A Few Questions

TheSingingLegoman

I am a 17 year old Lego freak without enough space to accommodate my hobby... I try to collect each set of Super Heroes and Star Wars, was well as models like the Sydney Opera House. I have a few questions or asking for some advice you could give me.

1. What do you do with your sets, I am building some sets but I have run out of room to store them all. I cant think of anyway of displaying new sets with my old ones other than dismantling the old ones.

2. What is your most effective way of sorting, and what containers do you use. I have a collection of over 500000 pieces ever since I was three. There is a lot to sort and I can't find the quickest way to do it.

3. Finally, how do you keep your sets from becoming all dusty, my house is filled with dust, and there are layers on my sets.

I am leaving for college in a year but I just can't stand how unorganized everything has become. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Tyler McKenzie

datsunrobbie

Welcome to the forum. 

1. Not much to do but get a bigger display space, or tear down one display to make room for the next. 

2. There are several threads on sorting - short answer, it never ends
Best one - http://news.lugnet.com/storage/?n=707
http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/428946#Comment_428946
http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/335375/#Comment_335375

3. Dust loves LEGO. There are multiple threads about this too, just search for "dust".

tallblocktoo

Great video by Jangbricks on Youtube as well about dust.  Just search jangbricks dust and you will easily find it.  Bottom line you will need to clean it and your space regularly as dust will always exist.   The joys of displaying!  

By the way just make sure your Lego collection is stored safely and no one else decides they need to dispense with it!  Sounds like you have an amazing collection and once you are done college and have some spending power you will soon perhaps have your own space in which to display!  Good luck with it all! 

Bricklover18

Welcome to the forum, the best advice I can give you is buy the sets you actually want, and to save your money, college is expensive.  

Edmic

Storage, no matter how you do it, there's always a better way :(  And it's not about the best system, it's what works best for you, i myself go crazy with tons of drawer cabinets for every little weird shape there could be, so i like to toss things together, since i find it easier among a few other parts than that i find the little drawer i need. Others will hate this.

Displaying, that's fully up to you, i myself would in such circumstance have a changing showcase, and a lot of objects are fun to build several times over the years.

As for dust, plastic loves dust. What works best for me is a quick "daily" swap with one of these, it's a very short job, and you prevent dust from cluttering and attachment. 

catwrangler

The one thing I would add: don't expect Rome to be built in a day. My collection's half the size of yours and even with a number of long sorting sessions while marathoning TV shows, I've still got a long way to go. If everything's mixed up together, I find it helps to do a rough sort into large containers first, because you can always do a more fine-grained approach on the resulting categories later - I started by sorting into:

- bricks (this was anything that was more or less a traditional brick, including curved and sloped ones)
- plates
- minifigs and their accessories, plus animals
- baseplates
- hinges/turntables/parts thereof
- "weird bits" - this was everything that doesn't fit above - trees, wheels, windows, doors, spaceship canopies, weird theme-specific moulded bits

And halfway through that procress I realised I hadn't accounted for Technic parts, so, they're still half in and half out of their own container. My point being, be prepared to be flexible and change your mind about the best way to do it as you're doing it! 

TheSingingLegoman

Thank you so much everyone for all of the fantastic tips!!! I really appreciate it! I think what I first decided to do is keep building all of my unopened sets that have just been sitting around. Once that is done then hopefully I will have cleaned out enough to put those sets up!!! My other question is when you take a set down, how do you store it so that you don't have to completely build it from scratch, as I collect Star Wars I have numerous gunships for example, I don't want them all out, but at the same time I don't want to keep rebuilding them. When it comes to sorting I am super OCD about it, so I am still working out how I want to do it!! But thank you again for the tips!!! By the way I recently got into collecting the collectible minifigs (bad idea I know) but I only need 109 more, one being Mr. Gold... Nonetheless I found these awesome displays on etsy that hang on your wall. I got two of the 8 by 16 ones, for the regular series, and then I also bought special ones for the simpsons, lego movie, and disney series. It looks amazing!!! Also, one more note about the dusting thing... I haven't dusted them as I never really realized it, so they are layered. Any idea on how to fix that???

Thank you again,

Tyler

xwingpilot

Rebuilding is part of the fun isn't it?

77ncaachamps

My only true advice: TELL YOUR PARENTS NOT TO GET RID OF/SELL YOUR SETS!!!

Devastator

Ditto on the above post. Get it in writing if you have to. It will just be one less thing you have to worry about. Remember, on your contract to word it as "direct replacement cost" for any sets lost, sold or whatever. This could allow you to repurchase retired sets without worry.

HugeYellowBrick

Store completed models in tough plastic boxes, with bubble wrap, so they can be moved by other people without harm.

tallblocktoo

Perhaps if you have the time and won't be around your Lego for the foreseeable future now would be the time to commit to thoroughly cleaning it and storing it so that it will be clean and well stored for the when you again have time, money and space to enjoy your Lego once again.  Keep out a set or two to take to college with you just to keep that dream alive!

Storage doesn't have to be expensive and fancy.  At this stage in your life if you don't won't to spend large amounts of money I think plastic bags with a zip lock would be great.  Label them with set number and name and then toss those bags in either large sturdy plastic containers or boxes. 

Edmic

And well if you want a ton of cheap boxes, and like to sort also in smaller ones, then these from IKEA are a very cheap solution.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60149673/