pheller
UltimaDork
8/2/22 1:06 p.m.
In a classic case of "it's for the children, babe" I have acquired quite a bit of Legos "for my daughter".
She enjoys Legos, almost as much as I do.
Hoping to start the "Lego Trains" hobby this Christmas. I've already got 5 logging carts and a 2-6-0 Mogul set that I hope to motorize.
What are you into?
My brother and I had countless sets growing up, they are all in random bins in my parents basement now. I grew up in the late 90's/2000's and we were really into the Star Wars and Bionicle sets. I got into the Technic vehicle sets and the Lego Creator sets and attribute some of that to my sickness with cars now.
I had a lot of LEGO when I was a kid. A combination of a grandmother who liked to spoil her only grandson and some time in Europe when I was able to get a bunch of kits close to the source. When I moved away from home, the LEGO stayed behind and was played with by my sister's kids. I rescued it a couple of years ago and now it's being played with by my two nephews in CO. So those bricks are on their third generation now. It's fun to see kids play with it, doing crazy things like putting jet engines and skis on a monster truck - just like you're supposed to do with Lego. It's easy to forget that as an adult, and the plot of the Lego movie is 100% accurate.
I was into Technic when it first came out - it taught me quite a bit about things like "how does an open differential work?" I had this as a kid, the first of the big vehicles. Made an awesome dune buggy out of it, which is appropriate given that it's a Beetle floorpan.
I also had a lot of Classic Space, although we just called it "space lego" at the time :) Also, if you're into trains, I still have a bunch of the old blue tracks and the motor to make them run.
For new kits, I prefer the brick-on-brick construction to the Technic style with body panels on a space frame. So I don't buy the latest supercar Ferrari, but I love stuff like the Saturn V and the classic Mini. I have the LL 928 Galaxy Explorer recreation on the way and I'm going to build both it and the original (from my original instruction book using the original pieces!) just because I can.
I was a massive LEGO fanatic as a kid. Still have mine in a storage bin. Last Christmas my kids got me the LEGO Aston Martin DB5 from "Goldfinger". Took me a couple of weeks to put that together, it has an ejector seat, moving number plates, machine guns behind the headlights, and the whole bit. They just gave me a LEGO Darth Vader for my birthday, I need to get to work on that.
Wife and I have made Lego our Christmas tradition. Instead of buying each other big presents (we usually buy something small and cute), we buy a couple big Lego sets and put them together Christmas week. Usually while watching a marathon of: Die Hard, The Thing, Predator, and Aliens.
We've been most fond of the big city street setups with 3-story buildings.
Oh I have a few. I have been looking for free time to put this together:
I bought it specifically for the shock absorbers. I spent many hours designing suspension systems as a kid.
My son started with LEGO when he was 5 with all kinds of LEGO themes. Seven years later it has blown up with Star Wars. Covid 19 was the biggest reason for why the collection got so big. Now, He is doing MOC's (my own creations) and a smattering of LEGO stop motion with the minifigures. We have worked together on bigger Star Wars LEGO projects a few times. A designer name Mirko Soppelsa created a few for Star Wars and they are amazing. This is what we are currently working on.
He really wants use the Bricklink LEGO studio software to design his own sets but he doesn't have a laptop yet powerful enough to run it.
https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/download.page
Fun fact: I have a lifetime membership to the Lego Club Magazine. My kids have about a third of my childhood collection, and we've added a ton of sets since then. My son builds spaceship dragon knight robots and my daughter builds city infrastructure. My sister has the other two thirds of my collection, and I'm still mad about it.
pheller
UltimaDork
8/2/22 1:59 p.m.
Digging into Lego Trains or "Brick Trains" - ie, those trains that you can't buy a kit from Lego to construct - it's not exactly a cheap hobby.
For example, some locomotives might cost $200-$300 to assemble, that's not even using genuine Lego bricks, either.
...but I justified that as a better use of funds than HO or Z Scale model railroad stuff because the Legos can be dissamebled into other models and repaired easily, where as model trains are a lot more fragile.
