Is It Possible To Reintroduce Old Sets?

[danth]

20 hours ago, Slegengr said:

I don't recall the switched hair pieces; do you have any more details on that? 

The Legends version of Main Street had a different hair piece for the woman minifig and also omitted the largest molded tree. Basically a case of going 98% of the way and calling it good enough.

 

[Black Falcon]

Just that legends is not a theme where Sets belong to each other. They introduce iconic sets, and it doesn´t really work to promote and little Castle Set to make people buy a Pirate and Space one. I mean If they sell an and low Price Setwith some Knights and Siege. That might make people want to buy a castle. So if you have one good, but all the other Sets won´t profit from that promo really.

In that matter, it would make more sense to make a promo Set as a GWP, which only would be given when you buy legends Sets. That way people would just buy the set they want but would get the promo one for free.

[SpacePolice89]

11 hours ago, Mylenium said:

And some of those molds have already been reported as missing or damaged

Do you have more specific information or know where information about discontinued/damaged molds can be found? I'm very interested in stuff like this.

11 hours ago, Mylenium said:

The ways how molds are mounted and fed, the block sizes and whatnot have changed considerably over time and molds do age, so even if they still have them, they at least need a polish and possibly major adaptations to fit in a new machine.

Do you know if some pieces that have been around for like forever are still being produced with the same mold? Some examples:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3844&idColor=10#T=S&C=10&O={"color":10,"iconly":0}

and

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4070&idColor=3#T=S&C=3&O={"color":3,"iconly":0}

[Mylenium]

11 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Do you know if some pieces that have been around for like forever are still being produced with the same mold?

Probably none. At this point I would assume that anything that is still being produced and has been continually produced for the last twenty years is based on new molds.

11 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Do you have more specific information or know where information about discontinued/damaged molds can be found? I'm very interested in stuff like this.

Not that I know. This stuff randomly pops up in articles on sites like New Elementary that specialize in obsessing about molds and pieces. I vaguely seem to remember that e.g. pretty much all of the octagon system molds have been scrapped/ repurposed and I would assume that this is true for a lot of molds from that era.

Mylenium

[MAB]

19 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

I think it would be more realistic for spiritual successors. Reusing the graphics from the torsos and panels (or dare I say giving them a slight tweak ala the CMF Blacktron figures that combined both styles into one) re-issuing the characters in a new storyline for the theme. As others said, many of the critical moulds are long gone or have passed reintroduction as technology marches on, but in a "neo" approach it is still possible. 

There have been a few such appearances in the CMF. It is a good way to revive some insignia but keep to modern standards.

23 hours ago, Mylenium said:

A better question likely is "How much of a profit?". They have been known to burn money on non-profitable projects just to show off and of course we could argue endlessly how poorly some sets actually sell. I think it's more important to consider how things balance out overall, not the individual product's success. This in turn could totally mean they would be willing to accrue losses on a revived older set if in turn it sparks interest in other sets and they recover the money that way.

The balancing out also applies to their new weird products that are often described as "nobody asked for this". They are continually looking for a new big thing, a step change rather than incremental change. We often laugh at Life of George, Vidiyo,  etc but if one of those types of toys actually took off it could bring in many bew buyers compared to a slightly different theme. If they can tap into a new market - kids playing with apps that don't really play with lego much - then they have a huge new market. Experiments have worked in the past. If they hadn't experimented with minifigs, or technic,  or mindstorms,  LEGO would be very different today (probably not around any more). 

[MAB]

On 9/8/2023 at 8:46 PM, Slegengr said:

It seems like TLG in general does not understand their market information properly and consistently bungles the concepts.  Maybe I am just missing the insider information as a consumer, but it seems like TLG could make a lot of money off more nostalgia connections, especially right now when people in their 30's/40' who lived through LEGO's "Golden Era" may have children to introduce to LEGO and would love the nostalgia connection.  Does TLG really not understand the meaning behind second-hand prices on old sets?  They certainly seemed to understand with the Eldorado Fortress remake: price matched the BrickLink average sales price for the original almost exactly...

 

I think they do understand secondary market prices in most cases. They know there is an adult community willing to pay high prices for nostalgia and one way to extract money is by selling large 18+ sets. And that seems to work well. However people paying $100s on the seconday market for a small fairly basic set are rare. I doubt they are buying out of nostalgia but out of collecting the originals. If they reintroduce the same or similar set, it is not the same thing. Other adults might buy it, but would that make them as much money as a large 18+ set or as much as a small set aimed at kids.

