Model Railroading > Organizing Small Paint Bottles?

How are you all organizing and storing them so you know what you have? I thought of making me a multi-tiered lazy Suzan or two but then the bottles in behind would be hidden.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/15 13:06 by wabash2800.

Rubbermaid lazy Susans-they even have 2 or three tier models. Hit your second hand stores or yard sales, they are everywhere!  Then get some plastic pipe a bit larger than the bottles. I cut this to make  risers for the second and 3rd tier rows with differing heights. A hole through the pipe at the height you want the bottom to sit at and some wire or plastic rod though those holes-or a dowel placed in them will make the bottles sit up in the pipe at the height you can see them. I glue the pipe to the lazy susan with a bonding cenment. Goo, 3m weather strip or some solvents if the components are plastic should work.

Dave Burman
modeling the modern Twin Cities
Trempealeau, WI 

I place a round adhesive label on the bottle cap (you can find large or small sizes at an office supply store)  I then write the name of the color and place paint bottles alphabetically in a shoe box(es) so they can be seen from above.  Works for me.

Dave:

Would you happen to have a photo you could share with us?

Whatever you come up with paint a swatch of the color on the top and one side of the lid. This will help more than anything when you go looking for a color later.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

Get some small round white stickers from the office supply store, place them on the lids of the paint and paint a color swatch on each one, plus write the name on it. Then place them in those multi-level tray organizer things from the office supply store. Just need to pull out the tray and select the color you want.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Since most of the paint caps are black, I've found that a silver Sharpe felt pen does an excellent job of when you write the abbreviated name of the paint on the top  without having to pick it up to look at the label. With a large plastic rectangular tub you can sort your paints by however you want by using a plastic strip either by length or width of the tub or both. A little more work but a lot cheaper than a Lazy Susan.

I built a vertical rack/shelfs. 

First was using off the shelf dimensional poplar , 1/4" x 3", then stapled and nailed together. 

Second was built using 1/4 plywood that I ran through my table saw, and glued together. 

Mounted them on the wall. 

this will likely fall into that"well, thats not helpful at all" category, but I Was able to purchase a floquil display paint rack from a hobby shop when Floquil quit the paint business for abot $30.  I just removed those paper strips that had the paint swatches on then, flipped them over and re-inserted them.  Then I just wrote what they were on the front.  Also, the top part of the paint rack that held larger bottles is the perfect width for HO scale freightcars.  That section has become my RIP track for cars needing repair.  I have a lot of cars that need repair, as I have a 5 year old that actively participates with me on the layout, and incidents happen.  Nothing he has broken yet has been beyond repair, and he gets to learn the value of model railroading at an early age!
I dont know, Victor, if someone at your local hobby shop would be interested in purchasing a paint rack from a manufacturer on your behalf, but it's an option worth exploring.  



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/15 09:36 by DrLoco.