Sunday, May 1, 2011

Review
Another paint storage alternative


So I've tried the Paintier carousel-thingie. After the rave-reviews it's gotten on some places on the internetz. I guess people do more drugs than I thought they do, because that thing sucks a bag of weiners (Not Safe For Work). Spin it around and paint bottles fly everywhere. The 80-paints (holds about 120-ish dropper bottles) is also so high that it wobbles a fair amount. So if the bottles don't fall off by spinning, they will fall off if you happen to nudge the table it stands on.

So I sent mine to the garbage can and stored my paints in the Vallejo suitcases you get when you buy complete sets. Still not an optimal solution. It's hard to see the colour of your paints. Since Vallejo also tends to separate fairly quick that sand brown looks like lime green if you look at it from the top.

While looking around for terrain, don't ask me why, I seldom play at home. I stumbled upon Eslo Terrain and their accessories section. And lo and behold, they have a tiered paint storage thingie! Much like the ones you can buy from that laz0r-cutting company I've forgotten the name of. But actually (and to me, this is a good thing) made for dropper bottles and dropper-bottles only!

Now, they clearly state on the site that the kit version (you can buy them pre-assembled too) is not the easiest thing to build. I kinda scoffed at that. I mean... I build 500-part german tanks. I should be able to put together a shelf-system?

It was most likely the most frustrating build -ever-! If you work with wood-working or have tools made for stuff like this. Sure, it might be super easy. For me, not so much.

The shelves slot in to the sides, and in order to get the next level of shelves in their slots, you have to move the sides a little. Making the ones you just put in fall down. So you have to align them to their slots, caaaaarefully put the next level in their slots. And then you have two more sections to do... rinse & repeat.

I ended up using two boxes of cat litter to make sure the sides would't fall off / away and took my time. And still there was a couple of moments when everything fell like a house made of cards and I wanted to burn it all in a fire while laughing like a mad man.



Anyhow, as you can see from the above picture. I got them assembled finally. And my workspace is suddenly less cluttered and I can see the colours of my paints! (Assembly-line painting some Ultrasmurfs as well...)

Now, I would advice against buying them in kit form, if it wasn't for the fact that you can actually buy sections for Citadel style bottles and mix-n-match as much as you like. There is of course pre-assembled ones to buy too... but if you're like me with just a handful of Citadel bottles you might want to go with the kit.

Overall, I'm really pleased. Once the glue had set they're really sturdy, and I can move them away from the table without having stuff fall off (forget doing that with the carousel) if I would need to.


The verdict is... Five angry squigs out of five! Do buy! Great stuff!

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review! After reading about your experience I would likely just go ahead and buy them preassembled and spare myself the frustration. I too hate the spinning paint carousel and threw mine away several years ago.

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  2. Yeah, pre-assembled is the way to go. Even though you'd save some in shipping by ordering the kit it is just not worth the hassle assembling it. :)

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  3. Thanks, I had never heard of this company. Great review.

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  4. Grest review! And judging by the look of the picture, another swede?

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  5. Denniz, very swedish. :)

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  6. Me like, really good stuff!

    you should consider painting them :)

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