Bricklinking 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon

AvengerDr

What kind of technology would you employ? While -err - pursuing the interests of scientific knowledge, I asked a friend of mine at the university to use the lab's 3D printer to "make" a lego brick but the results are nowhere near the quality of the real ones.

Pitfall69

Did you check out my link?

Pitfall69

I used 3D printers a lot when I was an engineer, but they were mostly for fabricating prototypes and were not meant to be used in an application.

LegoFanTexas

The 3D printer in the link is not going to be useful for making Lego parts.

However, 3D printers do exist that can. Audiovox makes buttons for their in-car DVD players for BMW using 3D printers... Just as one example, but those machines cost a lot of money.

It costs Audiovox about 93 cents each to make each button, compared to about 30 cents each for injection molding, but with the molding they have a $4,000 mold they have to make, where there is no start up cost to the 3D printer, so they can make 500 of them, change the design, make 500 more, change it again, no retooling costs.

I don't know if I'd use 3D printing, or injection molding... If I make 1,000 of them and it costs me $5,000 to have the mold made, then my cost per part is $5 for the mold, if the cost to make the part is another $5 given the very low production run, then there is my $10 per part cost, and they could probably be made very close to the Lego part. Given that this is boat rigging and not a brick that needs clutch power, I think it might work.

BrickDancer

Ready for the secret @AvengerDr & @parkerwilson ? #4495 has 7 of them.

mressin

@LegoFanTexas That's an interesting thought. I would assume that it is quite difficult and requires a number of test runs to find the correct plastic mixture regarding colour and flexibility/rigidity?

Pitfall69

Apparently it is not that much of a secret seeing that Ebay prices for this set is through the roof.

BrickDancer

~$14.50 on Bricklink as a new set and I picked up 6 for myself.

Pitfall69

Oh good. Bricklink is the way to go it seems.

LegoFanTexas

@LegoFanTexas That's an interesting thought. I would assume that it is quite difficult and requires a number of test runs to find the correct plastic mixture regarding colour and flexibility/rigidity?

You could well be right, my personal experience in plastics is limited. My father actually used to be in the business, about 30 years ago, he owned a patent on a product that was made via plastic mold injection, the cost to have the molds made back then was very expensive, but the cost has dropped a lot due to CAD/CAM...

He is retired now, but the company here in Dallas that actually made the plastic for him is still in business, I could find out if I really wanted to.

I was more just floating the idea to see if there was any interest, if someone else wanted to run with it, that would be fine, I don't think I'd get rich off the idea in any case. :)

mressin

@LegoFanTexas On second thought, producers such as brickarms are already doing something that is in priniciple similar, i.e. producing Lego parts to Lego tolerances at acceptable prices, right? So maybe it's really not that difficult.

Renny

It's a cool idea but I think a lot of folks who are investing the kind of money required to take on such a project would most likely want it to be as authentic as possible and will either pony up the cash for the pieces, buy a used one or just not bother. I've talked to quite a few folks who refuse to purchase anything other than the yellow technic pieces or light blue gray levers even if most of the parts don't show in the final product. Some friends even balk at the use of replica stickers. I think you would sell a decent amount but I don't think it's a very profitable venue in the long run.

parkerwilson

Ready for the secret @AvengerDr & @parkerwilson ? #4495 has 7 of them.

Yes considered this set but at the going price your still looking at $2 each

7708 and 7711 are options if they can be found cheap in quantities with 3 each

BrickDancer

^But you can sell the incomplete or substituted set for $10 to recoup most of the cost. Wouldn't be hard actually as a quick lot on Ebay. After everything on the pessimistic side, I'm still looking at ~$1 per lever or better (caveat that it does not including labor or time involved).

Agree with you 100% @Renny. I gave it a lot of thought on cutting corners and subbing, but it always felt cheap or wrong to me in a way. And being OCD with good memory doesn't help that, so every time I look at the MF I would imagine saying something like:

'What a gorgeous ship, so beautiful in every way and worth all the time, effort and crazy money to Bricklink it. Well, except for those damn old gray levers, black engine covers and blurry plaque sticker. But other than that it's perfect.'

