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Lego horror stories?
sjerakat
Member Posts: 27
As avid Lego collectors, I'm sure some of you are like me and have had some horror stories. Large sets dropping off shelves, losing important pieces, etc.
Well I've decided to get mine off my chest...
Having been in the dark ages for the past 9 years I'm saddened to say the upkeep on some of my sets was not ideal. I recently discovered that all of the pieces to my UCS Snowspeeder and UCS Naboo fighter were outside my house in a plastic bin that has collected rain, dirt, dust and grime. As if that wasn't bad enough, I also discovered that a bunch of important instruction booklets for sets like Cloud City, ISD, 10132 Hogwarts Express and a bunch of other sets were thrown away on accident months ago. So devastating....
Well I've decided to get mine off my chest...
Having been in the dark ages for the past 9 years I'm saddened to say the upkeep on some of my sets was not ideal. I recently discovered that all of the pieces to my UCS Snowspeeder and UCS Naboo fighter were outside my house in a plastic bin that has collected rain, dirt, dust and grime. As if that wasn't bad enough, I also discovered that a bunch of important instruction booklets for sets like Cloud City, ISD, 10132 Hogwarts Express and a bunch of other sets were thrown away on accident months ago. So devastating....
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Comments
So I was doing a bricklink order and ordered the pieces as replacement and the day they arrived my wife found the missing pieces. Argh.
This also happened with the technic rescue helicopter.
I'm gutted that I have lost all of my prised sets but sick children get to play with them.
When my son turned 3, I dug up one of my old sets... #6765 Gold City Junction. He loved playing with it and it brought back memories... The problem is...he would freak out when it kept breaking and I would have to build it over and over again...
After the hundredth time, I said "screw this" and got my crazy glue out...I glued all the pieces so it wouldn't break again. I did this with several sets before I knew the value of them...
First is the standard cantilever shelf we all know and love €5 from IKEA which I put my IS on and it crashed about 5' to the floor snapping the blue technic pieces that hold the central fin.
Second is while I was away at flight school my mum sold all my Lego at a car boot. Apparently it was a quick sale as a shrewd buyer bought the lot! Perhaps even someone on this very forum... Fortunately she saved my Star Wars sets and my brother rescued my 6268 and 6271. Tragically looking up those set numbers made me remember the other sets that must have gone including the 6090 which I won in a competition from "The Entertainer"
The room was due for redecorating regardless, but that was certainly not how we had envisaged doing it...
I was horrified that I had forgotten about two surviving Lego sets from way back in the day for me. Does that count? :P
This included #10228. Finding sand green and tan bricks in a yard isn't very fun.
For the record, I TOTALLY deserved it.
One flamboyant hand gesture later and it was on the floor in pieces, including a couple of 1x16 technic bricks which were broken.
It's still in the same state. The nature of the instructions (one layer at the time) means it's pretty hard to work from part built model, so I'll have to take it fully apart to start again.
BigKid
I, however, can't wash off the foul touch of a M***B**** for the rest of my life.
Try again.
infernal things at silly o'clock when getting up to my youngest, and it had the nerve to leave a bruise! And to add insult to injury I found one that brand of base plates hiding under the tv unit today and it is currently sitting on my coffee table, bleurgh!
The 7965 falcon falling off the tv unit and smashing into many pieces did not fill me or my husband with joy I have to say.
Add to that a cat who has a taste for LEGO, a cat who will chew and swallow any piece he can get his paws on, small and cheap or big and expensive or any combination of those, he cares not. I actually wanted to cry the day I found a chewed up mon calamari head in the litter tray :(
In 2012 they recycled 88% of their waste, this year the target is 90%. The rest is incinerated or becomes landfill.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chocobricks_customs/8733667211/
We figured hanging it would be no problem. Assemble it in 48x48 chunks and attach them as you go to the mosaic, right? Works great!
Then we showed up to the event. The theme of the event was "The Big Dig", which was an underground highway project in Boston that was going on at the time. So, the organizers thought it would be fun to have people "dig" at the event. ... Right in front of our mosaic. So they dumped several tons of sand on the floor, right where we needed to stand to set up the mosaic.
Further, we found a problem with our "hang one piece at a time" theory. Without a solid backing, it was very difficult to press elements onto 48x48 baseplates. So we tried a new strategy: Build the whole thing on the floor, then lift it into place to hang. Only problem with that being that to pull it off, we would need at least 3 people to carry it across the huge pile of sand.
When the time came, 3 of us held up the mosaic and trudged slowly up the sand mound. Unfortunately, sand is actually pretty difficult to walk on, and the person in the middle couldn't see where he was going (since the mosaic was 5' tall, and he had to hold it up high enough to allow for himself walking up the hill). And sure enough, halfway up the pile, he lost his balance and fell, ripping the mosaic to shreds!
Stray pieces fell into the sand, and spilled across the concrete floor. And if you've never tried to dig out a ton of gray 1x1 plates from sand piles, you're missing out on great fun.
Eventually (hours later), we pieced it back together, and made a 2nd attempt (this time more slowly), and got it hung in place:
http://www.nelug.org/mediagallery/mediaobjects/orig/f/f_p2220015.jpg
But we learned a valuable lesson, and ever since, we've used a custom stand to hang it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/4129216961/
DaveE
Everything ended up getting shoveled into various bins (it had been more or less sorted before that event) and we moved a few months later, so the bins were further divided into moving boxes and sealed in a storage locker for the better part of a year.
Essentially I spent the rest of my childhood finding little caches of Lego blocks every time I decided I wanted to dig out Skeletor to fight the Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, or whatever else came out between 1988-1993.
DaveE
One day, I reckoned that the wooden board which my train track was nailed to (it must have only been about 6ft x 4ft) would fit under my snooker table, which was about the same size.
Unfortunately the board dropped onto the floor before I got it under, and #6392 was waiting to absorb the impact. Although the set itself was almost completely demolished, the only piece which broke was one of the helicopter legs, which my mum replaced last year when she decided to sort (read: build) all the Lego that is still in their loft.
Another horror story-- not my own:
One of our LUG members decided as a kid that his LEGO firefighters needed something more serious to combat-- a REAL fire! So he went out to the garage, built a big setup, and yes, lit it on fire. In the process, he lost a lot of classic 80's elements, but he did find out that LEGO burns REALLY well, and gives off a lot of green smoke!
DaveE
Back at the Boston Home Show in 2002, we left our display up all week long, unattended by AFOLs during the majority of the week. They had security, and cameras on during the day, but would turn them off after hours.
On one of the days, there were two hired policemen that were doing security for the show, and were marveling at our display-- in particular the police cars, which they asked several questions about. After the show was done, we found that we were missing 2 cars. Two police cars. The cameras didn't catch anything, so whoever took it had access to the setup after hours, so we're pretty sure they were taken by two police officers!
DaveE
Another story that springs to mind: Is it just me, or is #4504 Millennium Falcon very unstable? Just minutes after fixing it for the hundredth time, my son brought it back to me in pieces AGAIN! I rebuilt it AGAIN, picked it up, and it immediately fell apart in my hands! I was so angry I threw the model across the room where it shattered against the wall, spraying pieces everywhere. Parts were still turning up weeks later.