21 replies to this topic

[henryhotspurs]

What's your opinion about the least useful Lego parts? I have used most of my available Lego parts constructing my town.  It seems I have stacks of four-way intersection plates that cannot be used in my current road system.  Any parts you can't use?

Edited by henryhotspurs, 22 June 2011 - 05:58 PM.

[sputnik16]

burps (big useless rock pieces)
i don't think i have seen a town yet that one of the buildings have had them for the exterior (although i want to see one.)

Edited by sputnik16, 22 June 2011 - 08:31 PM.

[Rook]

I'd have to go with the Mars Mission air pump.     I've seen it used in one or two other ways be generally it is just crap. Not enough connection points.  

[henryhotspurs]

I just located a bunch of those concave dish pieces from the soccer stadium.  Those are pretty unhelpful too.  The older rocket motors and cylindrical, pillar style "landing gear" I have never found a use for either.  Maybe as filler under a mountain?

[wooootles]

Hah, intersections are the most useless road plate!  In what I'm envisioning with my town I would use one every 5 straight plates.  Very nice marketing, LEGO...

So I'm thinking of just making my own SNOT road system.  Heck, i don't think I'll ever use a whole lot of curved roadplates, either.

Quote

i don't think i have seen a town yet that one of the buildings have had them for the exterior (although i want to see one.)

I could probably use some if I wanted to do landscaping on some coastal town or canyon town... but I'm no good at those.  (unrelated note, they do sell BURP on LEGO pick-a-brick walls.  Asking how teh heck could you even fit that in a cup without compromising so much space, the LEGO guy just said he'll give me one BURP piece at checkout when I fill up my cup   so now I have 2 of those BURP. just sitting in my bins...

As for more useless LEGO parts, how about 90% of the BIONICLE/Hero factory pieces?  Wow.  (The remaining 10% could be useful for my town since I'm contemplating a police enforcer mecha)

[brickmack]

I'd probably say the big wing part used in some of the new airplanes, and the floating hulls used in boats.

henryhotspurs, on 22 June 2011 - 07:48 PM, said:

I just located a bunch of those concave dish pieces from the soccer stadium.  Those are pretty unhelpful too.  The older rocket motors and cylindrical, pillar style "landing gear" I have never found a use for either.  Maybe as filler under a mountain?

I've used those "landing gears" as tables before, and as engine parts in space stuff. What rocket motors are you talking about though?

Also, there is a somewhat old (January 2011) topic in the General Discussion about this: Link Bumping from that long ago probably wouldn't be good, but you could see what other people answered with.

Edited by brickmack, 23 June 2011 - 03:54 AM.

[sputnik16]

@ rook
You could use it for a power plant.
But other than that it is pretty much useless.

p.s. Sorry, I don't know how to reply on someones comment (i'm new)

Edited by sputnik16, 24 June 2011 - 04:45 AM.

[Zorbas]

I've added some bits in your title in order to make it more City specific henryhotspurs.

sputnik16, on 23 June 2011 - 06:05 AM, said:

p.s. sorry, i don't know how to reply on someones comment (i'm new)

Click on the "Reply" button that's right below the post you want to reply to/quote. If you want to reply to many posts at the same time, click on the "Multiquote" button for every post you want to quote and then click the "Reply" that is at the bottom of the page.

Don't forget capital letters at the beginning of every sentence.

[Section8]

I have several of those three-lane racetrack baseplates.  Those are pretty useless outside of a racetrack setup, which my town does not have.  BURPs are also rather useless unless you have a lot of them and want to make a large mountain.  Those are just examples of parts that have appeared in town sets.  As for other sets, I have many 16 x 16 corner round bricks from the Cloud City set that I've wanted to use for buildings, but the curve doesn't match any other curved bricks or panels, so I've been unable to make something work.

[dragunov]

To me, most technic parts,

[Darkdragon]

I use to think there were a lot of "useless" parts, but now I'm not so sure.  I see so much great parts usage in various MOC projects at Brickworld and on Flickr, I'm afraid to sell anything anymore.

When I first got back to building, I thought "all technic parts are useless to me, I build city and castle"....then I had to dig out my Technic bits to build a custom horse-drawn carriage hitch.

I thought all Bionicle parts were dumb and useless... and then I saw some amazing non-mech stuff where Bionicle parts are used on buildings and layouts as accent pieces or part of a vehicle. Amazing! (sorry, I don't have any links to these).

The last thing was that figured i'll never use any gears - but I was wrong again! Now I'm working on something that will probably use many tiny gears, and a couple months ago I found a use building microscale for some "useless" flexible tubing (the smooth kind).

So for now I have to say that nothing is useless, just that perhaps I have not yet found a use for it yet.  

[Syn]

Since I've seen 'Technic' given as and answer I'm going to say DUPLO. but as far as Lego parts go, I would have to say I can't honestly think of any. I just scanned through my parts and honestly I can think of plenty of things they can be used for. every piece I can turn into something or use as a detail for something else.

[Dockmaster Brickington]

Well BURPS are pretty bad, but I have to go with the Duplo figures, who are even more useless then Duplo bricks!

[Badger]

jack stone pieces !

[streifen]

@dragunov: which technic parts have you got that you do not want? let me know. Thanks!

i find wings hard to use. can't seem to find a place for them unless u do airplane mocs. the other part is 2xX bricks. good only for fillers under plates. other than that, not really versatile as it "eats away" your baseplate area.

[peterab]

I don't have any but I'm inclined to think the big quarter saucer plates from the UFO line would be pretty useless to me, however one of my space building mates said they were drool worthy parts to him.

[WideWiiLover]

henryhotspurs, on 22 June 2011 - 05:57 PM, said:

  It seems I have stacks of four-way intersection plates that cannot be used in my current road system.

I have a couple of Four Way Intersections from Airport Layouts, that i just can't integrate.

But a solution for the Intersection pieces is simple, use them as T-Junctions, by building a raised sidewalk over one of the exits. THis gives you what looks like  a 3-Way stop, or can  be integrated with Traffic Lights.

You can also use one of the exits, as a parking spot, in a busy part of town. However, if i'm really lazy i just leave random LEGO dirt/blocks/bits at that intersection, thereby blocking access in that direction like what many construction companies do here.

Just my thoughts!

WideWiiLover

[xtremegoogler]

I have some Paradise baseplates that I don't use because of the horrible light green color.
Real shame, the ones with the beach pattern could have been really useful.

[paostmo]

I despise tinted doors a windows.  Tinted black/brownish is ok... but blue or green?  Barf.  

[TheKingOfBuilding]

They are good if you don't have many parts, but raised baseplates really take away the creativity of building Lego, so this one with no actual studs is probably the least useful part for town building.

dragunov, on 23 June 2011 - 03:48 PM, said:

To me, most technic parts,

I actually think Technic parts are really useful for making motorized elevators and car lifts for buildings, plus some Technic parts can create  really nice stone effects, such as in this brilliant moc by tiberium_blue.

[AllanSmith]

The boat hulls from 7224 Speedboat, what can I do with these?
I have robbed the set for the curved roof pieces to make a couple of red 3221 LEGO trucks and have these huge pieces left over.

[jonwil]

Speaking of rock pieces, I have a MOC that I plan to build eventually of a shop that sells camping gear, fishing gear, boating gear, adventure gear and anything else for the great outdoors and I plan to use rock pieces for some of the walls, covered with colored cheese so it looks like indoor rock climbing walls (which will fit with the adventure theme)