u/FollowsClose

I’m looking for a better storage solution for my minifigure head collection. Right now, I’m stacking them on plates, but it’s getting tedious.

Ideally, I’d love to find or print custom 3D trays that fit inside standard Sterilite drawers so I can lay all the heads out flat and see every face at a glance.

Has anyone found or designed an STL for something like this? Open to STL links, alternative storage ideas, or photos of your own setups!

Just added a new feature to my collection tracker that plots Acquisition Year vs. Release Year, and as a vintage collector, seeing the data visualization brings the nostalgia.

A few fun observations from plotting my whole collection:

• The "Dark Age" Gap: My mid-90s to mid-2000s gap is shaded out plain as day. Darn Nintendo!
• Recent Vintage Hunting: Look at those clusters dropping far below the line in recent years! I've been actively pulling vintage sets into the collection lately; rescuing classic themes and filling in childhood gaps.
• Bulk Lot Breakdown: The second chart isolates a single bulk lot haul using the "Set" view. You can see individual acquisitions plotted by exact date, sized by piece count, and color-coded by age. Highlights from this lot include picking up Medieval Market Village (acquired 15 years after its 2009 release) and my most vintage find in the batch, Camouflaged Outpost (a 1987 classic picked up 36 years post-release)!

How do you all track the age-gap in your collection?

My favorite part of this hobby is digging through unsorted bulk lots and restoring classic sets back to their former glory, especially the Castle and Space sets I had as a kid.

To make that process less chaotic, I built a tool on Set Shelf called Part In Buddy to help check off missing pieces while sorting, and I would love some feedback from fellow builders here.

I wanted something fast and lightweight to use on a phone or laptop while sitting in front of a bin. A few features so far:

• One tap tracking: Tap a part image or use +/- buttons to mark pieces as you find them.
• Minifig breakdown: Split minifigs into individual components (torsos, legs, headgear) when hunting through accessory bins.
• Filtering & sorting: Filter by color, part name, or part number to isolate specific elements.
• Bulk actions: Quickly fill remaining counts or reset numbers in one click.

I am using Classic Space 6809 (XT-5 and Droid) in the screenshots as an example, but it works across all themes.

For anyone who rebuilds vintage sets from loose parts:

1. What would make this more useful for your actual sorting/building workflow?
2. Is there a specific view or filter option you always wish you had when hunting down missing pieces?

Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions!

https://setshelf.com/my-shelf/part-ins

I’ve been deep in the weeds building out the Color Explorer, and I'm really happy with how it’s shaping up for set analytics around color. It’s been a great exercise in visualizing complex data.

As I continue refining the feature I’m looking to polish the user experience. If you’re into data-driven cataloging, I’d appreciate your take:

• Does this layout effectively show what you expect to see realated to colors?
• From an interface design perspective, what’s one thing you’d change to make these pages more enjoyable/meanignfull?

Always looking to refine the tools I - thanks for the input.

#LEGO #DataViz #SetShelf #AFOL #SoftwareEngineering

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