Tips on braking down & storing your collection

[Tazmancrash]

Hey there all.

I'm looking for some advice on how to break down collection of sets & store them for the duration of our house reno.

I'm lookin at braking everything down into parts, putting them into A4 zip lock bags & buying 30 file foolscape boxes to put them into. Then stacking the boxes into the large file boxes.

Has anyone done something similar?

I have 50 odd sets to take apart. Biggest set is 42082 rough terrain crane 

 

Thanks in advance 

[JonathanM]

If I'm storing in bags by set, then what I do is use smaller zip lock bags for smaller parts and then A4 sized for the big ones. The smaller bags then go inside the big ones.

I usually put all pins (2L, 3L, 2L cross axle, 3L cross axle, 1.5L, 1L, 3L with bush) in the same bag, then all 'tiny' parts in a bag (small plates, tiles, printed tiles, small "special" stuff like bars etc) in another bag, axles in another, gears, actuators etc in another.

Then all connectors in a bag, and possibly also all lift arms under say 5L or 3L depending on set size (smaller sets you can combine these two bags).

Everything else that's larger goes in the main bag.

Something like 42082 you might need 3 A4 bags in total maybe. I have 42009 and 42043 each in 2 A4 sized ziplocs. It's worth getting thicker/better quality ziplocs if you can - particularly for the big bags.

This makes it nice and easy to rebuild - just dump out the bags into boxes of appropriate sizes enables fast part finding during build.

[Tazmancrash]

Yes I have a bunch of smaller bags to sort pins, gears, lift arms etc into. I will be keeping all the instruction books separate in there own bags in a separate box.

Not really looking forward to stripping down the sets

[Captainowie]

If you're looking to minimise total volume, then maybe stripping down the sets isn't your best move - I suspect that an assembled set with the sticky-outy bits taken off is a more dense way to store bricks.

Good luck though.

[icm]

By far the most volume-efficient way to store Lego is taken apart, inside ziploc bags that are filled loosely enough to retain some flexibility and let you squeeze all the air out.  I like to use quart-size bags and gallon-size bags.  Then bagged sets are stored inside large plastic bins.  When you build a set, you add a lot of air - - - just think how much air is "trapped inside" an enclosed box like a building or a car!  Technic sets don't usually have large sealed spaces like that, but their structures and gearboxes are still a lot sparser than the raw parts in a pile.  A big bin can hold several times as many parts disassembled and bagged than it could if those same parts were assembled in sets, because the sets don't fill the volume the way bags of loose parts do .... Sounds like @Tazmancrash has the right idea.  Depending on the size, 50 sets should fit in two or three 56-quart storage bins.  Those won't take up too much space in a closet.  I store all my sets that way and rotate out a few every now and then to build and swoosh.

[Mechbuilds]

Disassemble all your sets into pieces and store the pieces in this type of storage cabinets:


Just remember to label the doors so you know which part is in which drawer. 
I have 3 large storage cabinets like these in my computer desk all filled to the brim with parts and still a massive pile of parts lying in the desk. 

If you want your sets to last a long time, always disassemble them. That way any part isn't constantly under stress when you leave your sets assembled. 

[Jurss]

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/26213-storage-and-sorting-lego/&tab=comments#comment-453739

[nerdsforprez]

Honestly, if you have 50 ish sets and you want to keep them after the home renovation...which should what, take 1, two, maybe three months? 

I don't know where you live, and don't know if this is an option in other countries, but if it were me I would simply rent a storage unit for a few months.  Renting a storage unit for just a few months (at least here in the US) would be less that one new large set, and probably less or at least equal to buying all the storage materials for 50 sets.  Soooo.... much easier as well. 

If a storage unit is not possible I assume you don't want to break things down to pieces.  Right?  For 50ish sets, taking them all apart, doing house renov., and putting them back together would take forever.  As others have said, just take off the elements that make storage difficult.  Tires, (boom for 42082), etc. make storage difficult and can be taken off in a modular-sort of way.  Easy to put back on later...

