What are you building right now?

JudgeChuck

HI @veyniac, hehe, yes, part availability in the US and even in EU does not seem to be a problem, just in the UK! There is still just one BL seller with one single part! I did try Lego as well, but the part was out of stock / unavailable. It wasn't a problem overall, as I always slowly gather parts for a few projects at once.

No, the instructions were all fine and perfectly clear. Thanks! :-)

legobod

JudgeChuck said:

HI @veyniac, hehe, yes, part availability in the US and even in EU does not seem to be a problem, just in the UK! 

Brixit

herbyderby

Bricklinked the stonewars Ulysses MOC to go with my new shuttle.

legobod

Posted this in the reading thread by mistake... fixed Roadrunner and the disc spins. These are the only two I wanted so worked out pretty good.

SirBrickalotOfLego

^ I did exactly the same with mine!

legobod

Welsh minds must think alike 

560Heliport

When I got to my parents' place for dinner yesterday, they said they had a project for me. Uh-oh, I thought. It turned out Mom had knocked the loon off the bookcase, so I needed to rebuild it. Not so bad, the head came off and parts of the neck. I had to look at this picture to fix it.

Astrobricks

^ Hmm. That seems familiar somehow.

EGRoberts

Astrobricks said:

^ Hmm. That seems familiar somehow.

Of course it is familiar, everyone has a loon to deal with... =)

560Heliport

EGRoberts said:

Astrobricks said:

^ Hmm. That seems familiar somehow.

Of course it is familiar, everyone has a loon to deal with... =)

True, but this is one I built, not a family member. :)

Yellowcastle

Or is it? :o)

mrlegoman

First post here - I am currently trying to get my kids into Lego @ 3 and 4 years old/ Started them on creative bricks (10692) and have been creating some animated build instructions to help try to visually teach them (so they can try and figure out by themselves) how to follow instructions. Some of the animations are below

https://youtu.be/s0Ja0RM2hA0
https://youtu.be/ULvi_Ns0yRg
https://youtu.be/nousafkglls
https://youtu.be/pFn04JphYrg

piratemania7

Not so much a building post - but related to building.  What are your thoughts folks on keeping the bags pieces come in?  I never used too but have found lately that I am keeping bags - mostly for larger modular size sets but wasn't sure if thats too fanatical...or normal.

pxchris

I've personally never kept any of the bags that the pieces come in.

panchox1

I've kept bags for the short term. I find that once they are open, they split really easily.

Astrobricks

I hear they’re great for sandwiches ;-)

Switchfoot55

^Or occasionally some soup

PDelahanty

I never keep the bags from inside the boxes...except maybe the bag for the instructions in some of the larger sets.  If there's cardboard with the instructions to keep them from bending, then that's definitely being kept in the bag with the instructions so that they won't bend or fold when stored inside the original box.  (I keep ALL the original boxes on shelves and they're not flattened.)
There's no point to keep the clear plastic bags the bricks came in because they can't be re-sealed and you're never going to put the pieces back in there.  When I've moved, I've put the pieces into ziplock bags instead.  Saving the opened brick bags also adds nothing to any sort of resale value of a used set.

Gibbo1959

PDelahanty said:

There's no point to keep the clear plastic bags the bricks came in because they can't be re-sealed and you're never going to put the pieces back in there. 

I beg to differ. I’ve dissembled and repacked a lot of my larger sets, in reverse, back into the numbered plastic bags. Admittedly I might have used a disproportionately large amount of Sellotape in the process. And they probably wouldn’t survive going through the process again. But it can be done!

560Heliport

After supper, this:Can anyone tell me the name of this dragon/sea monster?

560Heliport

^ Oh. Great Protector. 

560Heliport

I think this is a first for me: I got an extra extra gold ring. That is, the parts list shows five; I got seven! 

Yellowcastle

Gibbo1959 said:

PDelahanty said:

There's no point to keep the clear plastic bags the bricks came in because they can't be re-sealed and you're never going to put the pieces back in there. 