They sort of dud this with Benny's Space Squad. When that came out, it flew off the shelves to the point of being hard to find and the secondary market prices for the figures was high. But within a month or so, when more and more stock hit shelves, it sat around and those initial SM prices bombed. Here, it got heavily discounted to shift. This was probably over production rather than lack of demand, as the minifig prices have slowly climbed a bit now.

It is also interesting to see what happened with the Taj Mahal.  That was one of the sets often mentioned in investment articles. From what I understand the re-release didn't do that well. It killed the secondary market price, but didn't actually create that many sales for new product. That one was not nostalgia of course. It seems people wanted it because it was hard to find and so a good investment rather than wanting the set. In that case, it seems it was more of a Dutch tulip bubble type investment than the classic sets. We don't know what LEGO's intentions were, but it certainly broke the investment cycle for that set. Whether that would happen for other sets like Emerald Night or Imperial Flagship or Cafe Corner, who knows. But in each case, I imagine a modern remake rather than direct copy would be better received overall.

[SpacePolice89]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

Experiments have worked in the past. If they hadn't experimented with minifigs, or technic,  or mindstorms,  LEGO would be very different today (probably not around any more). 

But too much experimenting almost bankrupted the company in the early 2000s. They shouldn't try to be a tech company or an action figure manufacturer. Lego is great just by itself, we don't need apps or licenses to like Lego, sometimes it seems that even Lego themselves have forgot who they are. But of course, if they have some groundbreaking idea they should go for it.

[MAB]

3 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

But too much experimenting almost bankrupted the company in the early 2000s. They shouldn't try to be a tech company or an action figure manufacturer. Lego is great just by itself, we don't need apps or licenses to like Lego, sometimes it seems that even Lego themselves have forgot who they are. But of course, if they have some groundbreaking idea they should go for it.

I don’t think it was experimentation as much as too many single use and expensive parts across all themes, including those that were established or incremental. They will always and should try to tap into new markets. LEGO is great for those that  already like LEGO, but LEGO want to grow their share of the toy market even more by doing something for the people not buying LEGO. Many people do need licences to like LEGO,  and without them and with the big Disney and Warner Bros licences in the hands of other manufacturers,  other brick building companies would be big rivals for LEGO. Their experiments tend to be rather small scale these days, so even if they fail, like Life of George and Vidiyo, it doesn't impact their overall sales. If every theme suddenly became app based, I'd worry. But I cannot see that happening. 

[Lyichir]

5 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

But too much experimenting almost bankrupted the company in the early 2000s. They shouldn't try to be a tech company or an action figure manufacturer. Lego is great just by itself, we don't need apps or licenses to like Lego, sometimes it seems that even Lego themselves have forgot who they are. But of course, if they have some groundbreaking idea they should go for it.

Worth mentioning that one of those early 2000s action figure themes (Bionicle) was not only highly successful but basically was the only thing keeping them afloat in 2003.

Anyway, I feel like fears of Lego repeating those sorts of mistakes fundamentally misunderstand both the context of that time period (when Lego was in a much less stable place than they are now), and the reality of what those mistakes entailed and what was done to fix them (for example, fears of Lego having too many parts or colors currently ignore the way that older parts are systematically retired to make room for them and how all expenses are much more carefully tracked and monitored than they were back then).

[Mylenium]

22 hours ago, MAB said:

The balancing out also applies to their new weird products that are often described as "nobody asked for this". They are continually looking for a new big thing, a step change rather than incremental change. We often laugh at Life of George, Vidiyo,  etc but if one of those types of toys actually took off it could bring in many bew buyers compared to a slightly different theme. If they can tap into a new market - kids playing with apps that don't really play with lego much - then they have a huge new market.

But then again LEGO is still its own worst enemy. I would have loved for VIDIYO to be a success since I love weird, crazy colors and unique characters (the first series was the only series of minifigures I made a point to collect completely), but no matter what, it is crystal clear why it bombed. Greed simply got the better of them and even after all these years the foregone conclusion has to be that they don't understand the digital world. These two factors always will get in the way and I fear Dreamzzz already is showing signs of being the next victim of their politics and policies. So yes, of course they'll need to experiment and come up with new stuff, but how inapt they are in doing so is still baffling.

