Do you keep the extras from each set?

ethanjwall

Totally. They end up just getting thrown in my Lego bins at some point, but I always always ALWAYS keep them.

CCC

Why would anyone not keep them?

JudgeChuck

^Indeed... Why would you ever throw spare parts?

In some cases, the extras can be used on the model to add a little something, otherwise, they're always useful as, err, spares!

CCC

If you want some ideas about what people do with them, try this thread from last week http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/430365#Comment_430365

or an older one ...
http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/16787/what-does-everyone-do-with-the-spare-bricks-that-come-in-every-lego-set

or a slightly more general one about spare parts ...
http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/3921/extra-pieces/p1

Sethro3

The title is misleading. It wouldn't make much sense to throw away the extra pieces. You could separate them from each set and give them away to someone I suppose, but why wouldn't you keep them?

mr_benn

Naturally extras are kept as everyone else has said.  But when there's an opportunity to stick them on the set - extra landscaping pieces or flowers for dotting over any sort of set with surrounding ground - they'll go right on the set, TAKE THAT INSTRUCTIONS!

Picopirate

Extras from my sets go in zip lock baggies, I then write the name of the set on the baggie and place it and the instructions back in the box.  If I get rid of the box, I place the baggie and the instructions in a plastic "file storage" box.

Extras from lego dimensions sets are all combined into a single baggie and all the instructions sheets are placed in a second baggie.

Extras from my sons sets get thrown in his parts bin (the rest of the set ends up there anyway) and the instructions go in my plastic "file storage" box.

Jackad7

What is the point of the extras? Are they just parts that are commonly lost by user/malformed by production so they include spares?

Lego_Star

Weight difference. Cheaper to include spares on parts where an unnoticed minor weight difference on the overall set due to a missing part might mean a phonecall to CS. This is why common spares are things like a 1x1 tile, stud, a 1x1 cheese slope for example. They don't weigh much and a missing one with no spare would mean you cannot complete your build. This is not the building experience LEGO want to provide so they include spares of small, lightweight parts.

ryjay

lol, I used to do a funny thing with the extra pieces....see how many of them I could connect together before running out of options, then I'd toss the built sequence into the kids lego trays.  It always seemed like a better option then trying to pick up each little piece one by one as the kids knock them to the floor.

TigerMoth

Lego_Star said:

Weight difference. Cheaper to include spares on parts where an unnoticed minor weight difference on the overall set due to a missing part might mean a phonecall to CS.

That's not how TLG weigh sets.

The smallest components come together in small bags. If one tiny piece is missed, then it's a more significant part of that whole bag - and it's that which is weighed. That bag is then included in a larger bag - which is of course weighed to ensure that the first bag, and other larger pieces, are not missed. And the set as a whole is weighed to make sure that all the bags, not the individual parts, are included

There's a quirky statistic that says that an average set is weighed a dozen times. It's why mistakes are rare.

I imagine a bit of care is taken to ensure that bags don't have very similar weights.

Certain parts will always have at least one spare - if there's a single 1x1 round plate in a particular colour, there'll be a spare. Whilst they're covering themselves over a packing error, it's more likely they're also covering the pieces that get left in the corners of bags or that disappear under the sofa as a bag is opened. If you compare a set's contents with a BrickLink inventory, you'll usually find it agrees on the part counts including the spares.

Picopirate

I started setting aside each unique 1x1 (tile, plate, cheese, etc.) and similarly size pieces (ie claws, antennas, etc.) as I encounter them.  Ever since I started, I have counted exactly one spare for each group of numbered bags. An overall set may contain more spares but each group of bags contains exactly one spare.  Also, items like flowers that must be broken off a mold may contain more spares since the come in groups of 4.  

I actually feel cheated if my count comes up short, but so far i have always found the missing spare hiding under another piece.  LEGO is so precise with their spare count that I think the primary reason for including them is because they are easily misplaced, as @TigerMoth mentioned.  Protection against packing error is probably just a side benefit, and not really a concern to LEGO since their packing process is so precise.

