Stormraven transportation creation

[T3mpl@r Crusade]

Hello all,

Yesterday I spent about 7 hours creating a new case for my GK army, since I'm cheap and don't agree with outrageous case prices. I thought I'd share with you how I intend on integrating the stormraven's into my case

I have 2 stormravens, and for those of you that have them, they are really big because of the wings. If you didn't bother trying to magnetize the wings, this is the topic for you. I spent about $20 on the vintage suitcase, and $10-15 on the bulk foam. I already owned the figure foam, but if you needed to aquire those, there is space for 5-6 depending on thickness. price depends on your source. Foamcore sheet cost me $5 (CAD). Overall I spent about $40 CAD, on something that would have otherwise cost me over 100, and could have barely fit both stormravens.

Before I started, I had the smaller GW case for all of my miniatures minus the stormravens. I could fit 30 terminators, 2 rhinos, 2 dreadnoughts, a dreadknight, and had 40 regular slots left over for 2 PA squads and henchmen. The downside was that I had to store the stormravens in just, a box. no padding, grind up together box. horrible. Yesterday I said to hell with that, and began my new case from a vintage suitcase of all things. My attraction to the suitcase was from a few factors.

• WAAY deeper then a normal GW case, with about the same length and width.
  
• cheaper
  
• vintage suitcases are square, so it was much easier to create a liner.
  
• I could buy bulk foam from walmart for cheap for the stormravens, essentially filling half the case.
  
• I already had foam from my GW case that I would transplant into the new one, I pre-measured how they would fit in when I bought the case, and it fit nice enough but would need to be snugged up with spacers.
  

It measures L/W/H: 65.5cm X 39.5cm X 21cm measured on the outside, accommodating for case thickness amounts to .5cm per wall

The next question is how to pack those stormravens together in the most efficient way? I was only going to use half the case, so I wanted to minimize volume for other tanks to fit on the same side. Since I had height on my side, I decided to stack them landing gear to landing gear since I have quite a bit of vertical clearance in the case that would otherwise be wasted. Stacking the this way takes approximately 18-19cm of space, including padding inbetween and padding on either side. A tight fit nonetheless, but protected. I still have space to fit 3 landraiders with magnetized sponsons on their ends in there, so if you worried about consuming an entire case side for just 2 storm ravens, I wouldn't be concerned.

The suitcase itself

Inside. I constructed a liner from .5cm foamcore so I could compartmentalize my case. This was also required due to the case being slightly bigger then the figure foam boards. I didnt want them sliding around, and I figured it would be a good opportunity to add a section for peripherals such as dice, templates, and another container which contains magnetized weapon options. could also contain tools if I wanted. Yes, those black disks are the bottoms of upside down dreadnoughts.

First layer of foam taken off. I cut slots into the second layer of foam on the right for the stands, that I have magnetized for removable bases as well

I cut a foam spacer to prevent the two ravens from rubbing too much

without the storm raven

Bottom layer of foam, with cutouts to hold the upside down raven in place

Cutting all this foam to the right size (with the use of some paper templates I made) to make sure each raven fit snuggly, with proper support for wings and rubbing took FOREVER, especially the spacer. Just trying to think about two ravens fitting together and where I needed to cut was mentally exhausting, since I needed to get it right the first time. From left to right:

Bottom piece: 4.5cm thick

Middle piece: 7cm thick

Top piece: 7cm thick

In front: foam spacer

The foam spacer

Both ravens fitting together:

They will rub together a little bit (bottom of tail fin, bottom of hull, landing gear, surprisingly not touching) but the enamel coating on them should protect against most of the harm, and even if they do chip a bit, it will be in areas no one really looks at. The foam is so snug anyways, that they don't get to move much regardless.

The area enveloped by both together like this is approximately 25cm (front to back) by 25cm (wing tip to wing tip). It's shaped like an uneven octagon. The total height of both together with the spacer is approximately 17cm. A cm on either side puts it at a total of 19cm. like i said, tight fit. If you plan on doing this, you will therefor need at least 19cm of internal vertical clearance.

There's even room for 2 landraiders. sponson, and sponsonless! 3 if I had another, 4 could make it without sponsons if I really thinned out the foam walls a bit

*Edit*

Upon reviewing my topic, I failed to address the idea that maybe some of you don't have access to vintage suitcases, and finding one in the same dimensions will be close to impossible. (I herped, i derped, and vomitted my thoughts onto the page)

The idea is that if you did manage to find any container that is deep enough, you can replicate what i've done for even cheaper. Just look at the foam for an idea for cuts.

Even having a seperate container, such as a box with a rigged handle would cost you next to nothing, but suit the same purpose. The idea though is that I think you might be hard pressed to find a container that would be deep enough, aaand have enough space for individual models. Trying to carry both models and fully assembled storm ravens would take up quite a bit of space, but I hope this idea can aid you in a goal of having an all encompassing container.

Hope you enjoyed!

[Ironfoe]

That may be the best model case I've seen yet that was custom made.