"Your first (And next) giant builds"

[darkrebellion]

Well, after building the 10143 Death Star II that my parents give me as my birthday gift back in November of the last year , I think in a topic (I finish building it before Christmas ) but I just decide to post it now for some reason . So the question is: How you build your giant sets (By giant set I mean sets of 2000+ pieces)? The question ask about what do you do? Build with partner, separete pices, tips, you like it or not, etc.

From my part I have just build one giant set and it is the 10143 Death Star II (A set I really , even if some people consider it boring). Like my first really big set, I was really surprised by the amount of build space you need and also the number of pieces . I firstly decide to separete the pieces cause a set of this size really need some organization. Then I have an idea. I ask my dad to help me with the build so I don´t need to spend many time. The idea was that he help me building the "x2,x3,x4,x5..." sections so I don´t miss building experience but also I don´t get tire for the repetitive build . At last it work so I will try this methode again in my next giant build.

So what do you think?

Edited January 23, 2009 by darkrebellion

[Ak-47]

Recently I've had 2. Teh Green Grocer Took me two days in all, but then again, I opened all bags and dumped them in th insert The Sandcrawler i did more organized, and I was able to complete its very repetetive build in about 5 hours. Both were definetly worth it though...

~Ak-47

[Kakihara Smile]

I'm not one to build sets just because they're big but because I like them instead. So, the biggest set I've built was the recent castle village/market. The shop at home exclusive one. Took me a while to build, just me at the table with the parts all dumped in a tiny shoebox. Probably close to 7-8 hours with a lunch break in between. My method was certainly a hinderance for speed but it made it more challenging. I remember searching for a single piece for like fives minutes in that tiny shoebox ;)

[Legoman]

I Erm....

I dump it in a pile and build

Seriously. Get all the bags, open them, dump them onto a bedsheet and build away

[Yeow]

My first was Cafe Corner, which I finished in about 2 hours I believe. I intend to get Green Grocer sometime soon, although I might need something bigger. I'm an extremely fast builder and even large creations don't take me too long =[

[meschepers]

I'm not one to build sets just because they're big but because I like them instead. So, the biggest set I've built was the recent castle village/market. The shop at home exclusive one. Took me a while to build, just me at the table with the parts all dumped in a tiny shoebox. Probably close to 7-8 hours with a lunch break in between. My method was certainly a hinderance for speed but it made it more challenging. I remember searching for a single piece for like fives minutes in that tiny shoebox ;)

I work the same way (only buy what I really like). But all those pieces in a shoe box? Wow, that had to be a nightmare to search for parts in that tiny of a space since the small pieces all fall to the bottom (and there are a lot of small pieces in the Medieval Market Village). What I did was cut three sides of the front of the box off (yeah, I know, it ruined it... bu I was after what was inside, not the swell box) and open it like a flap. That gave me more surface area to work with so I didn't have to dig around too much. I dumped all the pieces in at once. Having the sides of the box allowed me to shuffle parts around while looking for another part and ensuring that no parts were lost. In all it took about 6 hous since I had to find all the pieces I needed.

[Matteo Kenobi]

haha my first was the 4504 Millenium Falcon, no not exactly a hard set but as a bit of a begginner in the lego and having little experienced I was cursing the whole way through. I do remember at the end thinking how it was all worth it =]

My most recent ones were the Sandcrawler and the non UCS ISD from Black Friday, not terribly hard sets but just those fun all day builds!

Edited January 23, 2009 by Matteo Kenobi

[Norro]

The only large sets I've built were the Cafe Corner series. I build each in a few hours, no special thoughts. I do plan large builds when it will be my own work though... relative elevations, piece concentrations, etc all have to be prepared.

God Bless,

Nathan

[Raphy]

I don't tend to buy or get especially large sets until Christmas or my birthday. I usually buy sets like Tiny Turbo ( ) to sets as big as 15-dollar ones. The thing is, I buy an awful lot of them, so I have a lot of pieces unstead of buying Huge-O-Rama sets like Star Wars or the larger City ones. There are some poeple that do both all the time (rich poeple!), which I can't really afford to do in a country like Poland where prices are sky-high.

Meh.

I do however buy tons of the smaller sets. Believe it or not, but the largest set I've ever had was 8147 Bullet Run!!

[CP5670]

I don't have any single set over 2000 pieces. I have several in roughly the 1200-2000 range. Most of them are Technic sets though, which take much longer to build than sets of other themes due to the precise positioning needed everywhere.

I used to build them in one go, spending maybe 7-8 hours in one day with a few short breaks. In the last year though, I've been spreading it out over four or five days and doing a little bit each day. I always build alone, and always sort out the pieces manually before I start. This is the kind of thing I do:

As far as repetitive building goes, I usually build any multiples of the same sub-section simultaneously to minimize that feel. (e.g. if the left and right parts of a model are nearly identical but need to be done separately, I'll build up both copies at the same time)

Edited January 23, 2009 by CP5670

[Rook]

Well sets are simple for me I open everything up and build. Try building something like this:

Separatist Landing Craft from Star Wars The Clone Wars S01E05.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Rook

[Eilif]

I build most of my sets with my wife. Medium and larger we build together, smaller ones seprately. She almost never MOCs, but we enjoy doing the sets together. For the Cafe Corner series, we would each do a floor, with me building slightly faster and building the extra floor. For Town Plan and Medeval Market Village we each did different buildings. For Death Star II, there were lots of repeated steps for us to work on individually, or we would take turns building or finding the pieces. Death Star II is one kit that would have been FAR les enjoyable to build alone.

We usually either take different instruction books, or I'll cut the instruction books down the binding and we'll each take the section we need.

As for parts organization, parts either get grouped together like CP5670 or I will use the advent calendar inserts (I have 5 or 6) to sort out the pieces it takes a bit of time at the begining, but makes for a much smoother build, and lets me get a rough mental picture (better than the parts page IMHO) of what pieces I have added to by collection by purchasing the set.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Eilif

[prateek]

the biggest i built was a cool cars so i dont know but one day ill ssave up like $200 and buy a big set and just do what he manual says no breaks unless its for food

[Peppermint_M]

My first really big build was the Sentai Fortress, last year after we went to Legoland Windsor, it took me most of the day to build on a large plywood sheet on the loft floor (transport and a hard surface rolled into one) The next was probably the Agents Truck and the Volcano Base. I think I will be buying the big castle Market at some point, so that will be my next biggest build.

For MOCs, I once took three hours building a castle (of which I am yet to photograph.) that is rather big.