Brick wear and tear and storage.

Hi

I've noticed that the biggest contributor to brick wear and tear is rummaging. Especially bricks that belong to children. Many new studless plates get damaged quickly if they are left in a 50ltr plastic storage crate with other bricks. Trans windows are especially prone to wear and get a very dull finish if left in a general bucket.

Besides keeping a model together when new, what are other ways that we can use to reduce brick wear.

Here's a couple that I've thought of and now am putting into practice, please add more or elaborate as you see fit.

Sort bricks by colour and condition.
Its takes a very long time ,but I've sorted bricks by colour and now am starting to sort by condition. I see this as important especially when I start to make a serious moc for display rather than for kids playability. If I have enough of a certain brick I can further sort by type of brick within the same colour.
I put all wheels together, all trans together and try to be really careful how I handle them.

I use tackle tray boxes.
The type that you get from Bunnings for screws etc for all the studs, joiners, trans and especially studless plates(sorted by colour), minfig items/weapons. I've seen some beautiful mocs lately on the net and a lot of them have almost flawless plates with little or no scratches.

I keep the storage boxes small 15ltrs
I see rummage as the biggest cause of wear, so by keeping to a small box I rummage less and there is less collision of elements and less scratches. I don't use 50litre unless I have these huge elements.

I dump the box into a long under bed trundle box.
If I need to do some serious rummage for pieces I can throw an old sheet over a under bed roller box and dump the 15 litre box onto the sheet. That way I have more room to sort. When I'm done with that colour I can grab the sheet and tip it back.

Any other ideas ??

I haven't resorted to Michael Jackson white gloves to assemble lego yet. But it would help with finger prints and oil.

I had the same problem with rummaging, so I sorted my LEGO into piece type rather that colour. My biggest problem was with clear windows, they got so scratched that they became all foggy and awful, even in a smaller box. So now I have all my windows lain out on a flat tray, stored on a thin shelf. I might recommend doing this to all the easily-scratchable parts, but it might need a lot of space.

My windows are all stuck together and in a zip lock bag, although I only thought of this after they had all been scratched...
All my minifig parts are sorted and in zip lock bags, as are a few other special parts (wheels etc.) but the bulk of my LEGO is stored within drawers, as seen in this photo:

Very tidy collection you got there. Cpt.

Good idea about a flat tray for trans pieces Cpt Havoc. I think I will implement this.

One of the most challenging things I'm facing personally is keeping it organised and staying organised. My kids just go mad and take bits and pieces for whatever they are doing and obviously never return them or look after them. Especially minifigs. Heads go missing, hats and hairs are all interchange on diffrent bodies, just usual stuff that kids do. I can't not let them play with it, they must think daddy has taken over our toys and doesn't share. Not good when I'm trying to encourage sharing between themselves. ..... Joys of parenthood.