Custom shelves

[Zimbacca]

I've been tempted to make my own custom shelves, but then I just get lazy and decide to use my book shelf instead.

[Antimind]

I used to want custom for everything, now I figured out I only really need custom for certain things. I found some wood cd shelving (adjustable) is perfect for most carts and boxes when you add plexiglass doors (and slight modification) but there really isn't a good way to display handheld carts and some larger game boxes are slightly too wide to put doors on.

I don't think a good solution for handheld carts is out there cause you can either go with something that carts fit in nicely and take up less space or display the labels. Any solution involving visible labels will take up way too much space. Anyone have any ideas? Best I could come up with is to make something out of plexi and wood that would be wall mount and work kinda like a book with flippable "pages" but even then there are a zillion GB/GBC/GBA carts. I think it would take up a whole wall to do something of that sort The setup GameStop has is alright (pull out shelves with cart labels displayed) but that too would take up more room than it's worth.

[Tynstar]

Best way to display them is get games that have the box.  

[Izret101]

Best way to display them is get games that have the box.  

So so true.
But why not look into one of those rotating displays?
Those hold 1-2 hundred at least depending on the size,
I am sure you know what i am talking about.

[Antimind]

Again it's a space issue. I just looked over at the plastic drawers I used to have my handhelds in and got another idea. I could make trays that would fit in there, 3-4 per drawer and have the games in a semi-GameStop fashion. Again though, prolly take up a ton of space in the long run. Right now I don't have space to play with much. I could get stuff out of my dining room and start keeping some games down there but I think it's bad enough I've taken the house over...hehe

[Tynstar]

We added the trim around the unit and started to put the back on.The back is the board next to the shelves.

[video_game_addict]

That looks good Scott!  You used a router to cut those slots?  

I'm going to be building something very similar although I'll have 8" spacing with one at 12" at the top. I'm building mine for my Atari collection mainly, which for the most part are 7.5" tall, although there are a few taller ones. The Sega games are like 8" (9 for 2600 & 4 for 5200) & boxed Boing!, Bounty Bob Strikes Back, & the Epyx titles will end up on the top shelf as well as any other possible games I haven't encountered yet?  I have around 500 boxed Atari games now & climbing.  

I'm planning on building a box at bottom

24" plus 1.5" on MDF so 25.5" tall

then 6 shelves @ 8" tall & very top shelf @ 12" tall, all with 3/4 MDF, 66" tall total,

combined height of 91.5"  

Thinking of trying to squeeze one more 8" shelf out & make the base a little lower, but I'm not sure if I will be able or not.  I'm planning on storing system boxes & larger accessories and the sort on bottom, and some of those are kind of big, so I'm still in thinking mode right now.  I'm going to do a full wall like this, around 12' long. I'll be able store all games & dvds, cds, etc all together.  

10" deep on shelves & 20-24" deep on the base.  I want it deep enough so that I can store my boxes and have room to place figures and stuff in front of them.  But depending on what I make the height of the base, I may need 24" deep if I'm turning my 5200 sys box on side. It's 23" tall so I either need 2' tall or 2' deep. I've also been buying Music Mate cubes for storing loose carts, and I'm pondering over the placement of them now, if I might try and add them into the mix maybe one or two units that have these instead of shelves in the center or something, I'm not sure yet. Still alot of thinking going on at this point.  

[Tynstar]

Yep the groovers are routed.

Hey when you build your shelves make a log so we can see what you are doing. I could have made mine taller but then i wounldn't have been able to reach the top shelf.

Where do you buy you Music Mates at? I would love to get more of those.

[video_game_addict]

Ebay  I've been buying in small lots over the last 3-4 months. I won 5 more last night  I'll sell off the extras & keep the cubes.  

I've not been looking very hard of late, I missed this auction completely.  

Joe Cody at atari2600.com has them listed on his site for $5.99 each. I've been trying to keep the price at or below $5 per cube shipped. You do better on shipping getting them in lots though.

[Tynstar]

I have been buy Joe's place. Talk about some amazing stuff.  

[den68]

I've got a handful of those things. mismatched sizes and colors though.

[Lord Nepenthean]

I have a few myself, but other than as a collector's item, I have no use for them whatsoever.  They just take up way too much space for what they do.  Very impractical storage in my opinion, even if they are nice and VCS-themed.

[Sauza12]

Something that I've always thought about doing is buying a large cabinet and getting some of those Music Mates (or something close to it) and figuring out some way I can fill the cabinet two deep with them, but have something that folds out so I can access the games in back as well.  I don't know if that made any sense to anyone other than me, so I'll say that it works sort of like a toolbox.  When you lift the lid, all of the seperate sections of the tool box are accessible, but when you close the lid, they all get stuffed back into a more compact area.

[Lord Nepenthean]

Yup, that made sense to me.  That could indeed be cool.  They aren't super practical in terms of storage to space ration, but if you doubled them up like that, it could actually be pretty cool looking and you'd be able to store a lot more in one section of wall.  Good thinking.

[video_game_addict]

They're only misshaped sizes if you have different style cases. MusicMate cubes are square, hold 4 carts each. They can be configured in lots of ways, with connectors on all four sides. But there are similar modular cases that connect together, as well as other non-modular style, that are each independent of one another.  

Here's a gameroom that was focused around Atari that made good use of them:
http://home.houston.rr.com/bm/atari/ataricab.html

I'm focusing on Boxed Atari games myself so I'm not looking to have that many cart holders, but I would like something to fit all my homebrews & any Brazilian carts I pick up.   My collection of Music mates now house over 180 loose carts.  I'd like to maybe do something for up to 400 carts.  Gotta keep buying the holders to do so though.