How much do you keep?

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**Shadelkan**

I've been looking at the work desk and its surroundings, and I realized something;

I never throw out anything.

That is to say, I have never thrown out a sprue, nor a box or instructions, nor even transfers-i'll-never-use, destroyed brushes, empty paint pots, glue containers (yknow, the clear plastic tubes they come in?), empty spray cans, and a bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.

This got me to wonder: am I alone?

**FITZZ**

I have a big box I keep anything I feel may be useful for building terrain with in ( sprues,tubes,etc)
And even when a brush looses it's point I keep it for dry brushing or basing.
And I have a huge bag filled with transfer sheets I'll never use.
But other than that... I pitch everything else.

**jonolikespie**

Your not alone.
A full half of my room (ins't a big room but still, literally HALF) is full of old boxes, sprues, glue bottles, an ass load of the baking soda I was using to make snow and models I haven't bothered packing up properly after gaming with them.

**-Loki-**

I'll throw away boxes, sprues, empty pots and things like that, mainly because I don't scratch build stuff so I never see the use.

**stompydakka**

Yeah, I throw away my used stuff.

**Cerebrium**

I'm the same. I really should get rid of all the sprues of armies I don't play any more.

**Ailaros**

You're definitely not alone. I've learned to throw away certain things, like boxes and transfers (when I don't throw them out, it's just laziness). For some reason I hold onto the old paint pots and some of the old spray cans, though I think those are more like trophies.

The sprues are something that I learned to deal with, rather than repress. Once a sprue gets thin on bitz, I actually have a like 30-part tackle box that I break down the sprues into and then take the empty sprues themselves and have them just sitting in a single big box.

The one that I've gotten the most strange looks about is my flocking box. Namely, it's a box full of rocks that I crush down for the purpose of basing. Yes, it's a box full of rocks. Yes, it must be moved with us. No, it can't join the pile of things we're throwing away instead of moving.

**oadie**

You're definitely not alone. I'm a bit and scrap hoarder and always have been. Before I started with 40K, I was making trips to the recycling center to dumpster-dive in search of scrap metal or raiding my dad's woodworking offcuts.

Once I moved out and lost the basement workshop, I started with 40K and started cluttering up the small hobby room I annexed. Things eventually got to the point where I started throwing away boxes, but that's only because I finally started to reconcile the amount of scratchbuilding I actually do with the amount of materials I could need and the rate at which potential replacements arrive. Just had to tell myself "I've got enough stryrofoam and cardboard for several projects and it's not hard to come by. I can stash away more once I've actually used some of this

." Took moving to a smaller place to give me the kick in the pants I needed, though.

I tend to strip a sprue bare when I get it, cleaning and dividing the pieces all at once. What doesn't get used immediately gets moved to parts containers, so there aren't a bunch of half-sprues laying around. Doesn't mean I don't have a box and supplemental stack of plastic carcasses stripped clean. You know, just in case.

**Eilif**

Definitely not comletely alone, but you do have a problem
I don't go quite so far as extra sprue (I assume you mean sprue with no bits on it) and extra paint cans/pots, but I've been slowly selling off gaming stuff and even boxes of terrain "supplies" and yet the number of bits boxes I have keeps growing!

One thing that does help.
I definitely agree with those who suggest stripping the bits off the sprues and throwing the sprues away. I've got got about 4 thread cases full of figure bits, but it takes up alot less space than it would in sprue form.

At the risk of offering unwanted advice, you need to dejunk. Here's your action plan.
1) Remove all bits from sprues and put in plastic containers or ziplocks
2) Gather all your transfers in one place
3) Throw out all dead brushes, pots and cans
4) Throw out all instructions.
5) Throw out all bitz'less sprue
6) Put the bits and transfers into boxes.
6) Throw out all the rest of the boxes.

**Wyrmalla**

I throw out empty pots and dud brushes eventually, as is the same with transfers (which I never use in the first place) and dud sprues. Bits however... Uh...well you never know what you could make out of all those spare bits, a walker, a few more guardsmen, and its always nice to have the bits there to customise existing minatures...so...uh...yeah...I have.........uh....well a lot of space is taken up with unused pieces and model kits about my room to say the least (all of which is carefully hidden away when the friends come over ^^). ¬¬

**Asherian Command**

Nope. I keep everything.

**Samus_aran115**

Nope. I keep everything too. Broken tools, destroyed bits, ruined exacto blades. Everything. I do throw away empty sprues though. I always keep the boxes though. I've got a tower of battleforce boxes in one corner of the room that goes up like seven feet

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Why are you guys talking about throwing away old paint pots? Plenty of people would be glad to take them off your hands, trust me. I never throw out gw pots, unless they're completely ruined ( like, the lid is ripped in half).

