For several months now, since last year’s Christchurch earthquake and the tales of damage from my fellow wargamers down there, I have been meaning to earthquake-proof the miniatures cabinets in my study (along with some other items of furniture round the house).
Because we live not far from Wellington, which is built on fault-lines and waiting for ‘The Big One’ (much more so than Christchurch ever was), it is quite likely that in their lifetime my little lead fellows will get a few jolts. As can be seen from the photos on this posting and the (rather old) photo below, my miniatures are housed in cabinets that are susceptible to toppling in any decent shake.
I’m the world’s worst handyman, and my wife’s eyes bulge with fear any time I ever say I’m going to do anything that involves finding studs in the walls. She recalls with horror one time I put up a picture on a wall, and took about 20 holes to find one that struck wood. So I didn’t tell her about my plans today, having waited for a day when she and the kids are away in another city for the night!
Friends told me I would be OK if I bought a stud-finder. Yeah, right! The stud-finder gave me tons of false readings and so resulted in the same old polka-dotting of extra holes (and lots of swearing). Fortunately these rogue holes will all be hidden behind the furniture in question, and won’t be seen until the day we move out of here!
I used L-shaped brackets that had to be screwed to the walls, and then to the furniture. Some items of furniture were quite tricky to attach, as I had to minimise any holes in visible surfaces. This sometimes meant coming up with some mind-bending answers. But I eventually got every cabinet secured, and so hopefully my ‘handiwork’ will stand up to the next big shake.
My only remaining worry is that now that the cabinets are fastened rigidly to the walls, the glass shelves inside them will break instead, squashing the little guys standing beneath. Or that we’ll have a flood before we have an earthquake, and I won’t be able to find a screwdriver in time to unattach the furniture!!