Mylenium

11 hours ago, MAB said:

I don’t think it was experimentation as much as too many single use and expensive parts across all themes, including those that were established or incremental.

It's well established that it was a combination of factors. Costly molds were one of them, but they also had serious quality issues overall, issues with their color system, lack of packaging automation and so on. You name it and it probably applies.

Mylenium

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

But then again LEGO is still its own worst enemy. I would have loved for VIDIYO to be a success since I love weird, crazy colors and unique characters (the first series was the only series of minifigures I made a point to collect completely), but no matter what, it is crystal clear why it bombed. Greed simply got the better of them and even after all these years the foregone conclusion has to be that they don't understand the digital world. These two factors always will get in the way and I fear Dreamzzz already is showing signs of being the next victim of their politics and policies. So yes, of course they'll need to experiment and come up with new stuff, but how inapt they are in doing so is still baffling.

 

Why was it greed, and not just trying a new way of expanding into a new market. After all, everything they do is down to making sales, which you can then equate to greed. A modular every year, making Star Wars sets, nostalgic sets for adults, this is all done out of 'greed'. 

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

It's well established that it was a combination of factors. Costly molds were one of them, but they also had serious quality issues overall, issues with their color system, lack of packaging automation and so on. You name it and it probably applies.

Indeed. It was pretty much everything they were doing, not just experimenting in new areas.

[SpacePolice89]

Since so many parts have changed or been discontinued over the years, reimagined versions of old sets like the Galaxy Explorer seems the only realistic way to return to older themes. But what about minifigures, wouldn't it be great to be able to order any historic minifig you like? For example all the parts for a Space Police 1 officer like the one in my profile picture are still being made so it would be possible to manufacture them right now. Or would it be technically difficult to print so many different torso designs and sell them? Maybe they could have some sort of waiting list, if 100 people preorder at least 10 minifigs each they will make them or whatever limit that is reasonable. I have already bought many Blacktron 1 astronauts from pick a brick but there I have to buy all pieces separately and it's limited to minifigs that are currently being sold in sets.

Edited September 11, 2023 by SpacePolice89

[MAB]

3 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Since so many parts have changed or been discontinued over the years, reimagined versions of old sets like the Galaxy Explorer seems the only realistic way to return to older themes. But what about minifigures, wouldn't it be great to be able to order any historic minifig you like? For example all the parts for a Space Police 1 officer like the one in my profile picture are still being made so it would be possible to manufacture them right now. Or would it be technically difficult to print so many different torso designs and sell them? Maybe they could have some sort of waiting list, if 100 people preorder at least 10 minifigs each they will make them or whatever limit that is reasonable. I have already bought many Blacktron 1 astronauts from pick a brick but there I have to buy all pieces separately and it's limited to minifigs that are currently being sold in sets.

I guess it depends if they want to kill off bricklink as a secondary marketplace. And if doing torsos then why not heads and legs too? They could wipe out the secondary market on old CMF and classic figures if the price is right. Whether that would be a good thing is another matter.

 

[Slegengr]

On 9/10/2023 at 2:29 AM, MAB said:

I think they do understand secondary market prices in most cases. They know there is an adult community willing to pay high prices for nostalgia and one way to extract money is by selling large 18+ sets. And that seems to work well. However people paying $100s on the seconday market for a small fairly basic set are rare. I doubt they are buying out of nostalgia but out of collecting the originals. If they reintroduce the same or similar set, it is not the same thing. Other adults might buy it, but would that make them as much money as a large 18+ set or as much as a small set aimed at kids.

They sort of dud this with Benny's Space Squad. When that came out, it flew off the shelves to the point of being hard to find and the secondary market prices for the figures was high. But within a month or so, when more and more stock hit shelves, it sat around and those initial SM prices bombed. Here, it got heavily discounted to shift. This was probably over production rather than lack of demand, as the minifig prices have slowly climbed a bit now.