A friend got me this set from the botanicals collection for xmas and I very much enjoyed putting it together. It lives on my kitchen table year-round.
In reply to Nicole Suddard :
We have some of the botanicals. They're beautifully done. I gave my wife the orchids for our wedding anniversary because the flowers wouldn't die like real ones do :)
FYI, this was Saturday :) Pulling parts for LL 928.
Note - the black box with the white switch is the battery box for the old school train. The construction on the far right is a skateboard halfpipe assembled by the 6 year old who was running interference with my sorting :)
I've become a big fan of the Technic kits during the pandemic.
The ones I currently have built:
Ghostbusters Ecto-1 (The 2800 piece one)
Land Rover Defender - Although I messed up something in the transmission and I'm loathe to take it completely apart to fix. (also have the light kit installed)
Red VW Van - They also have a blue one that is larger with more pieces. (have the light kit, not installed yet)
Ducati Panigale V4 R - This was the first, and cheapest, to make sure I'd actually enjoy the process. (have the light kit installed)
Porsche 911 RSR - Pretty cool, but one of the weaker kits with no transmission. (have the light kit not installed yet)
The ones I currently have, but haven't started:
The BMW M 1000 RR - MUCH larger and 3 times the pieces of the Ducati.
Ferrari 488 GTE - Very similar to the Porsche in size and piece count.
Then the big boys that I haven't started yet:
Bugatti Chiron - Working 8 speed gearbox, etc, 3599 pieces.
Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 - 8 speed gearbox, etc, 3696 pieces.
Ferrari Daytona SP3 - 8 speed gearbox, etc, 3778 pieces.
In reply to Nicole Suddard :
Have you seen the bonsai tree?
pheller
UltimaDork
8/2/22 5:29 p.m.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
That 928 set is pretty valuable. $200 on the low end.
Far exceeds the price of the train set, which I found surprising.
As a kid I used to keep mine in Charles Chips cans. I think I had about 5 or 6 cans full at one time. Searching for a block would create quite the racket. My mom would yell at me to just dump them on the floor. No way, then I'd have to pick them all back up again!
In reply to pheller :
Resale value is of no interest to me, I don't sell my toys :) But 928 was the Classic Space flagship and Classic Space is cooler than obsolete chunky train sets so I'm not surprised it's worth a lot more.
The grey Classic Space pieces have aged, some have become green and brittle. So there's been some attrition. This seems to affect the flat plates more than things like wings and jets.
Never had Lego when I was young, but my kids had some. For Christmas they chipped in together and gave me the Saturn V, it was a fun build:
Saturn V is an excellent kit in many ways. Definitely a recent high point.
The newest Shuttle kit is one solid piece of kit, too. Quite good. The ISS is interesting but you can't zoom it around without it becoming the intro to a disaster movie.
we started buying few kits for our kids but last year we scoured marketplace and bought a huge tub of legos,, about 65 lbs. I took the instructions and my kids only build with their imagination. I want them to be master builders and not rely on following instructions.
eastpark said:
Keith Tanner said:
The ISS is interesting but you can't zoom it around without it becoming the intro to a disaster movie.
Much like the real one!
I didn't say it wasn't realistic
In reply to Keith Tanner :
The lunar module is pretty cool too. I have that with the ISS and Saturn V. I really want to do the launch tower for the Saturn V. That would be a cool display
In reply to Iusedtobefast :
I've got the lander on my desk, with classic space mini figs clambering around it. I want a command module to plug into it, but I haven't gone looking to see if someone's come up with a good design or if I have to do it. I'm better at designing the monster trucks with jets and skis than actual replicas.
Check out Scott Manley's tour of his Saturn V launch tower. Sounds like they're a little questionable. But yeah, that would be so cool.
6368. The first LEGO set I ever really geeked out over.
I rebuilt it countless times in countless ways.
The new jets are cool because of the size, but the lack of actual construction in some areas has turned me off of aircraft kits. In the original there's at least 15 bricks in the nose alone. Now it's one big chunk.