New AFOL looking for advice

[Tommy C]

Hi all. 
 

I’m 33 and I have a 5 year old son. After buying him a few Lego sets and enjoying building them with him I decided to go a buy myself a technic set. Namely the tough terrain crane 42082. I absolutely loved building it. I was amazed at how intricate it was. I went on the buy the 42065 and 42095 racers and then the discontinued crawler 9398 off eBay for £30 more than the original price! Was a bit gutted when the new PU crawler came out a few months later but anyway...

 

I’ve stripped all the sets down into organisers to start building MOC’s. So my question is for those of you that enjoying building technic MOC’s. Which parts do you recommend stocking up on? Which could you not do without? 
 

I’ve already attempted to build a spider only to find I didn’t have enough frictionless pins. So I’ve ordered some from thebrickstore on eBay. (Along with another battery box as I wanna try and mod one!)

 

any advice for a newbie would be appreciated. Although I’ve built a couple of little tracked racers that worked fairly well, when I look at some people’s creations on here or YouTube etc, I’m in awe. I need to know how it’s done properly!

 

cheers
 

 

[1963maniac]

Get on Rebrickable.com and build a few MOCs that you like. I'd start smaller before you go bigger. Certainly don't spend Money on building instructions for now.

As far as buying parts, don't forget about "replacement parts" on Lego.com as well as Bricklink.com. At some point a  large premium set of the kind of parts you use most.  A purchase like that would give you more of everything  to have on hand.

[Alasdair Ryan]

Hi Tommy welcome to Eurobricks,I would take a slightly differant approch myself rather I plan then build over time that builds up your part collection. First thing I plan is what do I want to build then look at the key parts I would need to build it. I sometimes break down a model into smaller sub components. I have listed some examples of questions I ask myself below:

1. What would I like to build
2. What building style? (Technic studed,Technic studless,Model-Team etc)
3. Is it manual or Electric?

•      If electric what do I need?
•      If Manual what do I need?

1. What are the key functions,what parts do I need?
2. Wheels or tires?

Like 1963maniac has suggested I buy my parts from Bricklink but you could plan to buy sets for there parts too. Or if you like a challenge build a C-Model which limits you to reuse an existing set's parts.

 

 

 

 

 

[lamaii]

I would personally avoid ebay for parts, every time I've looked the prices are far too high.  For me it's either Lego.com, Bricklink or look out for sets with massive discount, for example set 42099 was for sale @ £100 (RRP £200) at Argos over Xmas. So this go me a Hub, 3 motors & 1000 parts all for a £100.

 

Argos, smyths, John Lewis & Amazon can all have good discounts, just have a quick search on these sites once a week,  and keep an eye on the bigger sets with 4000 or so parts.  

[Jurss]

Welcome!

I think, there was topic something like this. I just can't find it now.

[AFOoLish]

Are you referring to this topic? 

 

[Jurss]

I think, yes.

[Mechbuilds]

Surprising how many people forget brickowl. 

Try going on brickowl.com You can get parts much cheaper there and easier. Their category system works better than bricklink. 

[doug72]

8 minutes ago, Mechbuilds said:

Surprising how many people forget brickowl. 

Try going on brickowl.com You can get parts much cheaper there and easier. Their category system works better than bricklink. 

Agree - I only use Brickowl,

Edited January 5, 2020 by Doug72

[Tommy C]

Thanks for the advice. I have bought a few bits of eBay but really had to shop around for sensible prices. Will check out all those mentioned. 
 

I’m only really interested in making motorised stuff. And it’ll likely all be stud less as that’s all I have and will likely have if I buy new sets. I’d love some of the new PU stuff but kinda invested into PF for now.

 

[Toastie]

Welcome @Tommy C!

Well, yes: All the replies above are really to the point.

What I did when recovering from my dark ages - back then, which is more than 20 years ago - was a bit - less planned out. With approval from the family (money was a big issue - we moved to the US, two girls, not 1 and 2 years old, and my wife was not allowed to work - H1 visas kinda suck ...), I purchased small LEGO sets - at bargain prices - from TrU (gone), Target, other stores not that much into LEGO - just to get the pieces I wanted. That lead to "many" extra pieces I had at my disposal ... which turned into some sort of "freedom" when bricking. And it was so much fun browsing the shelves ...

Today, I also take the BL route, look into eBay etc - but just because I made up my mind and know what I need. Back then, I was exploring the LEGO world. I believe this is where you are. Which is wonderful. You'll for sure enjoy it.

All the best,
Thorsten

 

[Gray Gear]

I agree. If you dont have a lot of LEGO yet, its better to buy a lot of Bricks (sets, collections) instead of just buying what you need. I would suggest buying a used technic collection. It will give you a lot of Bricks to play with, and is likeky to have Power functions in it as well. And it will be way cheaper.

[MundaneBob]

If your collection grows I have two pieces of advice...

1 - sort your pieces by element type, do not sort by colour.

2 - point 1 will be difficult for a 5 year old to grasp, and you don't want to scare him off with boring talk about how to sort lego. So I recommend having a shoebox sized container of random mixed Lego that your son can dive into at any time, without the risk of him causing havoc in the main, efficiently sorted and stored collection.

Having said that my boy of similar age often ignores everything I say and I've resigned myself to a good 5 years of non-stop sorting up after a tornado.

[Tommy C]

My boys Lego and my Lego are separate!

[TeriXeri]

There could be different ways to start : 

• (Digital) designing in advance and buying parts.
• Alternate Builds of sets.
• Go further then a single set and mix sets/themes/parts.

Edited January 6, 2020 by TeriXeri