And I would be lying to myself each and every time. I don't like to be 90% prideful because then it's just foolish false pride.

LegoFanTexas

I think you would sell a decent amount but I don't think it's a very profitable venue in the long run.

I would not be doing it to make tons of money, it would be more a giving back to the community type thing. The only desire is to recover the cost of capital and cover the time investment of funds, not to get rich at it.

If I could help 500 people Bricklink UCS Falcon, that would make 500 people really happy. :)

The printed dish, I'm not sure what to do about, after all the printing is more than just a molded part, but perhaps that can be done as well.

The blue arches in Cafe Corner and Market Street I think would be harder, because those are actual bricks with clutch power, and getting their color right will be harder than the gray I think.

I still haven't seen anyone post saying, "yes, I'd buy 2 of those for $49 delivered".

Renny

@LegoFanTexas, thank you for the clarification. That's nice of you to think of doing something like that. I guess I have been reading the Lego set evaluation thread too long when I naturally commented on the financial aspects of your endeavor;)

mressin

^^ I like the general idea of trying to provide what Lego can't or won't make. As for me, I'm not really interested in bricklinking a UCS MF. I'd be interested in windscreens or canopies in colours that Lego doesn't provide, e.g. Windscreen Curved, Bubble Canopy or Half Cylinder in trans-yellow.
But I assume that getting it transparent would be even more difficult than getting a non-transparent brick right. So, my plans for classic space will remain a dream for now (after I learned that joining Brickish wouldn't help either... ;).

monkeyhanger

How hard would it be to print a 10 x 10 inverted dish with the right markings? It would seem quite easy when you see all the custom print torso minifigs, maybe the fact the surface isn't flat for the dish makes it difficult?

effalcon

All this talk about custom making peices, at the end of the day you still have a substituted part.
painting a black rigging light bley seems like a more logical choice.

Diggydoes

Hmm after sorting my (1 1/2 yr.ago) bricklink'd MF together i'm really wondering if it makes more sense to sell the expensive pieces (like dish,rigging,levers) and keep the rest of the 5000pcs.! When i've bought the (now)expensive pieces they were affordable so i would be a little profit! Or what ya'll think? Shall i rather sell it as "opened/complete"?

monkeyhanger

Diggydoes:You'll probably still get more complete than selling the expensive parts. A dish can be had for upwards of £50, £100 for the pair of masts and £1 each for the levers? The yellow technic angles are still available from TLG for about £0.40 each and pretty much everything else is pretty common. Sell the rare stuff and you've only made about £300. How much does a complete bricklinked MF (excluding stand with sticker - assuming you don't have one) go for? £600 - 800?

monkeyhanger

effalcon said:

All this talk about custom making peices, at the end of the day you still have a substituted part.
painting a black rigging light bley seems like a more logical choice.

Whats the big difference between printing the otherwise correct piece and painting black rigging bley?

BrickDancer

Not that much really but either way both are going to end up 'wrong'. However spray painting one piece is easier or 'more logical' than going the more laborious route of custom printing something like the radar dish.

monkeyhanger

I think custom printing a dish (if it can be done accurately) will probably look more right than spray painting the masts, after all, Lego printed the dish themselves for the original part. Paint the masting and you've got to worry about colour match, rub off, altering thickness for clutch on the clips etc.

BrickDancer

^My first concern would be cracking paint on a flexible object, since the mast riggings are bent in a curve to create the grid covering the engine. So for most purists, this is not a good avenue. But cost-wise it saves $150-$250 on bricklinking the set for a 5-10 minute effort at minimal cost.

Laser printing has come a long way and I think there are customizers out there that are skilled enough to make it happen on the radar dish. But it requires a minimum number of dishes to make it worthwhile for the start-up effort.