I beg to differ. I’ve dissembled and repacked a lot of my larger sets, in reverse, back into the numbered plastic bags. Admittedly I might have used a disproportionately large amount of Sellotape in the process. And they probably wouldn’t survive going through the process again. But it can be done!

But why? :o)

Astrobricks

560Heliport said:

^ Oh. Great Protector. 

Looks more like The Great Loogie Launcher

MrJackson

herbyderby said:

Bricklinked the stonewars Ulysses MOC to go with my new shuttle.

@herbyderby
I just did a B&P order yesterday for most of the parts of the Stonewars Ulysses and a Bricklink order for the rest this morning. It looks so much better than the official one, and it also helps that this version is actually achievable. Very much looking forward to building it. In Step 22, the gold rounded slopes are connected into a ring and attached at that single point to the green headlight brick with the small bracket below.  Did you find that connection to be secure? It's only two studs of clutch.

herbyderby

MrJackson said:

herbyderby said:

Bricklinked the stonewars Ulysses MOC to go with my new shuttle.

@herbyderby
I just did a B&P order yesterday for most of the parts of the Stonewars Ulysses and a Bricklink order for the rest this morning. It looks so much better than the official one, and it also helps that this version is actually achievable. Very much looking forward to building it. In Step 22, the gold rounded slopes are connected into a ring and attached at that single point to the green headlight brick with the small bracket below.  Did you find that connection to be secure? It's only two studs of clutch.

I probably should have discussed this earlier. I think the clutch is just enough, as long as you are gentle and just planning to display it.

However, the build of that subassembly itself was honestly a nightmare. It is pretty clearly an illegal build--there just isn't quite enough room. Multiple times, I'd get almost to the end just to have the whole thing explode into 20 pieces. I don't have any suggestions, really, but you can see that I did get it eventually, which should offer some solace that it is possible (I had my doubts, at times). Maybe you'll have better luck. The rest of the build is straightforward.

KungFuKenny

Built the Bonsai Tree this morning— I wanted to make the cherry blossom version (being the right season and all) but couldn’t get past the weirdness of the frog swarm.  I filled it out with additional dark pink blossoms and used pink and white studs instead of amphibians...

MrJackson

@herbyderby Oh, I was looking at the instructions and that section looks very illegal. In fact, if you look at step 22, the bottom image (the top-down view) has two spots where the sections collide and occupy the same space. I'm curious if there are any other solutions - the problem is there are so few pieces in metallic gold. It sits between two 8-stud diameter circles; I wonder if it's possible to build a ring thats about 7 studs wide. The problem becomes mounting points, but I'm curious if there's no better solution.

keithsimpson

Docking bay in progress 

bandit778

MrJackson said:

@herbyderby Oh, I was looking at the instructions and that section looks very illegal. In fact, if you look at step 22, the bottom image (the top-down view) has two spots where the sections collide and occupy the same space. I'm curious if there are any other solutions - the problem is there are so few pieces in metallic gold. It sits between two 8-stud diameter circles; I wonder if it's possible to build a ring thats about 7 studs wide. The problem becomes mounting points, but I'm curious if there's no better solution.

I've been looking at that myself and wondered if it would be possible to mount the five sections round a tyre to hold it in place round the 2 x 2 round bricks. Not sure if there are any tyre sizes that would be an appropriate diameter but I've used the technique before when building the engines for DavDup's Viper.

It works well in these to hold everything in place.

Gibbo1959

Yellowcastle said:

Gibbo1959 said:

PDelahanty said:

There's no point to keep the clear plastic bags the bricks came in because they can't be re-sealed and you're never going to put the pieces back in there. 

I beg to differ. I’ve dissembled and repacked a lot of my larger sets, in reverse, back into the numbered plastic bags. Admittedly I might have used a disproportionately large amount of Sellotape in the process. And they probably wouldn’t survive going through the process again. But it can be done!

But why? :o)

a. I don’t have enough ziplock bags. 

b. Easier if/when I rebuild
c. I didn’t need them for my sandwiches.

