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MandyNeko

Colors of brick separators

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I have bunches of orange ones, but my son just bought a Space City set with his Christmas money that had a teal brick separator! Are they switching to all teal, or are more colors planned? Or already out there?

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They started using Teal ones in 2019, but both 2019 and 2020 have sets with Orange or Teal in them.

Some sets within the same theme even have different color seperators.

https://brickset.com/parts/design-31510

For example 2 Friends sets for 2020 : 

Teal : 41395-1.jpg?201912050531 Orange 41431-1.jpg?201912050531

Edited by TeriXeri

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There were green ones of the modern version in Palace Cinema and Horizon Express. Plus dark grey and green were available in the old style of separator.

 

 

Edited by MAB

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I'm kinda glad they are mixing it up a little.  According to Brickset (which I know is under-reporting because I'm terrible about updating my holding and rarely register duplicates) I _only_ have 124 of them in orange.  The green ones were pretty rare (I only have three and haven't seen them show up in a new kit in years), but I've already amassed a half dozen of the teal ones and they just came out circa the City Space introduction time frame (at least that was when I first noticed them).  Now if I could only come up with a good use for a couple hundred brick separators I'd be all set.

Maybe Eurobricks should host a "featured part" building competition with a requirement that all MOCs must incorporate at least 20 brick separators as building elements :sweet:  

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1 hour ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Maybe Eurobricks should host a "featured part" building competition with a requirement that all MOCs must incorporate at least 20 brick separators as building elements :sweet:  

That would be great, considering that you only actually ever need 2 at most, so if you buy any larger sets (except Technic) you'll probably end up with huge amount separators that are almost useless.

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3 minutes ago, howitzer said:

That would be great, considering that you only actually ever need 2 at most, so if you buy any larger sets (except Technic) you'll probably end up with huge amount separators that are almost useless.

Disagree. The brick separator is one of the most important things for builders.

If you only assemble what is pictured on the front of the box and then put that on a shelf forever then sure you probably don't need them very much (and plastic scale models glued together would yield both more realistic and probably less expensive results), and at that point the Lego might as well be Kragle'd.

If however you build your own things and thus take things apart then the brick separators are invaluable, and they also wear down over time with use so more are always needed. Taking apart a build that has a lot of plates and or tiles without a brick separator ranges from mildly annoying to almost impossible. That's why they're included with sets like that because if one places a 1x1 tile in the middle of a baseplate incorrectly for example then most would have a difficult time removing it without the separator.

Its Lego doing builders a service by including them and the arguments for their removal to reduce prices or that the plastic in the separator could be better utilized as more pieces instead just don't make sense. If you have an unused pile of brick separators then just donate them to an automotive garage, they work as plastic interior trim tools as well.

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38 minutes ago, koalayummies said:

Disagree. The brick separator is one of the most important things for builders.

If you only assemble what is pictured on the front of the box and then put that on a shelf forever then sure you probably don't need them very much (and plastic scale models glued together would yield both more realistic and probably less expensive results), and at that point the Lego might as well be Kragle'd.

If however you build your own things and thus take things apart then the brick separators are invaluable, and they also wear down over time with use so more are always needed. Taking apart a build that has a lot of plates and or tiles without a brick separator ranges from mildly annoying to almost impossible. That's why they're included with sets like that because if one places a 1x1 tile in the middle of a baseplate incorrectly for example then most would have a difficult time removing it without the separator.

Its Lego doing builders a service by including them and the arguments for their removal to reduce prices or that the plastic in the separator could be better utilized as more pieces instead just don't make sense. If you have an unused pile of brick separators then just donate them to an automotive garage, they work as plastic interior trim tools as well.

Umm.. what do you need 20 brick separators for? I mean, 1 is very useful, there are some situations where 2 are needed, but I can't think of a reason why someone would need 3 or more for their intended purpose. Yeah, they might wear down over the years and I can imagine someone disassembling MOC built of thousands of plates with only the separator would cause some wear, but I bet majority of brick separators supplied with the sets never see more than few uses.

As a kid I never had such a tool (I'm not sure if they even existed in early 90's) and while it could sometimes have been useful I never had a legally connected pieces stuck so that I couldn't separate them with my bare hands.

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I have probably about 25-30 that I use as brick separators. They are handy to keep around a building area as if you keep only two then chances are you will not be able to find them when you need them.

As for my other few hundred, they are LEGO parts so use them in MOCs.

 

Look at these MOCs from others...

35531912594_1f7c95e1d7_z.jpg36310393026_b437d8c993_z.jpg

 

And on here:

32924776291_cf62d99922_z_d.jpg

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, howitzer said:

Umm.. what do you need 20 brick separators for? I mean, 1 is very useful, there are some situations where 2 are needed, but I can't think of a reason why someone would need 3 or more for their intended purpose. Yeah, they might wear down over the years and I can imagine someone disassembling MOC built of thousands of plates with only the separator would cause some wear, but I bet majority of brick separators supplied with the sets never see more than few uses.

As a kid I never had such a tool (I'm not sure if they even existed in early 90's) and while it could sometimes have been useful I never had a legally connected pieces stuck so that I couldn't separate them with my bare hands.

The thin tile end wears down pretty quickly and the plate end holes elongate after enough uses, that's why you want more. If you only build Technic this might not be an issue for you but it is for others.

As a kid I used my teeth and the old pieces show it. Good guess that was at least one of the motivating factors for its introduction in 1988.

Apparently not the only one: TIL about the brick separator, where was this when I was a kid?

They include them in sets where it would be useful if a plate or tile is placed in the wrong spot. TLG does the right thing by not assuming that everyone already has them.