Custom molding is even more difficult, but might work for something simple like the mast riggings. Issue would be to color match the ABS to Light Bley of course, which is not easy as even matching the sheen of black parts to Lego's exact black is difficult.

Only way I see it working this way, is if a customizer person or group puts together a package of the custom radar dish, riggings, and levers for retail sale. Packaged at $200 - $250 would make it viable and after 100 or 200 are sold, should become profitable. Go the extra step by laser printing the Instructions with professional spiral binding and you have an added $150 - $200 value. Would you buy this said package at $400?

LegoFanTexas

^ You could produce the parts, but not the manual, the manual is covered by copyright and will be for another 93 years. :)

I don't think you'd want to laser print the dish, getting toner to stick to the plastic would be rather hard, wet ink would work much better.

I don't think you'd sell very many for $250, but I don't think you'd have to charge that much either, the parts just don't cost that much to make. It is the initial setup and design that is expensive.

The levers would be the hard part, that is two parts connected together to work as one, then it sticks onto a stud, so it needs clutch power.

Is there a demand for 200 more bricklinked Falcons? Is there enough parts on Bricklink to do that? Sure, for most of the parts, there is plenty, but at some point you start to make other parts rare if too many people start doing this.

BrickDancer

^I think *correct me if I'm wrong* that all other parts in the UCS MF are current pieces being manufactured by TLG today. If so, I don't expect any issues with other parts becoming rarer or more expensive than normal (for the time being).

The lever is indeed 2 parts, but only the lever handle itself needs to be made since the base is a currently made piece and widely available.

You're probably right on the laser versus wet ink. But wouldn't it be prone to smearing?

And agree on the Instructions being out of bounds by Copyright restrictions.

But I do think the demand of Bricklinked Falcons is more than 200, so there is enough interest to make a buck or two somewhere, somehow, while positively serving both parties involved.

mountebank

It's not wise to assume that the only relevant Intellectual Property Rights will be in the manual. Even with patents and registered designs (US design patents) out of the way, the design cousin of literary copyright, unregistered design right, may subsist. Depending on jurisdiction of course because of different laws.

LegoFanTexas

BrickDancer said:

^I think *correct me if I'm wrong* that all other parts in the UCS MF are current pieces being manufactured by TLG today. If so, I don't expect any issues with other parts becoming rarer or more expensive than normal (for the time being).

You might well be right, I haven't looked that closely.

But there is a difference between TLG making the parts and having them all for sale on Bricklink in large enough numbers to have 200 people Bricklink the set.

A better plan might be to buy the various parts required, make the few that are not available, and "create" 200 copies of the set to be sold.

But what could you sell them for? $1,000? Is there enough demand at that price point to move 200 copies of the set? And what would be the profit margin?

BrickDancer said:

You're probably right on the laser versus wet ink. But wouldn't it be prone to smearing?

No, you're thinking of cheap consumer desktop printers, which generally suck. :)

Billboards are often printed with inkjet technology, and they sit out in the rain. (they put the canvas on a huge drum, then rotate it while a printhead slowly prints the whole thing in a spiral pattern) Inkjet technology exists that would do the job perfectly.

Pitfall69

One would have to decide whether they are a purist and want every exact part or not. When I buy something expensive there is always a thought in my head that asks me "If I needed to sell this for any reason, could I?" Like when I buy a car, I pick a color and options that would not only appeal to me, but someone else that may want my car after I'm ready for a new one. What I'm trying to say is that I think there are more people that would want a accurate model than one with substituted or modified parts.

monkeyhanger

Pitfall: I think like that when buying a car, seeing as depreciation is by far the highest cost and I do things to mitigate those losses, like buying a car with lower depreciation (here in the UK it's best to go for something German and popular in the main). For my UCS MF though, I feel loathed to pay £60 for a dish whereby a tiny bit of print on it makes up £59 of the £60 cost. I'm still pondering whether to buy everything correct or whether to use some mis-coloured bricks on the internals that won't be seen. If it's purely for myself it seems daft to buy bricks in the "right" colour that won't be seen, but thinking about potentially selling off my Lego collection in the future, you'd want the right stuff 100%. Plus I have the added confusion of deciding how far in the structural build I want to stop using teh wrong coloured bricks, just in case they can be seen.

