Pimp my DETOLF: Dust-Proofed!

As many of us I do own a "DETOLF" display cabinet by IKEA to show off and store my painted miniatures and those, which took a break due to other projects I prefer to finish first. It's one of the cheaper but still good looking ways to present our miniatures. 

A while ago Raffa from Massive Voodoo shared his way of adding a proper lighting and a nice but cheap background. I followed his advice and bought a pair of additional lights. What a boost! Im able to see more then just painted miniatures. They started to show me their details in all their greatness :) I've pimped my display cabinet and am very proud of this little change. 

But there's one point... I don't like about this cabinet. It's collecting dust. Pretty fast and a lot of that!

To be honest, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to clean my display regular. It's more like: "Wtf! Why's there so much dust all over again?!". What's following then is an extensive, time consuming process to get rid of the dust from the display boards as of the miniatures. It's also some kind of risky as I have to move every single project out of the cabinet. 

As one of my brushbrothers asked me how he can get his new cabinet dust proofed i started to search for an answer. I never really thought about how to achieve this. But there's a simple solution that guarantees a 99.9% dust proofed cabinet! And best of all: It just costs me around 10€ including pp!

So, what's this cheap solution I am talking about? 

It's a brush seal with adhesive backing (measuring 4.8mm base x 4mm high) attached all around the single door that prevents dust from getting inside of the display cabinet.

Dust-Proofing your display cabinet

Materials needed:

- paper tissue / Kleenex 

- glass cleaner / windex

- about 6m brush seal with self adhesive backing (4.8x4mm) ((I've got mine here))

- a duster 

- a pair of gloves

- a screwdriver 

- a scissor

Step 1 - Empty it

...but be careful! Handle your miniatures with care and try to avoid to drop them on the floor or to bump them on the side panels! Store them safe while you're going on with the next steps. 

Here's how it looks 2 weeks after I carefully cleaned it:

You can easily see where I've placed my miniatures. Very annoying. Damn this dust!

No accidents happened? Great, lets carry on then. If not... Well, it seems not to be your best day. Keep your head up, you're probably not the only one. It might have been even more worse!

Step 2 - The Cleansing

After you've removed every single miniature and stored it safely you can start removing dust and any fingerprints. Make it shiny again! This is where the gloves come in. Wear them to avoid adding new fingerprints while cleaning everything. 

Don't forget to clean the edges (very important!) and outer glasses too.

Step 3 - Sealing-Preparation

As its easier to work with a lot of space it's necessary to remove the door from the display cabinet. 

There are just 4 screws we have to loosen. Be careful and fixate the door while doing that with the other hand. It might fall off immediately.

Step 4 - The Sealing

Now it's time to add the brush seal all around the door. It's quiet easy as it comes with a self adhesive backing. Just work precise here as any misplaced part will be visible later. 

The gaps between the door and the side panels are everything else then even. So it might be necessary to attach the brush seal on the door AND on the side panels to prevent dust from getting in there. 

I guess you can see where's the gap after adding the brush seal. That's the upper part.

And here's the lower part. Later we will adjust the door.

If you've attached the brush seal all around its time to bring back the door into its place. Adjust it by moving it some millimeters if necessary. 

At this time your DETOLF should look like this:

Step 5 - Re-Organisation

Now it's time to get all your beloved projects back in place.

Again: Be careful to not bump your miniatures on any furnitures. 

This is how my display cabinet is looking after this complete roll up:

The black clothing on top was used to get better photos for you. I'll definitely add something like this permanently. I'm also considering of replacing the back with a mirror. But I'm not sure about that right now. 

Do you own a DETOLF too and pimped it in any way? Tell us in the comments. I'd like to gather as much ideas as possible to sum up in another article so everyone can get the most out of his display cabinet. Who knows, some day IKEA might change their DETOLF to our likes...

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