It is also interesting to see what happened with the Taj Mahal.  That was one of the sets often mentioned in investment articles. From what I understand the re-release didn't do that well. It killed the secondary market price, but didn't actually create that many sales for new product. That one was not nostalgia of course. It seems people wanted it because it was hard to find and so a good investment rather than wanting the set. In that case, it seems it was more of a Dutch tulip bubble type investment than the classic sets. We don't know what LEGO's intentions were, but it certainly broke the investment cycle for that set. Whether that would happen for other sets like Emerald Night or Imperial Flagship or Cafe Corner, who knows. But in each case, I imagine a modern remake rather than direct copy would be better received overall.

I agree that a significant element of the secondary prices is tied to collecting originals, but I also think that there is a market for sets that people would like to buy as adults that they dreamed of getting as a child, regardless of the exact form.  I still think the modern remakes of sets are the best course for almost all considerations, since they have less impact on the collector's market, hit heavily with nostalgia, and can still be nice new sets with appeal to children.

Today's market is definitely more complicated now that people are buying LEGO sets as an investment.  This seems to be the case with Benny's Space Squad: many people likely bought the set for nostalgia while children were also likely interested, but some people likely bought the set out for a while in hopes of investment when supply ran out and demand (especially to nostalgic adults) was still high.  This does put TLG in a position that is hard to predict, though I am quite confident that there is enough demand for the classic themes that at least small releases or 3-5 set waves could do well, maybe even every few years.  This could all be a view limited by my personal nostalgia for the classics and near-complete disinterest in all the licensed themes (though I do understand why pop-culture connections increase sales).

If LEGO would reproduce original sets, it is always likely to frustrate the secondary market investors, since sets with high enough demand to be worth reproducing are the sets with high secondary market prices due to the rarity/collector-aspect/investment cycle.  This is something I don't think TLG takes lightly, especially now that they own BrickLink and have direct source of secondary market information.  The case with the Taj Mahal seems likely to be repeated if they reproduce other large retired sets like the ones you mentioned.  As I stated previously and as you mentioned, modern remakes seem a much better course for profitability, interest to AFOL's, and interest to children, so I still do not really want to see classic sets reproduced nearly exact to the original, even if TLG would bring back or refabricate retired molds to make the originals as historically exact as possible.

Nostalgia is such a funny thing: starve it and the demand skyrockets; feed it too much and main-stream modernity might kill interest; I'm sure this is a delicate balance that TLG has to take into account, but I still hope they can see that a few nice modern remakes of Space, Pirates, and Castle (or even new sets with similar classic appeal merged with modern parts/techniques) are in demand enough to produce instead of having almost none.  I also hope that they don't continue wrapping the whole nostalgia package into primarily large, 18+ sets or GWP.  I'm really curious how sets like the Forest Hideout GWP would have faired financially if they are sold like typical sets.  This might be discussion for a different thread, though. 

 

On 9/9/2023 at 11:00 AM, danth said:

The Legends version of Main Street had a different hair piece for the woman minifig and also omitted the largest molded tree. Basically a case of going 98% of the way and calling it good enough.

 

Interesting, I did not even know this set existed.  It's definitely a case of a set remake without parts from discontinued molds.

[Slegengr]

4 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Since so many parts have changed or been discontinued over the years, reimagined versions of old sets like the Galaxy Explorer seems the only realistic way to return to older themes. But what about minifigures, wouldn't it be great to be able to order any historic minifig you like? For example all the parts for a Space Police 1 officer like the one in my profile picture are still being made so it would be possible to manufacture them right now. Or would it be technically difficult to print so many different torso designs and sell them? Maybe they could have some sort of waiting list, if 100 people preorder at least 10 minifigs each they will make them or whatever limit that is reasonable. I have already bought many Blacktron 1 astronauts from pick a brick but there I have to buy all pieces separately and it's limited to minifigs that are currently being sold in sets.

Though there could be ways to theoretically make it work from a primary-market and manufacturing perspective, this is still not an easy task.
As a consumer, most seem to assume that LEGO could just print money by reprinting retired parts that are expensive on the secondary market.  The challenge is in predicting profitability limits on how many to run at once to make it justifiable.  I am quite certain that the manufacturing lines are not as simple as a home paper printer, where you just print this or that sheet on demand.  There is setup time needed for a production line that makes small production runs not cost effective.  As you mentioned, if they got preorders of sufficient quantities, they could justify it, but that is a big IF and it still faces the issue seen with the secondary market considerations as MAB mentioned below.  It still seems like the Pick-a-Brick method with current-production parts and average 1 month delivery time (essentially preorders) will work best for TLG and fits the consumer needs fairly well.  If every past print was an option, not only would it directly harm the secondary market but it would also give so many options that most consumers would be overloaded.  Try randomly searching for a good torso for a personal interest by skimming through all printed torsos on BrickLink right now... without a theme reference or very extensive and accurate search terms, it takes a long time to skim thousands of prints to find what you want.  Most of the old printings would likely be missed and never get enough preorders to justify a production run.  This means that, as my general stance indicates, the current methods are likely the best with a secondary open market and new releases of redesigned classics as well as new designs.