They've come in handy more times than I can count. I urge you to save them

**Eilif**

OK, Paint pots are a good save, if you clean them out.

But exacto blades and Spray paint cans? That's recycling/garbage fodder.

**Formosa**

I keep everything too, when a spray can is empty, i glue the top on, carefully pucture the can and then spray it black, add some glyphs ... ork water tower

**Mentat**

Buy a meat grinder and grind up all your unwanted spues and plastic pieces into rubble for scenery and basing. Thats what I did. The only drawback is that its very tiring to grind up all that sprue.

**OoieGoie**

I have 3 boxes.

1 - new mini's to paint. Full box = don't buy mini's.
2 - glues, spraycans, greenstuff, cutters etc. Its not a huge box so I keep what I need, chuck the rest (empty spray cans. Seriously people, throw those away).
3 - Holds my games in the shed; blood bowl, warhammer quest. My old 2ed 40k box went missing for some reason.

I keep 2 of the boxes in my room, under my bed. You don't need that much stuff unless you convert and build a lot. In which case you need a hobbie room or garage.

Again, throw away your junk people. You will forget you did the next day and feel better for it.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I have a full shelve dedicated to the leftover sprues and a whole box filled with the boxes of the models I bought, as well as instructions enclosed.

**stalkerzero**

I keep all of my boxes and I put the empty/semi-empty sprues back in them afterwards. I want to look back in a year and see it all of the boxes together.

**-Loki-**

Note that when I said I get rid of sprues, I always clean them of bits first. I've got a tackle box specifically for bits, with one tray for Space marine stuff and one for Tyranid stuff, and the bits are usually divided into separate bins based on what they are. One single Carnifex kit practically filled my monstrous creature section of my Tyranid tray. I've got 2 more of those things to buy too...

Throwing away bits? Crazy talk.

**xlightscreen**

I have quiet a bit of boxes stacked around with bits and such, but i found that mounting my empty boxes a nice touch to my room. I don't got all of them up yet. All I do is tac the inside of them to the wall then put the top on.

**SilverMK2**

Unfortunately I had to get rid of my "misc crap that might be useful" boxes when I moved into a smaller flat :(

I still look at various cardboard tubes, bits of cool tech in skips and things and have to force myself to keep on walking

**Grim.Badger**

I don't have much space for stuff in my house so I learnt to cut up sprues a long time ago, and old paint-pots etc get chucked! I even get rid of bits that I'll never use like Rhino radar dishes

This reminds me of a thread on the forum that introduced me to the world of internet forums - a guy on there was sat thinking about what he had in his garage and realised "Wait a minute, I have enough parts to build an entire car!" - so he did! The only reason he didn't build two was because he only had one chassis/shell

**SagesStone**

I keep a few of the sprues, bits and empty paint pots as I can just fill them up again with cheap but decent paint (for white and black) or keep mixed colours in them.

**Rurouni Benshin**

At first, I was a packrat (Hard habit to break, but I'm also Chinese, and we seem to all have this one trait in common). However, in the end, I did manage to throw away empty boxes and clipped off sprues (as in the unusable parts of the sprue kits). I keep all of my bitz in a box though, for in case I decide to use them, or even trade them for other stuff I might need. I used to keep paint pots to make washes out of them when the paint was nearly gone, but I only do this with 2 or 3 colors. Every other color that isn't made into a wash is tossed in the trash. I even used to keep the unused foam that I would tear out of the trays, just in case I ever needed insulation for something, but those eventually got tossed as well.

Now, I've gotten in the habit of keeping things neater and more organized, so I've forced myself to throw away things that I honestly would never need or use anymore. Empty boxes and non-washable paint pots are always tossed, along with unusable sprues. Everything else though is saved.

**I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly**

When I was a kid, I had quite a large DE army (my brother's SM were much larger) and those got lost/thrown out after we moved away. I have in that period also thrown out unwanted bits and even some really old models - an abhorrent waste to recall.

Nowadays, I throw away any empty paintpots (I don't think any brushes have been ruined enough for me to throw away, even when I've replaced them) and glue bottles. I also throw away any boxes I don't need to store things in. Sprues, I clip all the bits off and throw the sprue away. IE if it's part of a model, I keep it. Sprue plastic and boxes, I don't.

Why would you keep empty sprues? They take up far more space than loose bits, are you going to build something out of them? Anything you needed more than 1-2 sets of sprues for is something that should be built out of another material.

**winnertakesall**

I throw away boxes but keep manuals. Sadly I pressured into throwing away sprues on account of me trying to horde everything I buy, no matter what it is