Again, what's the argument against them? How does it being included negatively impact you the way it being excluded could certainly impact someone attempting to remove two stuck plates or a tile on a baseplate? Using the "back in my day" 'we separated two stuck pieces uphill in the snow both ways' isn't really an argument for not including them today.

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12 minutes ago, MAB said:

...They are handy to keep around a building area as if you keep only two then chances are you will not be able to find them when you need them...

It's funny because back when there was just the larger older version and they weren't so common, I only had one and I always knew where it was. Now I have  several and I'm always trying to find one...

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Regarding the color, I think orange is the best as its easy to spot. I do appriciate the other colors but to me they're more of a collector item as I won't use them as a tool because they're rarer and will just get worn down.

Here's a another discussion:

"A new style of brick separator was introduced by LEGO in late 2011. To the satisfaction of many AFOL's, the new style comes in orange. (Many AFOL's had wished for brick separators to be made in orange for years, so that they could be spotted easily when needed.)" https://bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/7850/why-was-the-original-brick-separator-changed

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17 minutes ago, koalayummies said:

The thin tile end wears down pretty quickly and the plate end holes elongate after enough uses, that's why you want more. If you only build Technic this might not be an issue for you but it is for others.

Especially if you build mosaics with plates or tiles. Getting 1x1 tiles off a plate / baseplate can be a real pain even with the pointy end of a separator and they soon get blunt enough to not work as well. At least with 1x1 plates you can lever them with the other stud removal end.

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5 minutes ago, MAB said:

... and they soon get blunt enough to not work as well. 

You can always re-sharpen them with a nail file or emery board, but I suppose it's easier to just take a fresh one out of the 55 gallon tub-full of them we've each amassed over the years.

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14 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

You can always re-sharpen them with a nail file or emery board, but I suppose it's easier to just take a fresh one out of the 55 gallon tub-full of them we've each amassed over the years.

Yeah, although I regularly add them to bricklink orders if the seller has them cheap whether I need them or not. If under 5p each, they are not worth trying to resharpen.

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14 hours ago, koalayummies said:

The thin tile end wears down pretty quickly and the plate end holes elongate after enough uses, that's why you want more. If you only build Technic this might not be an issue for you but it is for others.

As a kid I used my teeth and the old pieces show it. Good guess that was at least one of the motivating factors for its introduction in 1988.

Apparently not the only one: TIL about the brick separator, where was this when I was a kid?

They include them in sets where it would be useful if a plate or tile is placed in the wrong spot. TLG does the right thing by not assuming that everyone already has them.

Again, what's the argument against them? How does it being included negatively impact you the way it being excluded could certainly impact someone attempting to remove two stuck plates or a tile on a baseplate? Using the "back in my day" 'we separated two stuck pieces uphill in the snow both ways' isn't really an argument for not including them today.

No argument against them except simple waste. I'd take a couple of extra spare parts (as they generally have many more uses) any day over a brick separator and while they indeed are useful with some sets, most of the time they are unnecessary. You can buy them separately for little money if you really need more than you get with sets but many comments here seem to indicate that vast majority of separators go almost unused. I think TLG could cut their production 50% and nobody would notice.

As a kid I never used teeth to separate bricks and the only thing I can remember having a real trouble with was pre-1990 friction pin, but everyone had trouble with them as they had a design flaw. Even 2 1x2 plates stuck together were pretty easy to separate, though you need to know how: use 2 normal 1x2 (or longer) bricks, one on top and one on bottom and using them as a support to get more leverage, pry the plates loose.

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15 minutes ago, howitzer said:

No argument against them except simple waste. I'd take a couple of extra spare parts (as they generally have many more uses) any day over a brick separator and while they indeed are useful with some sets, most of the time they are unnecessary. You can buy them separately for little money if you really need more than you get with sets but many comments here seem to indicate that vast majority of separators go almost unused. I think TLG could cut their production 50% and nobody would notice.

As a kid I never used teeth to separate bricks and the only thing I can remember having a real trouble with was pre-1990 friction pin, but everyone had trouble with them as they had a design flaw. Even 2 1x2 plates stuck together were pretty easy to separate, though you need to know how: use 2 normal 1x2 (or longer) bricks, one on top and one on bottom and using them as a support to get more leverage, pry the plates loose.

They are so cheap exactly because there are so many of them. If they only were included in extremely big sets, or in none at all, the price would go up pretty quickly.

And imho nobody should be forced to shell out the 2 or 3 bucks Lego sells an individual one for. That's just ridiculous :classic:. I also think that Lego would be able to cut costs significantly by not supplying them. What people tend to forget over BL prices and 10c/piece price ratios and whatnot is that the actualy costs for making an individual Lego piece are extremely low compared to what we pay for them. Which is obvious, as the price of a Lego set factors in a lot other things aswell...and Lego just IS expensive to begin with.

But I disgress.

I agree that most of us propably constantly have a lot more Brick separators than they need. But as @koalayummies already pointed out, it IS an important tool for builders, and they do wear out quickly - especially if you're dealing with older pieces. E.g., I recently bought 3 medium to large bulks of 80ies Lego, with some stuff still assembled. Took it all apart upon arrival for the obligatory round through the washing machine, and in the process of taking these old sets and old kid's MOCs apart alone I went through two brick separators. Old Lego is a bitch to take apart :laugh:. So though I never need 20 of them, it is good to know that there are more than enough left when one wears out again.

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Orange is good for stand out color.  We tossed our unwanted separators into our LUG play bricks. We still find ourselves going to the play bricks to get one during an event to undo something.  

We have this separate thread from before.  

 

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