Pitfall69

I hear ya. That's what I'm trying to say. If there is no chance of ever selling your MF, then yeah, I can see why you wouldn't pay the extra money for the exact pieces.

hoyatables

Ok, so I have now fully collected the remaining parts needed based on Peeron and assembled my Falcon. I have a couple of leftovers - some may just be because I got impatient and substituted in parts from other sets while waiting for Bricklink shipments and didn't account for the change. But in one case, I am completely stymied:

Peeron says there are supposed to be 10 2x2 light bley domes. For the life of me, I can only find a place for 9. The discrepancy could be that the instructions show a "finished" image for the loading ramp that suggests it has a dome (like the sister piece on the other side) but then as you build the dome is never actually used because of the working ramp feature.

Anyone else find this and can confirm my craziness?

I am still waiting for couple of cones and umbrella stands but it is otherwise done. Contemplating getting a sticker -- I don't mind a repro, whats the best way to go about that?

LegoFanTexas

hoyatables said:

I am still waiting for couple of cones and umbrella stands but it is otherwise done. Contemplating getting a sticker -- I don't mind a repro, whats the best way to go about that?

There is a guy in the UK who does that. He wouldn't like his info posted of course, but I bought a 10019 sticker from him and it was perfect.

I'll ask about 10179 stickers, if I can get 10 of them, I'd be happy to offer them at cost here if allowed.

monkeyhanger

I have seen a repro sticker sheet on ebay uk for £10 recently, how much do you reckon you could get a bulk buy for LFT? Not sure whether the quality will match up to the ones you sampled on your 10019.

I have about 800 common parts left to get. About half of those will come from TLG as they're cheaper than bricklink. A few i'm having trouble finding on bricklink - the telephone pieces "167" don't register as a searchable part, i'm sure they'll be amongst the cheaper parts at Lego.

jadeirene

^ They're still in production, and plenty of them on BrickLink, but they're much cheaper to buy direct from LEGO. I think they're around $0.35 each.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPG.asp?P=6190&colorID=85

LegoFanTexas

^^ That is the one... :) That is the same guy who did my 10019 sheet (I have an extra of that BTW, if someone needs one).

Well packed, was placed between two sheets of paperboard to protect it, arrived quickly and in perfect condition, for what that is worth.

monkeyhanger

jadeirene: do you know the bricklink compatible id for the telephone part? rebrickable lists it as "167" but bricklink doesn't seem to like the id code

BrickDancer

^^hey Tex, for the #10019 sticker are the lines gray or silver?

LegoFanTexas

BrickDancer said:

^^hey Tex, for the #10019 sticker are the lines gray or silver?

??? I'm not sure what lines you mean... Can you be more specific?

BrickDancer

I've seen it listed for other 10019 reproduction stickers like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lego-UCS-Starwars-10019-Rebel-Blockade-Runner-sticker-sheet-/110932283246?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item19d4144f6e

jadeirene

@monkeyhanger the BrickLink ID is 6190.
http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=2851&colorID=85

monkeyhanger

I have approx 1100 parts left to get across approx 60 different parts, and it seems that I have hit a bricklink brick wall. No single seller (flttered for UK and EU) seems to have enough parts to make it economically viable to order those part that are significantly cheaper than TLG, as postage makes such a huge proportion of the overall order. I thought i'd be able to get more parts via bricklink than that.

