Hello, My Name Is ElCrab...

[ElCrab]

Hi, first time poster here. Just signed up today, after lurking for a bit. A quick little blurb about me, I'm 35 and my Dark Age(s) lasted from the late 90s until about a month or so ago. The last set I bought was the Bandit Hideout 6761 around the time that came out. My mom has still sent me random Lego she finds in her thrift shopping, and I recently started getting into the minifigs, once I found out they existed.

Like I said, only recently have I gotten back into the hobby, and it's been crazy. I'm by no means rich, but I have a job that allows me to get Lego sets before I head home from a hard day's work. It's a bit dangerous, since it's so easy to order sets on my breaks and have them waiting for me at the front desk. Anyway, my main goal has been piece accumulation, primarily from the Star Wars, LOTR, Castle, and Lone Ranger sets. I would say it's due to the lack of gray/black/brown/tan elements from my childhood. I always wanted to build castles, but I never had a bunch of the older Castle sets. I mostly got Pirates sets as a kid, but I'm not complaining. I have Eldorado Fortress 6271-1 and Imperial Trading Post 6277-1, after all, and in my lurking I've seen those to be sought-after by those around here.

I also picked up the 2012 & 2013 Star Wars advent calenders, and the 2013 City one as well. Those have been great fun, but hard to resist opening more than one day at a time! Plus I just scored the Architecture Studio 21050, brand new and sealed, for 80 bucks on Craigslist. My original plan was to sell it online, hopefully for a nice profit, but the urge to keep it won out.

My interests so far in terms of builds would be castles, western themes, microbuilds, and perhaps space/undersea vessels at some point. I'm sure that list will expand at some point very soon. One of the first ideas I had was to recreate Custer's Seventh Cavalry, all 650-odd soldiers, civilians, and scouts, based on their strength and disposition in 1876. While I still would like to do that, the sheer logistics of such a project would require so much more money and space than I have at the time. But it's probably my holy grail build.

Ok, onto the question I signed up to ask. I have no clue how to store my pieces, which also includes how to separate them. I have a few Rubbermaid tubs that my collection originally lived in, but I'd like to separate the collection to make for easier building. I have already begun the process of filtering out minifigs and accessories, but I could use some ideas or suggestions on how to separate the rest of the pieces. Some initial ideas I've tried are grouping by similar pieces, like all arches and curved elements together. I've also been putting all foliage and green elements together. I know it's all in how you want your collection, but I'm at a loss for how detailed I want the groupings to be, or what to get to put them in. I am leaning towards a solution of basic elements being grouped by style only, and certain elements being grouped by color. Or even primary colors being kept together, while having the shade elements being grouped by color scheme (blacks, grays, browns, etc). And while I do like the idea of easily finding what I need (or knowing I don't have it right away), a part of me wants to still have some of "the thrill of the hunt" aspect of my childhood builds left in my storage methods.

The fiancée actually was on board with buying me 5 or 6 of the large stackable brick storage bins, but while that seemed like an awesomely Lego thing to do, it doesn't seem practical. I might take her up on one or two for storing a few things, like instructions and baseplates and what-not, but it didn't seem like an across-the-board solution.

So I turn to you folks for ideas. Also, I've heard about a few ways to clean older Lego to remove the yellowing, and would love a bit more info on that. My older pieces sure could use the love.

Thanks to those who read this and those who reply! I look forward to being a part of this community, and sometime soon I'll start sharing my builds.

[eurotrash]

Welcome ElCrab.

Ah, questions about storage. Yep, we've all been through that particular problem. Here's a link to 37 page thread about it.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26213

What I think you'll find though is as your collection and inventory grows your approach to storage will evolve. So be flexible. I use a bunch of 3-5 drawer clear plastic drawers (Sterlite brand). Each drawer is maybe 1" x 6" and with a clear front you can see the contents easily. I started with 10 drawers and have just added to that as necessary. And I've split and consolidated contents as the inventory changes.

Oh, and as for yellowing bricks - I use them! They're great for areas where either a) you want an old distressed look to a MOC, or b) where you can't see them as support elements.

[Andy D]

Welcome to Eurobricks. Sorting and storage is a problem we all have eventually, some sooner than later.

As Eurotrash the thread on sorting and storge is a treasure-trove of informtion. There is quite a lot, but I have been through it several times to refine my sorting and storage, I know it is long, but it reads like a great how-to book, wonderful resource.

Also there is an article on the Evolution of LEGO sorting and storage on LUGnut at http://news.lugnet.com/storage/?n=707

Great read as well.

Have fun and good luck with your sort / storage solution.

Andy D

Edited December 10, 2013 by Andy D

[Leo604]

Welcome to Eurobricks!

[dr_spock]

Welcome aboard. There are a couple of threads on cleaning yellowed bricks using Oxyclean.