PeteM

My cats like to fuss around me when I'm building and often try to steal various pieces. The larger ones I can get back, but the small ones occasionally disappear completely - I think they're secretly building a UCS Falcon from all my spare pieces somewhere...

CCC

Picopirate said:

I started setting aside each unique 1x1 (tile, plate, cheese, etc.) and similarly size pieces (ie claws, antennas, etc.) as I encounter them.  Ever since I started, I have counted exactly one spare for each group of numbered bags. An overall set may contain more spares but each group of bags contains exactly one spare.  Also, items like flowers that must be broken off a mold may contain more spares since the come in groups of 4.

Not if you have a set with a Bona Fett helmet in, then you get spares of the range finder and the visor in one bag.

Lyichir

CCC said:

Picopirate said:

I started setting aside each unique 1x1 (tile, plate, cheese, etc.) and similarly size pieces (ie claws, antennas, etc.) as I encounter them.  Ever since I started, I have counted exactly one spare for each group of numbered bags. An overall set may contain more spares but each group of bags contains exactly one spare.  Also, items like flowers that must be broken off a mold may contain more spares since the come in groups of 4.

Not if you have a set with a Bona Fett helmet in, then you get spares of the range finder and the visor in one bag.

Pre-packed bags like that are a special case because the parts all come off the same mold and are immediately packaged together, which means that a set that only uses one or two elements from one of those pre-packs will necessarily have to include all the others as extras, whether or not there's an actual place where they go in the build. In the case of that pre-pack, it was originated for Clone Wars sets that would make much more use of many of those parts (often for multiple figs in a single set), but is nowadays mostly used for Mandalorian characters in which the only part that's used is the antenna.

Other similar pre-packed bags include the current Lego City tool assortment (which comes in a bag rather than on a sprue like older tools), Lego Friends hair accessories (including things like bows, combs, hair dryers, and sunglasses), Lego Friends pet accessories (including things like spray bottles and ribbons), Lego Friends floral accessories (including multiple varieties of flowers along with things like ladybugs and butterflies), and Lego Friends kitchen accessories (including things like plates, flatware, and kitchen appliances like mixers)

TigerMoth

Lyichir said:

Other similar pre-packed bags include

...

One of earliest examples is probably the locomotive wheel set used on Emerald Night. A "set" (with one part number) consists of two wheels with flanges and one without, although the bag contains double that.

What's particularly remarkable is that, in Bright Red, the blind wheels have never actually been used in any set, but are included in #7597 simply because of the way they are moulded and packaged.

Brainslugged

I've always assumed the spares are parts most likely to have a defect. Having purchased over $30,000 of sets over the past 5 years (I just inventoried everything in Bricklink!) the ONLY part I've ever has missing was a single sticker. I never believe anyone when they say they have missing pieces, because when it happens to me, I'm either sitting on it, thrown it away in the bag it came in or have made a mistake in following the instructions. Often its a good way to ensure you haven't made a mistake because if you have more than one 1x1 of a certain color left at the end, you've messed up. Sometimes I actually like to remove the spares before I start just for fun (and to further quench my OCD so I can finish a build with zero parts left over).

Two reasons I think the spares are pieces most likely to mess up. One is because you always get a spare aerial piece, which is relatively large, but delicate. They've also started doing that with the dragon wings - 3 to a box rather than 2. The other is that the only other error I've ever had in a set was a malformed 1x1 stud. At first I thought it was new type of piece, but then realized that it just hadn't been made with enough plastic to fill out the stud portion of the part.

MattDawson

I keep the spares from a set in one of the bags the parts come in. Depending on the set, it gets taken out of the box, built, then returned to the box in semi broken down form, along with the instructions and a bag of the spares.

MaffyD

MattDawson said:

I keep the spares from a set in one of the bags the parts come in. Depending on the set, it gets taken out of the box, built, then returned to the box in semi broken down form, along with the instructions and a bag of the spares.

I do almost exactly the same, except I put the instructions in a filing cabinet.