 

15 minutes ago, MAB said:

I guess it depends if they want to kill off bricklink as a secondary marketplace. And if doing torsos then why not heads and legs too? They could wipe out the secondary market on old CMF and classic figures if the price is right. Whether that would be a good thing is another matter.

 

This is certainly an important aspect that TLG needs to consider (and likely are considering).  There is no perfect solution since demand is not completely predictable.  Secondary markets exist for a reason and TLG is in the unique position of owning one of the largest secondary markets (BrickLink) for their products.  They draw interest, collect market data, and bring monetary return directly from the secondary market and thus far seem to have handled such a unique position well enough in my opinion.

The only thing I'd like to see is more steady release of new sets or modern remakes in the "evergreen?" classic themes like Space, Castle, and Pirates to keep alive the imaginative play concept of the brand instead of the profit-hungry pop-culture-heavy path into mostly licensed themes.  Are open-ended imaginative themes really in such low demand these days?  They could be, but it seems a shame if TLG does not continue to push their original intents to encourage these concepts to continue.  Alternate build ideas and non-movie-or-story-specific themes seem closer to the original company ideals.

[danth]

21 hours ago, MAB said:

I don’t think it was experimentation as much as too many single use and expensive parts across all themes, including those that were established or incremental.

 

20 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Worth mentioning that one of those early 2000s action figure themes (Bionicle) was not only highly successful but basically was the only thing keeping them afloat in 2003.

Quoted for the juxtaposition. Bionicle had so many new specialized molds and yet saved the company.

I mean toy companies makes thousands of new molds every year, that's how they have new toys to sell. For Lego PR peddlers to claim poverty all the time -- "poor wittle Wego just can't afford these all big expensive molds" -- cracks me up.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Slegengr said:

The only thing I'd like to see is more steady release of new sets or modern remakes in the "evergreen?" classic themes like Space, Castle, and Pirates to keep alive the imaginative play concept of the brand instead of the profit-hungry pop-culture-heavy path into mostly licensed themes.  Are open-ended imaginative themes really in such low demand these days?  They could be, but it seems a shame if TLG does not continue to push their original intents to encourage these concepts to continue.  Alternate build ideas and non-movie-or-story-specific themes seem closer to the original company ideals.

There is also plenty of imaginative play in City, Friends and Ninjago. In the case of City and Friends, it is very easily accessible imagination based play, the themes being based on real life. Whereas Ninjago covers more fantasy based play, whether kids use the media or not. I also believe kids can play imaginatively with licensed themes. They make up stories based on the characters just like they make up stories based on what they know about pirates or soldiers. And while there are more licensed themes than unlicensed,  that is because those themes tend to be small compared to the large number of sets in the unlicensed themes.

[Lyichir]

3 hours ago, danth said:

 

Quoted for the juxtaposition. Bionicle had so many new specialized molds and yet saved the company.

I mean toy companies makes thousands of new molds every year, that's how they have new toys to sell. For Lego PR peddlers to claim poverty all the time -- "poor wittle Wego just can't afford these all big expensive molds" -- cracks me up.

I don't really appreciate my words being taken out of context to support a wholly different argument.

Lego molds are a complex subject. Compared to many other toy companies, Lego molds DO tend to be more precise and expensive, owing to their need for consistent compatibility. Even for Lego it can vary (more functional, connectivity-focused parts need a greater degree of precision than something like a figure part for which precision and longevity might be less essential). In Bionicle, an example of this was some masks or weapon parts being molded out of a softer plastic that could be molded more easily, without as much issue with the molds breaking down over use. These savings helped to keep costs down compared to basic bricks or sturdy Technic parts, but they DID result in notably less resilient parts (breaking or developing scratches more easily than hard ABS or Polycarbonate parts).