The majority of my remaining parts are the small DBG cones, the trans blue tiles, the other 2x2 tiles in all colours, the long technic pins and the the 16 stud technic beams. Some bricklink prices seem mad - especially the small wing-wedges. I have tried to avoid US bricklinkers as shipping cost is large and import duty adds up.

monkeyhanger

Well I took the plunge and placed some USA orders, being careful to keep them under $25 each (the Duty threshold at which UK customs gets interested in applying import duty is £18 or equivalent). It was hard to find any US sellers with enough parts left on my wanted list to take me over $25 (excluding parts I know TLG UK will be cheaper for). I did a colour sub on the long technic pins - blue ones are approx 1/8 the cost of black ones, and i'm subbing the 14 stud technic beams in DBG for ones I have in LBG - i'm sure they're only that colour to differentiate from the other lengths on the instructions (I hope). There were some sellers in US and EU that I wouldn't touch because they used a big and costly "one size fits all" postal rate for up to 2kg.

I've learnt quite a bit from this bricklinking experience.

LegoFanTexas

Thanks for the updates, very interesting...

I will say that what I have read here confirms my fears. It will become harder and harder to bricklink this set, having cheap replacements for a few parts like the light bley boat riggings won't help when 1,100 parts becomes hard to source.

This should, in turn, drive up the cost of a used UCS Falcon as it becomes nearly impossible to bricklink one for a reasonable price.

This time next year, will a used Falcon fetch $2,000? More?

Mad_Dog

Hi, I am also BLing the UCS Falcon, and I still have a few parts pending, to be precise, 1353 parts of 59 lots, I have been going with this a long time, and what I do to keep mean and distributed cost low is to BL several sets at the same time, seems more expensive in block, but is cheaper in p&p, as one seller can have several lots of more than one set.

Of course some parts are a pia, of the "rare" parts I am only missing the boat rigging, and I am pretty sure I will not pay more than 30-40$ for them, so if they do not get below that I already have a black set to repaint. I would prefer to have it perfect, but money is hard to earn.

Also you have to be patient, sometimes a parts that is not being offered sohws up in some seller, and you have to be quick as lightning to get it.

Rgrds

Jose

monkeyhanger

LFT: With parts prices seen now, there was no need to buy UCS MFs to make a mint, just a huge stockpile of dishes, levers and rigging - 100-fold profit margin.

For me the only ceiling the MF has is how much you can bricklink it yourself if you're willing to forego the box and manual. Take away the ability to finish a bricklinked example and who knows how much some would pay for a complete boxed example, used or new? Right now there are people who can live with black levers, black rigging and a plain dish to save £250.

I wonder if the MF would look better with all black levers (as per Jabbas pipe piece on the new palace set) as opposed to the bley/black common one?

I'm hoping that items like the DBG 1x1 round cones (98 needed?) can be bought reasonably from TLG via contacting them as if to replace lost parts, instead of paying 65p/$1 each.

As it is, I expect to buy the cones, yellow technic angles, 1 x 16 technic beams, the 4x4 technic round bricks, 8x8 plates, 1x4 plate/wings and 1x3 wedge/wings and anything else that is hard to get hold of from Lego directly, as the bricklink prices seem way more than Lego would charge. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the printed dish is available for £31/$50, that is just about the threshold i'd consider not using a plain one, but honestly i'm just thinking about resale value if I should ever fall out of Lego, and that is one of a few parts you'd probably find impossible to get a hold of in 10 years time, or even 5. Just purely for me i'd be happy to do with the plain one. Can't bring myself to pay out for bley levers, but if TLG brought out a set that utilised them in the future i'd get them replaced. Bley rigging - i'll probably pay for a single one as I have one already, there are a few people who will sell singly and not in a pair, although it irks me that the black ones can be got for 58p and i'll have to pay £50 for one.

jadeirene

@monkeyhanger - the cones (BL part 4589) that are on the MF are not being produced anymore. The new cones that are in production are 4589b, which are cones with top groove. Just order these ones from BL, since they are much cheaper than LEGO direct, and LEGO is just going to send you the new ones anyway.

monkeyhanger

Jadeirene: Thanks for the info. Any other snippets of wisdom you found when bricklinking yours that could help me and others? What parts did you have to relent on and order from Lego due to unavailability or price dearer on bricklink?

Mad_Dog

For info, I got the yellow technic bricks very cheap from Lego.

Rgrds