Thank you for the suggestions people! I will be stopping by Daiso, Michaels, and the container store, to try to find different sizes for the toys (buta and vintage @akum6n ). Getting excited!
Months ago, I bought a bunch of risers, but it turned out that the tallest ones were just a little bit too wide to fit three across for my back row. So I also bought some supplies to make my own custom risers: flat acrylic sheets, acrylic knife, heat gun. I've kept putting off the project because I though I would fuck it up. Finally got over it and making use of my holiday time off. Got one successful riser so far! I broke one when cutting because I did not make enough passes with the knife before snapping the cut, but I was able to use that piece to practice bending. I have six more to bend. Worked out a jig with some wood to make the bends the right size. Fingers crossed the rest work out.
looking great! i've been putting off a similar project. i was thinking about using acrylic sheets then use acrylic rods to set height. i was going to use rivet nuts and double threaded stud screws to hold it all together. i'll try to do it in Feb
If anyone is looking for inexpensive acrylic risers, this place has pretty awesome prices. https://www.gemsondisplay.com/clear-acrylic-3-piece-display-shelves-riser-set-pd2120 https://www.gemsondisplay.com/clear-acrylic-3-piece-display-shelves-riser-set-pd1554
@trueadrn I'm not sure what your set up is, but I've done this with Detolfs and it works well. Acrylic rods and custom-cut shelves (abundant on eBay). Rigging them inside the case verges on obnoxious (the installation method and visually—especially if you try using the 3D printed clips that are out there, which I think look not great), and definitely more expensive than risers—but I'm kind of happy with the results!
Results were pretty good! I discovered that if you heat the plastic until it starts bending on its own and gets a little floppy, it's easy to bend and stays hot long enough to make a careful bend. I think the wood setup was important for getting consistent results. I was also surprised how clean the edges were from using the plexi knife to score the cuts and then snap the pieces apart on a table edge. I figured I would still need to do some sanding, but totally unnecessary. I'm case anyone is curious, here is the knife I got and here are the plexiglass sheets.