Bionicle molds were different in many ways from other System themes, but many of them DID continue to be reused throughout the theme's lifespan. Bionicle sets were also cheap (usually $30 or less, with the majority being less than half that) and produced in large quantities, meaning that, for instance, a mold investment for a series of six similar figures could be paid off more easily than other parts made for more expensive, lower-production sets. There's also rumors (I don't recall them being confirmed or not) that Lego did some reaccounting in Bionicle's later years that found that the cost of some molds had been underestimated, leading to more reuse of molds and fewer discrete molds per year in the theme's later years.

Obviously there are reasons why this doesn't apply as neatly to reissuing your average '70s, '80s, or '90s set (or for that matter, to bringing back older Bionicle sets now that their stable of common parts to draw from are almost all retired). Among other things, one reason why one-to-one reissues of many older sets is unlikely is that older molds were in many cases refined or replaced with superior versions over the years—an example is older castle wall panels, which included easily damaged supports that newer versions eschew. For that reason bringing back the older, inferior versions would be ill-advised.

I think recent modern nostalgia-focused sets, like the Galaxy Explorer or Lion Knights' Castle, have taken a safer approach than the older "Lego Legends" reissues by trying to come up with modern builds that merely evoke classic sets (and often do so with a greater level of detail and engineering), instead of trying and failing to create "authentic" reissues that nonetheless fall short of matching the originals.

[icm]

37 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

In Bionicle, an example of this was some masks or weapon parts being molded out of a softer plastic that could be molded more easily, without as much issue with the molds breaking down over use. These savings helped to keep costs down compared to basic bricks or sturdy Technic parts, but they DID result in notably less resilient parts (breaking or developing scratches more easily than hard ABS or Polycarbonate parts).

Agreed. As a Bionicle-obsessed kid in 2001-2005, it was easy for me to tell that most Bionicle parts were very low quality compared to other Lego parts. I can easily imagine that a mold for a Bionicle weapon, mask, or armor part cost only a fraction of what a mold for a regular System or Technic part would cost. Why? These special Bionicle parts have few connection points, and most of the shape is so unashamedly out-of-System that a millimeter more or less in any direction doesn't matter for quality control. The plastic was much softer and scratched and bent easily, so precision wasn't really a concern anyway. No nice new-Lego gloss on most of those parts either. Also those parts were meant for a very short service life of a couple of years, so I bet they churned through those molds and ran them at top speed until they broke. IMO, Bionicle molds were as close to cheap conventional plastic toy molds as anything Lego's ever made, except Galidor - and the Galidor molds, which did real damage to the company, were apparently high-precision, thus much more expensive.

Note that I'm not playing apologist for whether Lego should or should not make new molds for this or that today, in 2023 - all I'm doing is agreeing that specialty Bionicle molds were probably much cheaper than new molds for, say, wedge plates or modified bricks.

[danth]

5 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I don't really appreciate my words being taken out of context to support a wholly different argument.

It wasn't out of context. And what argument I make isn't really your choice is it?

5 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Lego molds are a complex subject. Compared to many other toy companies, Lego molds DO tend to be more precise and expensive, owing to their need for consistent compatibility.

I don't buy this at all completely. It's just partly PR. Almost all toys must have pieces that fit together nicely without gaps. Almost all of them have some form of male + female connectors that snap together. Take apart any toy and you'll see them everywhere.

Lego studs & anti-studs probably require more precision than those of course, any other part of a Lego piece, but even that only matters on small pieces that need to have good clutch with only a stud or two. Once you get into something like a 2x8 plate, you have 16 studs and a little imprecision here or there cancels out and probably even improves clutch.

And of course there are many pieces that have mediocre clutch anyway.

5 hours ago, Lyichir said:

In Bionicle, an example of this was some masks or weapon parts being molded out of a softer plastic that could be molded more easily, without as much issue with the molds breaking down over use.

I think you're downplaying the precision required for all the ball joints and Technic connectors.

5 hours ago, Lyichir said:

but many of them DID continue to be reused throughout the theme's lifespan. Bionicle sets were also cheap

Almost all Lego pieces are reused in various sets, and there are many cheap Lego sets. Lego has more mold-reuse than literally any other toy and even when one wears out, it's cheaper to recreate an existing mold than to design a completely new mold.

