Scale: Any

Parts: 2 Piece per base - the dowel and maple varnished base

Quality: 8 - Nicely cut and sanded, then varnished, almost no flaws

MSRP: Varies by size, but all are $6.00 USD or less; available from A Fistful of Stamps

Overall Rating: 9.0 - A sweet set of bases for my models

More often than not, most resin garage kits don't come with a display base on which to put your model. As such, you're generally forced to step back to the secondary market or construct your own display base, usually out of some sort of wood and/or scrounged materials. No more, though! Now "A Fistful of Stamps" brings us a variety of sizes of bases on which to display our models!

What You Get

There are six different sized bases, ranging from 1 x 2¾ inches all the way up to 3½ x 4¼ inches and each of the bases includes a wooden dowel on which to display your mdoel. They're made from maple wood. The sizes (in inches) and prices are:

• 1 x 2¾ --- $1.75
• 2 x 2½ --- $1.75
• 1¾ x 4¼ --- $3.50
• 3½ x 3½ --- $4.50
• 2¾ x 4¾ --- $6.00
• 3½ x 4.¼ --- $6.00

I received reviews samples for 5 of these, with all of them being slightly larger than the listed dimensions given on the website. In every case, all of them being anywhere from ¼" to ¾" larger in dimension. I didn't receive one that was as small as 1 x 2¾ inches, although I did get one that came in slightly smaller at 1¾" X 2" and the largest I receved was 5 X 4½ inches. I have been assured the prices will match exactly what is given above and on the website even if the bases are slightly larger than the dimensions given.

These bases are made from ¾" maple wood and come pre-varnished in a pleasing clear which allows you to use as-is or stain them and re-varnish if you prefer something darker. The dowel rods included are dependent upon which size base you receive, w/the largest dowel measuring 3/8" diameter for the large bases, 1/4" for the medium sized bases and3/16" for the smallest bases. I've chosen to use the bases as-is for my growing collection of 1/2500 scale Star Trek ships and only one of the dowels is being used on one of the few which are finished. I've chosen to use wire from coat hangers, cut using a set of Gerber multi-tools and sanded to fit. So, please forgive what you see in the provided images. I don't think it diminishes at all from the quality of the stands.

Assembly and Finish

Very little assembly is required, although you will need a drill with various bit sizes. As already mentioned, I used only one of the wooden dowels that came w/the larger of the ERTL kits, instead choosing to use cut up wire coat hanger for the rest. The dowels are just a bit too large for most of my 1/2500 scale models. I used a drill w/some of the smaller bits found in my two different pin-vise collection of tools and drilled approximate sized holes in the wood. I recommend doing this near a trash can or on top of an area that you don't mind getting a bit dirty with all the wood shavings. I further recommend that you use a drill press, if possible. I had only one problem with a bad angle being used with my bases, but I was as careful as I could to make sure that doesn't happen. Don't want any models at an angle on your base, right?

Once I had my hole drilled for a base, it was generally a simple enough matter to drop in whatever I was using as the stand portion. In the case of the wooden dowel, I had drilled a slightly larger hole than required, so used some Elmer's wood glue applied sparingly to the hole and the dowel slid in. There was a small amount of excess glue, which was easily wiped up with a damp cloth. The wire I used for the smaller models fit almsot perfectly in to the bases, since I'd already used that particular drill bit and knew it wasn't quite a hairs width larger than the wire. I used no glue on the bases to hold the wire in place because of this.

In almost every case, I mounted more than one model to each base. One of the lovely things about 1/2500 scale models is that most of them are small to do this. with the smaller bases, I mounted only two or three, depending on the overall dimensions of the models to be displayed. The medium-sized got at least three and the two large bases are getting multples as well as a large model as the center piece.

Conclusions

These are some awesome bases to have for your collection. Whether you need something for a 1/72 scale aircraft/spacecraft, 1/6 or smaller figures, a 1/144 scale Orion Space Shuttle display or to put your 1/2500 starbase on, these are perfect for your needs. They come in a variety of sizes to suit your needs and are all very affordably priced. You almost can't afford not have some of these!

Many thanks to A Fistfull of Stamps for the review samples.