Yellowcastle

And soup? :o)

Gibbo1959

^ That would just be silly. That’s what Pick a Brick cups are for. 🙄

pxchris

I've always been really fond of the Pirates builds in the 1990 LEGO Ideas Book 260, especially the small Imperial fort. So I decided it was a must that I add them to my classic Pirates collection! Thankfully I was able to gather virtually all of the parts out of my spares, only had to buy a couple. The only thing I don't have for these to both be 100% complete alongside all of my official 1989-91 Pirates sets is an extra Governor minifigure.
I don't currently have space in my layout for the Imperial fort, but I have it on hand for when I either do a redesign of it or for when I do a large display at a convention.

lkliment2

pxchris said:

I've always been really fond of the Pirates builds in the 1990 LEGO Ideas Book 260, especially the small Imperial fort. So I decided it was a must that I add them to my classic Pirates collection! Thankfully I was able to gather virtually all of the parts out of my spares, only had to buy a couple. The only thing I don't have for these to both be 100% complete alongside all of my official 1989-91 Pirates sets is an extra Governor minifigure.
I don't currently have space in my layout for the Imperial fort, but I have it on hand for when I either do a redesign of it or for when I do a large display at a convention.

I don't know why I think this is so cool. I always love seeing your old Pirate pictures!

PDelahanty

PDelahanty said:

For those not following, who have forgotten, or don't care...a recap: We moved into a house that has a nice big basement with space dedicated to Lego...so all those modular buildings that I've been buying for nearly 14 years will finally have a home.  (As well as my old 1980s stuff, some mid-90s stuff between my two dark ages, and stuff from the last 14 years.)  Some of these sets are still new in the box, but others (Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, Town Hall, Palace Cinema, and Parisian Restaurant) were built at least once previously.  It's interesting to see the change in design and building techniques along the way.  I have a toddler and very little free time, so building tends to go slowly.  I think I'm averaging about one a month...although I'm building some other stuff (both old and new) in between.

Since my last post about this, I've re-built #10232 Palace Cinema, #10243 Parisian Restaurant, and also built #10246 Detective's Office for the first time.

Palace Cinema was pretty boring.  Still not a fan of the upstairs interior.  Only 6 seats, the projectionist booth is terrible, and the stairs to the roof seem unnecessary.  I'd also prefer a better looking screen than a B&W image that looks like it was printed on an old Apple ImageWriter II dot matrix printer.  I did place a B&P order for another minifigure to work the concession stand because it seems like a HUGE oversight to only have one theater worker when ticket sales and concessions are on opposite sides of the first floor.

Parisian Restaurant, as expected from my first time building this years ago, was annoying.  There's just something about this that's really unappealing to me.  I don't like how there's randomly a dining area upstairs and outside someone's apartment, I don't like the side staircase, I don't like how cramped the kitchen is, and I'm not fond of the artist's loft.  I really don't know why this set is so popular.  Still my least favorite (other than #10190 Market Street which I never bothered to get when it came out and honestly do not regret at all.)

The Detective's Office build was my first build of this set.  Got to break the tape, open the bags, and get the full experience.  I absolutely LOVE this set!  Building all of these in order gives me some perspective and it seems like Lego's modular buildings really increased in quality here.  Not only is there a great build that's fun and not too repetitive, but the play features are really fun and the story becomes quite evident as you build it and notice the details.  For example, I knew about the doors to smuggle the cookies and thought it was fun building those and seeing how that all worked, but I noticed a trash can with a hat in it and thought that was odd.  "I guess someone got a better haircut at the barber and doesn't need the hat anymore?"  ...but when I got to the detective's actual office and put up the wanted poster, it clicked.  The person in the wanted poster was wearing a hat...just like the one in the trash!  The criminal ditched the hat to hide his (or her) identity!  ...and then the cookies out on a tray in the upstairs apartment, which I presume to be the detective's place, I began to suspect that maybe the detective himself could be the crook!  Who knows?  Such intrigue!  ...and such a well designed set!  My favorite so far!