Also let's be real. We're talking about mostly rectangular blocks here. These molds aren't nearly as complicated or expensive as something like a large vehicle mold you'd see in an action figure line.

So while I agree that Lego does require more precise molds in some regards, it's exaggerated, and the cost of that precision is mostly recouped through part reuse & design reuse and the molds being pretty simple in geometry anyway.

Edited September 12, 2023 by danth
EDIT: Removed some exaggeration.

[Peppermint_M]

1 hour ago, danth said:

Lego studs & anti-studs probably require more precision than those of course,

Yes, yes they do. Take it from a terrible "clone brand" buyer of many years. Some parts won't separate, some brick brands are so loose a connection that they hardly stay together during a build, let alone play. Then you have the "quality" that causes a 2x16 plate to warp if you put a 2x4 brick onto the middle. LEGO are doing some things to count towards their premium status. 

[icm]

1 hour ago, danth said:

Once you get into something like a 2x8 plate, you have 16 studs and a little imprecision here or there cancels out and probably even improves clutch.

That's not really how tolerance stacking works. A little imprecision doesn't matter much on a few parts or items that need to meet. Generally, the more points that have to meet certain relative positions, the tighter the tolerance has to be on each point. A 2x8 plate has to have higher tolerances than a 1x1 plate, because it needs to accomodate the tolerance buildup of sixteen 1x1 plates placed on top of it. That's why larger plates (and larger bricks) are so expensive. Not only are the molds more complex and the filling/cooling patterns more complex, but they have to be machined to higher tolerances because they need to accomodate the tolerance buildup of all the smaller parts that are going to attach to them. That, in turn, is why best practices for Lego building are to not have very long lengths or very large areas of stud-antistud mating, but to break those areas up with tiles: the buildup of all that wiggle room in the location of each individual stud results in a lot of stress in the large parts. A little imprecision here or there isn't like a little noise here or there in scientific data, where you can stack multiple measurements to get a better signal-to-noise ratio. It doesn't cancel out. It may "improve clutch," but that just means that you're getting tight interference fits where they're not intended due to imprecise molding, and that damages the parts. You don't want to improve clutch that way.

Source - this is based on my general understanding of things from my first- and second-year undergraduate courses in CAD and manufacturing processes. I'm not a materials scientist or manufacturing engineer and don't have any specialized knowledge of metals or plastics beyond what I learned in those classes. My later courses were in fluid mechanics and orbital mechanics. Any real manufacturing engineer on the forum should correct me if I've said anything wrong, which I probably did. But - FWIW - that's not how tolerance stacking works!

Edit -

I've also bought a lot of kits from a number of other brands in the last couple of years, and Lego does still have the most precise molding. Lego parts fit together better than Cobi (which is by far the best competitor as far as part quality goes, and is much better in terms of prints and print quality), and much better than Bluebrixx (parts sourced mainly from Xingbao) or Sluban, which are both companies I respect. And of course they fit together much better than parts from any of those anonymous Chinese "MOC shops." In the larger hobby model space, the quality and precision of Bandai molding is just about second to none, but the parts in the Bandai Gundams don't click together quite as neatly and securely as Lego parts, not to mention standing up to repeated cycles of assembly and disassembly. The ball joints are also a lot rougher than Lego ball joints. In hobby modeling generally, though less with Gunpla, panel gaps and mismatched assembly tabs are generally expected, though to varying degrees, and it's expected that you'll have to fix them with knife, glue, putty, and sandpaper. Lego is just supposed to fit together without all that. Most other plastic toys with male-female joints are designed to require as few of those joints as possible and to be very forgiving of misalignments and panel gaps.

I don't have enough experience with action figures, especially high-end action figures like Hot Toys or McFarlane, to have an informed comment on the precision of their molding, but I expect it's less demanding than Lego in many respects. Action figure parts have relatively few connection points and mating faces, and the tolerances between connection points and mating faces are what matter. Tolerance of surface cosmetic detail can be much looser. With basic Lego parts like a 2x8 plate, everything (just about) is a connection point, and every face is a mating face. So tolerances do have to be pretty tight - much tighter than for Bionicle parts (except the ball surfaces and maybe the joint-to-joint distances), because those are much more like action figure parts than conventional Lego parts (to the continual astonishment of many Lego fans).

