A new 'painting tray'

Those of you who follow me less than regular [workbench photos](http://www.flickr.com/photos/robartes/sets/72057594098116252/), have seen that I put figures on champagne type corks (lots of those around these days), using a bit of blue tack (which is white in Belgium) while painting them. The corks are hefty enough to handle comfortably and keep me from handling the possibly freshly painted figures.

On the [painting station](http://www.nirya.be/snv/ttm/archives/000006.html), the corks are held down using blue tack again. This is a workable system, except that during painting sessions, I set the corks on the table next to the painting station. As that very same table is used by my wife when she is working on her laptop or correcting papers and exams (she teaches chemistry), it tends to wobble unpredictably on occasion. This has predictably led to several of the figure and cork stacks tumbling down to a messy end on the floor. Not ideal.

The solution is, of course simple:



The box is a simple shoebox (albeit of children's shoes), while the dividers are 5mm balsa wood. I had built this box originally to accomodate a type of 'matrix painting' but it only recently dawned on me (I'm slow sometimes) that it can be used to hold the corks and figures for normal painting sessions too.

So there you have it, a [Hyun](http://www.weetoysoldiers.com) style contraption to ease a wargamer's life :).