Storing kits in garage or attic - advice needed

I think you will have to store them at my house to be sure they are safe.

The most important thing is to store them in rodent/bug proof containers. I have found that heat only affects my kits if it is directly applied ie on a radiator and as I very rarely heat my house in winter I have had no problems with the cold eather.

Mind you I do live in South Somerset in good old Blighty and it only goes down to about -3 or 4 and only hits the 80's in summer.

The attic will get a hell of a lot hotter than 95 in the summer. The problems I have seen related to attic storage are warping of thin parts and after enough time and temperature cycles the plastic can become embrittled....don't know why but I've seen it.

in article snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 10/8/05 11:40 AM: Living in the frigid north, I have had to resort to storing models in the garage and found no ill effects from prolong cold- it only seems like 11 1/2 months of the year of below freezing cold.

I'm in Albuquerque where it stays in the upper 90's all summer (sometimes higher) and I store mine in the upper reaches of my workshop, basically in an attic if you will as its above the ceiling. Winters not a problem here. No ill affects whatsoever so far. John

That attic can get upwards of 150 degrees! Unless it has aome kind of venting, even then it can get pretty hot. I wouldn't store my kits there! I have mine stored in heavy cardboard boxes in the garage. Mike

My first piece of advice is don't store them in the attic or garage!

But if you have to, use plastic rubbermaid containers to hold the kits, and take all the instructions and decals and store them inside.

KWW

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Mine are in a heated and air conditioned attic so no problems there.If yours isn't.I'd be a bit worried about extremes in temps...maybe even condensation build up causing decal problems?

My basement, where I store my pile of kits, felt a bit damp to me so I picked up a dehumidifier. It cost some money, but it protects the investment. While the dehumidifier ran about $180 or something, I probably have a couple thousand $$ in kits down there.

As for temperature extremes, I live in Seattle. We don't really have them here. Humidity we got!!

--- Tontoni

I have had many kits, stored in my parents' attic, for about 20 years. Being in Central Texas, I imagine it gets to be at least 120 degrees up there in the summer. I have never seen any adverse effects on the plastic. Decal sheets have "aged" of course. And the boxes have been a tad bit attacked by bugs (or mice!!...lol), but the plastic is fine.

Third option: Sell all the kits on Ebay and then you can afford a bigger house

:-)

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

Or you could do what my parents did. They used to have a house that was old enough to have rather high ceilings (2m60?), high enough that they could put in low ceilings and use the space above them for storage.

I stored a few dozen kits for the past three years in TERRIBLE conditions. (Attic of a gragage-- twenty below zero F in winter and 130+ F in summer. Humidity 80%. Just awful.) The result of this "unplanned" experiment? Everything came out fine with the exception of newer Hasegawa decals. They cracked badly. But old kits with old decals came out fine. New Aeromaster decals in sealed bags came out fine. Tamiya fine. Forty-year-old Revell decals were undamaged. Believe it or not. But new (late 90's, 00's) Hasegawa decals self destructed.

So the kits are not as fragile as they may appear. I wouldn't want to do this again, however (i.e.--don't try this at home).

I have been storing 2000+ kits in the garage in heavy cardboard boxes for about eight years now without any problems. Of course central coastal California isn't exactly the Gobi Desert or the North Pole.

We just had a new roof installed and I am about to insulate the whole thing and put in simple plywood flooring, ventilation and lighting. Indoor work during rainy days, outdoor on dry. Also insulating the garage and installing overhead storage.

By the time I finish it all I'll be too old to build models and I'll have to sell them all off.

Tom

but won't you look pretty on a bier of your kits?

"...but won't you look pretty on a bier of your kits?"

I love the smell of burning plastic in the morning!!!

Tom

burning airlines give you so much more.

-brian eno

But you're being so nice to them now!

Bill Banaszak, MFE