need ideas for structures, loads, etc.

Got to thinking last night - possibly as a result of the article in recent Model Railroader about building an oversize load. I'm also a shooter, and I was thinking about uses for shell cases (centerfire, rimfire and shotgun). They come in all kinds of sizes and I find a LOT of .40 S&W and 9mm cases at the range. I have no use for these as I don't have guns in those calibers and it's really not worth the effort to clean an resell them. From time to time, I have .45, .38 and .357 cases that are not reusable and I also can get a number of shotgun shells - mostly in 12 ga or .410. Seems that the .410 3" shells resemble the oversize load built in the magazine, though shorter, of course. I also have a good supply of empty airgun pellet tins - they are about 2-1/2" in diameter and 3/4" high.
At any rate, ideas about how to utilize these would be appreciated. BTW - I 'do' N scale.
I'm also diabetic and accumulate a steady stream of test strip containers - they're about the size of a 35mm cannister but very heavy duty.
I have utilized the pellet tins and test strip containers to hold small parts - coupler parts, track nails, parts for Atlas track turnout controls, etc.

On 2/20/2011 7:43 AM ray spake thus:
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No ideas here at the moment, unfortunately.
But you might get your own juices flowing by measuring these items with a scale ruler. Start thinking of them not in terms of inches but in N scale feet and inches. Then think of things that might be about that size: tanks, canisters, industrial components, etc. Voila!

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Off topic use for your used strip containers - I do geocaching and they work very well for a water/weather tight container for the variuos tokens I leave at found geocaches.
I use my old medication containers for the various train/track parts. They are transparent and I don't need to use dlabels.