Edited September 11, 2023 by icm

[danth]

2 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Yes, yes they do. Take it from a terrible "clone brand" buyer of many years. Some parts won't separate, some brick brands are so loose a connection that they hardly stay together during a build, let alone play. Then you have the "quality" that causes a 2x16 plate to warp if you put a 2x4 brick onto the middle. LEGO are doing some things to count towards their premium status. 

 

2 hours ago, icm said:

I've also bought a lot of kits from a number of other brands in the last couple of years, and Lego does still have the most precise molding. Lego parts fit together better than Cobi (which is by far the best competitor as far as part quality goes, and is much better in terms of prints and print quality), and much better than Bluebrixx (parts sourced mainly from Xingbao) or Sluban, which are both companies I respect.

I've heard only good things about Cobi and Megablocks in recent years from people like Jang and others, but it sounds like it's not universal. I don't have any recent experience. I've heard Mega used to be a lot worse.

2 hours ago, icm said:

That's not really how tolerance stacking works. A little imprecision doesn't matter much on a few parts or items that need to meet. Generally, the more points that have to meet certain relative positions, the tighter the tolerance has to be on each point. A 2x8 plate has to have higher tolerances than a 1x1 plate, because it needs to accomodate the tolerance buildup of sixteen 1x1 plates placed on top of it. That's why larger plates (and larger bricks) are so expensive. Not only are the molds more complex and the filling/cooling patterns more complex, but they have to be machined to higher tolerances because they need to accomodate the tolerance buildup of all the smaller parts that are going to attach to them. That, in turn, is why best practices for Lego building are to not have very long lengths or very large areas of stud-antistud mating, but to break those areas up with tiles: the buildup of all that wiggle room in the location of each individual stud results in a lot of stress in the large parts. A little imprecision here or there isn't like a little noise here or there in scientific data, where you can stack multiple measurements to get a better signal-to-noise ratio. It doesn't cancel out. It may "improve clutch," but that just means that you're getting tight interference fits where they're not intended due to imprecise molding, and that damages the parts. You don't want to improve clutch that way.

Source - this is based on my general understanding of things from my first- and second-year undergraduate courses in CAD and manufacturing processes. I'm not a materials scientist or manufacturing engineer and don't have any specialized knowledge of metals or plastics beyond what I learned in those classes. My later courses were in fluid mechanics and orbital mechanics. Any real manufacturing engineer on the forum should correct me if I've said anything wrong, which I probably did. But - FWIW - that's not how tolerance stacking works!

You sound like you're much more knowledgeable than me on this, and I certainly could be wrong. I can explain what I mean more specifically.

Some of what I'm saying relies on the premise that it requires more force to pull apart pieces with more stud connections. I think that's fairly uncontroversial but I could be wrong.

Let's say you have a concept of 100% clutch, where any more tightness and you're liable to have problems putting pieces together or separating them after. And let's say you're manufacturing a 1x1 piece and you want to make sure the clutch is going to be strong so the piece doesn't just fall off with a single stud connection. If you target 98% clutch, and have precision such that the variance is 1% clutch, then you should be safe, since you can expect 99% to 97% clutch. Good clutch either way, and not too strong. But you have to be very precise. 

Now let's say you're making a 2x8 plate. You can get away with less clutch per stud since you will have multiple stud connections (up to 16) i.e. it will take more force to make your plate connection fail. So you target 80% clutch (maybe your anti-studs have a slightly larger inner diameter). In this case you can get away with a lot more variance, even 5%, because who cares if you actually get 85% or 75% clutch on some studs? That's still not too strong, and with 16 connections it's okay if one is slightly weak.

The above "sounds logical" to me but that doesn't mean it's true. I'm sure you're right about errors not stacking in a good way.

But I think what I'm saying is slightly different: more connections means less required clutch which allows lower precision. Which is based on absolutely no expertise or data, I admit. But I feel like there has to be some truth to my thinking, even if it doesn't totally pan out.

Edited September 12, 2023 by danth

[icm]

Ok, I understand what you mean. I think it would take a real manufacturing engineer to really answer the question.

[CastleRail]

But nothing says that every connection is used together to connect to the next part. Say you put a grid of 1x1 plates on your theoretical 2x8 with 75% clutch and half of them just fall off. That 75% vs 98% becomes very significant.