3 hours ago, Jurss said:

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/26213-storage-and-sorting-lego/&tab=comments#comment-453739

Not sure this is a helpful thread.  By the title and first post, it seems the OP is not looking for advice how to organize/sort Lego for the long term, or even down to the element-level, rather just as easily as possible for the short term during a house renovation.  I would assume he would like to keep things together as much as possible.  OP, please confirm if this is correct or not. 

 

[howitzer]

3 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

Honestly, if you have 50 ish sets and you want to keep them after the home renovation...which should what, take 1, two, maybe three months? 

I don't know where you live, and don't know if this is an option in other countries, but if it were me I would simply rent a storage unit for a few months.  Renting a storage unit for just a few months (at least here in the US) would be less that one new large set, and probably less or at least equal to buying all the storage materials for 50 sets.  Soooo.... much easier as well. 

If a storage unit is not possible I assume you don't want to break things down to pieces.  Right?  For 50ish sets, taking them all apart, doing house renov., and putting them back together would take forever.  As others have said, just take off the elements that make storage difficult.  Tires, (boom for 42082), etc. make storage difficult and can be taken off in a modular-sort of way.  Easy to put back on later...

Not sure this is a helpful thread.  By the title and first post, it seems the OP is not looking for advice how to organize/sort Lego for the long term, or even down to the element-level, rather just as easily as possible for the short term during a house renovation.  I would assume he would like to keep things together as much as possible.  OP, please confirm if this is correct or not. 

 

This is what I would do. 42082 isn't even that large if you take off the boom, I mean it fits into MUCH smaller space than the box it's sold with. 42055 is pretty large and would require somewhat more of disassembly, and other excavator or crane-like vehicles would have to had their booms etc. removed too. Stuff like supercars would probably fit almost equally well assembled as disassembled.

I guess the question here indeed is whether you want to keep them built or not after the renovation. If not, then you could as well disassemble, but if yes, just take the pokey parts away and keep the rest intact.

[doug72]

HOW NOT TO BREAK DOWN & STORE LEGO !

I have two crates like this which I am storing since my grandson grew out of Lego. Contents are many years of Lego presents at Xmas & birthdays.

On the plus side its proving a source of parts I sometimes required but a pain to sort through.

Edited July 3, 2020 by Doug72

[nerdsforprez]

3 hours ago, howitzer said:

 Stuff like supercars would probably fit almost equally well assembled as disassembled.

 

I was looking at the box dimensions versus car dimensions and it looks like for each the Bugatti, Porsche and now the Sian TLG made boxes that are a tiny too short to house each set fully built.  A lot of thought obviously went into each box, and I get it, they are already all very cool, but it really would have been nice that with a little more planning to make the boxes large enough that the sets could have been stored in the boxes they came with.....

 

[Tazmancrash]

Hi guys & girls. 

Sorry for the late reply.  I've been busy demolishing the main bathroom. 

Thanks for all the suggestions. 

23 hours ago, Mechbuilds said:

If you want your sets to last a long time, always disassemble them. That way any part isn't constantly under stress when you leave your sets assembled. 

I've always wondered about this.

So I've decided after looking at some of my older sets from the 80s 90s that I'll strip all the sets down. Wash, dry & check for cracked parts. Check the inventorys & order any replacement parts.

The Reno will be over 9 month's.  2x bathrooms. 1x kitchen.  Full internal plaster & repaint.  New heat pumps. And new hardwood timber floors throughout the house. That's the inside.

Full exterior repaint & landscaping.  New timber stairs etc.

Used rebrickable last night & the total came to 66 sets. Just shy of 70000 parts.

[Tazmancrash]

19 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

Honestly, if you have 50 ish sets and you want to keep them after the home renovation...which should what, take 1, two, maybe three months?

I don't know where you live, and don't know if this is an option in other countries, but if it were me I would simply rent a storage unit for a few months.  Renting a storage unit for just a few months (at least here in the US) would be less that one new large set, and probably less or at least equal to buying all the storage materials for 50 sets.  Soooo.... much easier well.

Last reno took 4 years.  But this one will be quicker.

I've looked at storage. We will end up putting everything into storage once the new flooring arrives. We will either drop a shipping container in the driveway our take everything to a storage place