For those in this hobby community, the Ikea Detolf Shelves are pretty much a must have. They're ridiculously cheap, they look nice, and they display quite a few model. I've already shown off mine.


There is one downside to these though: they only have four shelves. The traditional solution has been to put some u-bolts on the frame and add glass shelves. That however, is not cheap. When I priced extra glass shelves, it would have been cheaper to just buy a second Detolf, and throw away everything but the shelves! Plus, the u-bolts, being metal, can scratch the glass. For less money, you can use plexiglass shelves, but the u-bolts still run the risk of scratching those.

Olo over at a-case has created a set of plastic shelves that I've been eyeing for a while now and I finally pulled the trigger. They're designed so that the round bolts slide into notches much more elegantly than placing glass on a u-bolt.


They arrived last week and as soon as my kids were in bed, I ran downstairs to install them. I only used two, since the Transformers are quite tall and did not really leave room for all four. Plus, I'm thinking about adding a second Detolf for larger models anyway.


Conceptually, the assembly was easy; you just attach the bolts and hook on the plastic shelves. Practically, however, I would highly recommend disassembling your Detolf. Or at least removing the stuff in the case. I foolishly did neither. And trying to get your hands into the tight spaces in the back to get the bolts on and fully tightened and then checking to see if they were level all while not knocking anything over was quite frustrating. But that's on me, not the product!


Aesthetically, the supplied bolts look much nicer than something you'd pick up at the hardware store. In fact, they look a lot like plenty of other standard issue Ikea hardware (with kids, we use a lot of Ikea furniture since it's cheap and will be destroyed!). A-case states these will hold 25 pounds, but I've not tested anything that heavy. In fact, I'm not sure I could fit 25 pounds of miniatures on the shelves. But they seem to hold everything I've got up there and I only hand tightened the bolts.


I also want to commend A-Case's shipping. I've ordered three or four things from him and it always arrives quickly and safely from Poland. In fact, in at least one instance, my package arrived faster that was sent to me from within the USA on the same date. So, if you have an Ikea Detolf shelf and you want more storage space, I highly recommend picking a set of these up (and at the time of writing, they are on sale!).