5 straight away.

Two HOTT armies on a new perspex shelf

They arrived within the week, well packaged, and ready to go. Fitting the clamps is a little fiddly, but not impossible (an 8mm socket on a screwdriver type handle is a real boon here) and I had all 5 in place within 30 minutes. I fitted them equidistant between the existing glass shelves.

Then the fun started....what to display and what not to display!

Bolt Action 28mm Armies - PSC Russians and some Artisan metal minatures

Being 3mm perspex the shelves are prone to bending if you display heavier items. To counter this Just Lasered include some 10mm deep strips of the same perspex that you can attach across the underside of the shelves to re-inforce them. I tried this on one shelf, attaching two strips with a a drop of superglue every 50mm or so along the edge.

15mm mdf Pegasus Bridge and gliders by Troll Trader & Warbases

This worked better than I expected it to. In place you hardly notice the strips and the shelf is quite solid, even with a heavy load.

Re-inforced shelf in first cabinet with Perry & Victrix minatures - spot the perspex strips!!

All in all I'm very pleased with these additional shelves. My cabinets are now max'd out (although there's still room for three more additional shelves if I changed the displays significantly) and miniatures I've had hidden away in boxes for years can now be displayed for all my visitors to see!!