Storage of ceramic caps of beer bottles
Over the years I
tried differnt ways of storing ceramic beer bottle caps and saw other
solutions from fellow collectors. The subsequent examples are intended
as suggestions to other collectors. Of course I'm alwas interested in
further ideas how a ceramic bottle caps collection could be stored or
displayed.
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Fig.
1 
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 Fig. 2 |
My collection of
ceramic bottle caps is stored in an old wooden architeict's cabinent
(Fig. 1). The cabinent contains 24 very flat drawers (inside hight
about 2.5 cm), so that there fit manny ceramic caps in a very small
space. Inside the drawers I put inserts made from a special type of
foamed polystyrene. Into these inserts I punched manny small holes,
each of which accomodates exactly the lower tip of a ceramic cap (Fig.
2). This way 360 ceramic caps fit into one drawer resulting space for a
total of 8640 ceramic cap. However this cabinet is only 100 cm high, 75
cm wide and 65 cm deep.
Selection of the right type of material for the inserts is important.
The left hand panel above (Fig. 2) shows different materials I tested
for these inserts.
- Regular foamed polystyrene (white, top of Fig. 2) is not
very well suited, as it is difficult to punch out holes and as the
material tends to release manny small polystyrene particles.
- Special foamed polystyrene (Fig. 2 middle, light green),
which is sold in do-it-yourself stores as impact sound insulation to be
placed below laminate.
- Finally I tested a sponge-like material which normally is
used to fix flowers in flower arrangements (Fig. 2, lower right-hand
side, olive-green). Thes material is suitable to easy punch holes into
it and it also easily adjustes to the exact shape of cermaic bottle
caps. Unfortunately this material is not very durable and in addition
releases a powdery unpleasant dust.
In summary I used and recommend the impact sound insulation material. |
Fig.
3 
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Double
trading ceramic caps I store, sorted by alphabet, in small cabinets
with manny small drawers, similar to pharmacist's cabinets or cabinets
used in libraries for storage of index cards. The cabinets I use were
bought several years ago at Ikea, but no longer are solde by them (Fig.
3). This type of small cabinets can be piled up to form a lager cabinet.
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Fig. 4
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Initially I
build special shaped insert / holders for storage of my collection of
ceramic cap (Fig. 4). I used plywood into which I drilled holes with 22
mm diameter using a specialized driller. At the bottom and at the top
edge of these plates I glued small wooden bars. At the bottom I glued a
board of plywood without holes in order to stabilize the construction.
These frames can easily be stacked without the risk of damaging the
ceramic caps. However building such frames is quite laborious and I
stopped building such frames.
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Fig. 5 
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 Fig. 6 |
A
very economic way of storage of ceramic caps is as follows: take
corrugted cardbord, cut crossing incisions into the cardboard using a
cardboard cutter and insert the bottom tips of the ceramic caps into
the incisions of the cardboard. (Fig. 5 and 6).
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Fig. 7  |
 Fig. 8
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There
are numerous further options, how to build from different materials
ceramic bottle caps storing aids. One example is to first drill
into wooden boards holes of the size of the bottom tip of ceramic caps
and subsequently, using a bigger drill, drill at the same positions
holes of the upper diameter of ceramic bottle caps into the wood. The
bigger hole is drilled only about 2/3 deep of the thickness of the
wooden boards (Fig. 7).
A very simple way of storing ceramic bottle caps is the use of inserts
of foamed polystyrene used for packaging of ketchup tubes (Fig. 8).
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Fig. 9 
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Another
idea for storing ceramic bottle caps and to fix them in an ordered way
is the use of rubber mats with punched out holes. The holes should be a
little smaller than the diameter of the lower tip of the ceramic caps.
The lower tips of the ceramic caps easily can be inserted into the
flexible rubber mats (Fig. 9).
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Fig. 10
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 Fig. 11
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If
you plan to fix cerami cap on a wooden board in order to hand them onto
a wall for presentaion purposes (Fig 10), you can prepare them as
follows. First drill holes into the board, which holes have a diameter
slightly bigger than the diameter of the tip of the ceramic caps. Put a
small piece of cork into these holes (Fig. 11) and squeeze in the
tips of the ceramic caps. The flexible cork will fix the ceramic caps
and it is not neccessary to glue the ceramic caps.
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Fig. 12
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In order to
dust-safe present a single ceramic bottle cap you can fix it in
transparent plastic boxes using play dough (Fig. 12).
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Fig. 13
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Finally
ceramic bottle caps can be fixed on mounting rails normally used for
electricity cables, by use of the rubber seal of the ceramic caps. Such
mounting rails can be purchased in do-it-yourself stores. The mountig
rails can be fixed to wooden boards which can be hang up onto a wall.
This way large numbers of ceramic caps can be presented on a wall
without the need to glue the ceramic caps to the wooden board.
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