Hong Kong Breaks Away: The Cathay Problem Pt2

Back in May I attempted to resolve the issue that my growing Cathay Pacific Group fleet was causing inside the existing cabinets of my collection. The resolution I came up with at the time was distinctly short term but nonetheless, even though I should have known it wasn't going to have much longevity about it, it was an important stepping stone towards a more permanent solution as described here.

For my earlier May attempt at finding a new space for the Cathay fleet see:

• The Cathay Pacific Problem

My resolution from May did have the benefit of removing the Cathay group models out of the main cabinets, but had two major drawbacks:

• It was really hard to access the models
  
• I already had filled the new glass case

The new cabinet sits at the end of the row of waist height benchtop cabinets

It wasn't long until new purchases were causing stress on the new space. The answer took several months to find. Firstly a reorganisation of the airport zone space created room to move the previous white set of drawers (full of model boxes) elsewhere, freeing up space for a new glass cabinet. Now I just needed to find a suitable cabinet, which is easier said than done in New Zealand, when you don't want to spend much.

The 'cabinate' as advertised

Using New Zealand's equivalent of eBay (called Trademe) I had already missed out on a couple of cabinets when a bit of luck came my way. I happened across a listing in an odd category (office furniture) and with the title of cabinate (not cabinet). This made it a listing most people no doubt missed. Even better the start price was really low. Someone had already asked for the measurements and it fitted my space well. They then asked the seller to put a buy now on it but when he did they didn't follow up quickly enough and I snuck in and bought it for the insanely low price of $60 (that's NZD not USD).

I have to say I felt a little guilty but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Fortunately the new glass cabinet was wider than a Deltof but still able to fit into the boot of my car for the ride home.

As you can see as often is the case the tower came with only 3 shelves, too few for a good fitment of 1:400 scale models. As it turns out the shelf positions are fixed so I needed to find a way to increase storage capacity.

The cabinet is also a little dark so I used white card to make the backboard lighter. As I had described in the second part of my August Hangar Update I had acquired a selection of glass shelving, way more than I needed for that update.

This included a selection of small square shelves, which just happenned to fit the new cabinet. Now I just needed a way to fix them. The solution was simple - I went to Kmart and bought some glass tumblers. Using those I was able to support an extra shelf on the existing shelves providing 6.5 shelves in total plus the base layer.

With that much new space I was able to do more than just move the Cathay group fleet out, I could move all the Hong Kong airlines out into the new cabinet.

Note also I've used a melamine panel on the side of the cabinet to give it some protection from child and dog related hazards!

In place but prior to addition of finishing touches

The next step was to make some attractive backing images for the fleets stored within. Pleasingly, at least for now, each shelf can sustain a single airline or livery era. Moving top to bottom here is the current layout. Top is the current Cathay livery:

Next down we have the Brushwing colours of the 1990s and 2000s:

Then we have the earlier Cathay schemes and Air Hong Kong:

Next down is Dragonair (and it'll be joined by Cathay Dragon too):

Beneath the Cathay Group is the Hong Kong HNA pair of Hong Kong Airlines and HK Express:

Lastly there are some Chinese cargo airlines:

As you can see one of the best bits of the new layout is there is plenty of scope for expansion, at least for a while. Plus the glass display case from May has been repurposed to house models in transition, mainly those I've reviewed for The Diecast Flier, which either don't fit in with the rest of the collection or are up for sale.

Despite the attempted embargo on the sale of Cathay group models by Cathay Pacific themselves there are probably more Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon models being made than ever so I'm glad I have a space for them from now on. Plus despite it being the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong just recently it somehow seems more fitting to have the Hong Kong models separate to the mainland Chinese ones.