#10251 Brick Bank is next...but that doesn't seem too appealing from the outside and is already being overshadowed by the build after that, #10255 Assembly Square!

I put in a lot of extra time over the last month and my boss gave me a generous bonus...so considering the work I've put in (not to mention some personal tragedy), I'm going to reward myself and order #10264 and #10278, the only two modular buildings that I'm missing!  I've got next week off from work too, so I might actually get some build time in!

MrJackson

Interesting, I thought the Parisian was a masterclass in effective usage of tight space. I found the Detective's Office a disappointing follow-up and wasn't interested in the storyline aspect. Assembly Square is fabulous. 

TheFew

A tractor. I call it the git tractor, as it is one of those annoying builds that falls apart as your try to build it. Wish I have never started...

MrJackson

herbyderby said:

MrJackson said:

herbyderby said:

Bricklinked the stonewars Ulysses MOC to go with my new shuttle.

@herbyderby
I just did a B&P order yesterday for most of the parts of the Stonewars Ulysses and a Bricklink order for the rest this morning. It looks so much better than the official one, and it also helps that this version is actually achievable. Very much looking forward to building it. In Step 22, the gold rounded slopes are connected into a ring and attached at that single point to the green headlight brick with the small bracket below.  Did you find that connection to be secure? It's only two studs of clutch.

I probably should have discussed this earlier. I think the clutch is just enough, as long as you are gentle and just planning to display it.

However, the build of that subassembly itself was honestly a nightmare. It is pretty clearly an illegal build--there just isn't quite enough room. Multiple times, I'd get almost to the end just to have the whole thing explode into 20 pieces. I don't have any suggestions, really, but you can see that I did get it eventually, which should offer some solace that it is possible (I had my doubts, at times). Maybe you'll have better luck. The rest of the build is straightforward.

So, I just built that sub-assembly using the slopes in my parts bin (wrong colors) to see just how self-immolating it is, and I was able to get it the first try. It looks like there's enough room between the center 2x2 round brick and the inner part of that ring to reinforce it somewhat. Course, that might put even more undue stress as things will want to lock more into place losing some flex. It's a wildly illegal design, tho. 

bandit778

Just finished this..

Nice little build and looks good built.
Definitely a display only piece though, the legs are quite flimsy and I've never built anything from LEGO with so many single stud connections.

pxchris

I haven't built a pure Technic set in quite a while, so I took an old-ish one out for a spin today. #8069 Backhoe Loader.

This one was originally bought for my son, but he's since decided that he has zero interest in Technic sets, so he passed it along into my collection.



Why hasn't LEGO made a Technic drill rig yet? Like a big Sandvik or Atlas Coopco... That would look so nice in my office at work! 

mrlegoman

I have started to look at the build instructions for YOSHI with my kids - they love MARIO so are quite engaged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOXCHVBU4N0

KingAlanI

For May the 4th, finally started the #75244 Tantive IV I bought last May the 4th

just opened it and did the first few steps, but maybe beginning it at all will motivate me to build on a nonglacial timescale

thanks for numbered bags, and there were so many of those I needed a big plastic bin for 2 and up to not overflow my building table

veyniac

I am currently working on a 1920s era General Store for a school project. I just finished the sign, which took absolutely forever to make:

KungFuKenny

I put together an early Mother’s Day present last night...

Paperballpark

Over the past couple of months I've been building a modular Chinese Restaurant to sit next to #80107 Spring Lantern Festival set. Having made myself a lightbox today, I decided to test it out by taking some (hopefully) half-decent photos of the building! :)






More photos are on my Flickr album here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/jamiedouglas/32uBn1

560Heliport

That is gorgeous! Now I'm hungry for Chinese food! 

Paperballpark

I've added a few more photos to my Flickr today.

vizzitor

Got a Petunia Pig torso from #71030 this week and I thought it might work for a Christopher Robin. It's ok for now. Shaggy's hair, Woody's head, Finn's legs.

Cymbeline

"Christopher Robin" looks like he was always meant to be in the set but LEGO forgot! I love the drum too!