Re-building and managing 100 LEGO sets (some 5000 thousand pieces)

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Anssi Porttikivi's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
August 3, 2012, 3:49 am
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Our challenge:=20

Me (Anssi, 49) and Oskar (my son, 9) have maybe hundred LEGO sets. All but =
the latest Ninjagos are disassembled currently (There are a lot of Star War=
s and Ninjago). Most parts are stored in two BOX4BLOCKS towers, the biggest=
 ones + Hero Factory sets are in one bin and some other overflow from the B=
OX4BLOCKS are in some plasic bags.

I want to sort all those in an accessible way. Currently finding pieces to =
an  old set takes several hours...and some are always left missing and have=
 to be ordered from LEGO missing parts service. (Great service they have!)

We want to start rebuilding them. Then, when Oskar does not anymore play wi=
th one (typically for a new set that takes a few months), I will put it to =
a plastic bag and store compactly, half broken, somewhere. I plan to end up=
 with a lot of plastic bags storing a lot of sets compactly, so that they a=
re easy to rebuild at any time.

Oskar also plays a lot with his own creations, so a certain optimal collect=
ion could be kept in the BOX4BLOCKs towers for random building. He has an e=
xcellent memory for details, so he can also dig up some of the plastic bags=
 for missing parts as needed. There would essentially be three stages for L=
EGOs to exist and move between: free parts, bagged sets, and sets in play.

DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU? Is anyone doing anything similar? What els=
e are you doing?

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Chris Gray's Avatar (by Gravatar) posted on
August 3, 2012, 5:48 pm
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Re: Re-building and managing 100 LEGO sets (some 5000 thousand pieces)



one (typically for a new set that takes a few months), I will put it to a
plastic bag and store compactly, half broken, somewhere. I plan to end up with a
lot of plastic bags storing a lot of sets compactly, so that they are easy to
rebuild at any time.


could be kept in the BOX4BLOCKs towers for random building. He has an excellent
memory for details, so he can also dig up some of the plastic bags for missing
parts as needed. There would essentially be three stages for LEGOs to exist and
move between: free parts, bagged sets, and sets in play.


are you doing?

It sounds like a good plan to me. It all depends on how Oskar likes to play
with them.

As he gets older, he may spend less time playing with the sets, and more
time doing his own creations (Lego fans call them MOCs - My Own Creation).
If that happens, then you would want to change more to a system where all
of the parts are sorted by category. It doesn't make much sense to have
bags or boxes with only one or two parts in them, so you will start with
some categories that match several different parts. As you get more and
more Lego, you will sometimes have to split up a category, because it has
grown too big for its container. Eventually, you will have some containers
that have one shape of piece in one specific colour. If you get a lot of
that piece, then you will need larger containers.

--
Experience should guide us, not rule us.

Chris Gray

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