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I need to sort out my smaller plates from my bigger ones as it's becoming annoying to find them when I need them. I might sort them either by color or shape. What would you recommend for sorting of plates 2x2 to 2x8 sized (This is including tiles dishes and the 3 stud 2x2 corner plates

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Depends on the quantities...

In my case as I sport mostly by color I group the 2x2 / 2x3 / 2x4 together (except a few colors for which I really have too much of each). The 2x2 corner go with the 1x3 as they are rarer than the 1x2 or 1x4.

And all the round stuff is grouped together (again, by color), separately for the square/rectangle plates.

If you don't have much in each color it may be good to regroup a few colors together.

Edited by antp

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With the container I have in mind. I might have to go by color. As I have a lot of 2x2's and one of the drawers wouldn't hold all of them.

I'll probably group some colors together depending on there quantity.

Edit: Had an extra container in storage that I was able to use to sort my plates out better. Should be easier to find ones I'm looking for.

Might sort my black and grey brick bin next based on either color or size.

Edited by Takanuinuva

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I'm getting ready to have to pack up a bunch of lego for long term storage; mostly train and modular buildings. Is it better to try to keep the individual sections solid, or break them up into large chunks? What is the best size container to store these in? 

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i strongly suggest by type. Easier to pick a color out then a part varient 

4 hours ago, terryli said:

I have lot of technic part and hard to sort them, should I go by color or type?

Go with type. way easier to pick out a color then a part in a bin of color

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I have more or less 4 grades of storage, depending on quantities of certain colors.  For colors that I have large quantities of & large quantities of large bricks & plates for, I use 1-gallon plastic pretzel/snack jars.  For colors that I have smaller quantities of (or the smaller parts from the ones that I have large quantities of), I use empty half-gallon (more or less) cat treat containers with screw-on lids (I have 4 cats, so I go through one of those every 6 weeks or so, and thus have a ton of the empty ones laying around the house).

For minifigs, I use Stanley Fat Max storage boxes with individual, removable bins (they usually have like 2-3 4"x6" bins and the rest are 3"x6") and sort the figs by faction (or in the case of factions that I have a lot of figs for, by service branch).

Finally, for things like minifig weapons & accessories & minifig body parts (heads, legs, torsos, etc), I use these Keter storage boxes that have two sets of removable bins:  In the top half, there are small bins that are like 1.5" x 3" and the bottom has ones similar in size to the Stanley Fat Max small bins.

Of course, things like Plano tackle boxes work as well, but these are the ones that generally work best for me.

 

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so how does one go about sorting 10 buckets/drawers filled to the edge...

i kinda feel like starting all over again collecting sometimes.

 

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7 minutes ago, TriAngle said:

so how does one go about sorting 10 buckets/drawers filled to the edge...

i kinda feel like starting all over again collecting sometimes.

 

I had a similar situation a few months back when I acquired two five gallon pails of used Friends sets.  

First, I did a rough sort by size.  Larger  plates, windows and doors in one pile.  Brick and medium to smaller plate in another pile.  Then all the little stuff in the third.

Second, I sorted it by my normal method -- colour and piece type.

With so much brick that you have, I would do several sorts to get the lot into manageable chunks.  You don't have to accomplish everything at once.  Be patient and do a bit at a time.

Hope that helps.

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7 minutes ago, beverly888 said:

I had a similar situation a few months back when I acquired two five gallon pails of used Friends sets.  

First, I did a rough sort by size.  Larger  plates, windows and doors in one pile.  Brick and medium to smaller plate in another pile.  Then all the little stuff in the third.

Second, I sorted it by my normal method -- colour and piece type.

With so much brick that you have, I would do several sorts to get the lot into manageable chunks.  You don't have to accomplish everything at once.  Be patient and do a bit at a time.

Hope that helps.

welp i guess i'll be dunking everything out the bins soon:)

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I've found that doing the sorting in several stages helps break the workload down into manageable chunks.  My top level sort is into the categories; rectangular bricks, odd shaped bricks, plates, tiles, Technic parts.  From there I sort each pile into sub categories and so forth until they're sorted down to the divisions they're stored in.  One of the benefits of doing it this way is that at the end of each stage you have piles that can be boxed or bagged until time for the next stage of sorting. 

 

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4 hours ago, Fabulandlover said:

Does anyone use here boxes from the brand Really Useful Box? They sell boxes with dividers and I wondered how many bricks they can contain.

What I use are Sterelite 15 quart containers. Inside I use either 1 gallon freezer bags or Glad entre storage containers. The Sterelite looks more compact because of the handles on the RUBs. I also use Plano tackle boxes. I hav standardized on these containers for ease of storage.

IHTH

Andy D

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Anyone who collects mostly/exclusively Technic have any pics of their sorting and storage?

I have a room in our house that I dedicate to my toys and games, so I'm trying to get ideas on how to arrange and setup the space.

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For anyone living in UK,
Aldi is doing their yet another "DIY week" (started 17.01.19) and they are selling 33 accessory drawers.
Last year i bought 6 of them and they are working very fine for £8.99
I am considering buying 2-3 more for "eventual growth of collection" :laugh: 
Maybe if i remove red bar ill be able to squeeze them in there. :innocent2:

On 6/28/2018 at 11:16 AM, Dorino said:

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Edited by Dorino

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On 1/18/2019 at 9:35 AM, Dorino said:

For anyone living in UK,
Aldi is doing their yet another "DIY week" (started 17.01.19) and they are selling 33 accessory drawers.
Last year i bought 6 of them and they are working very fine for £8.99
I am considering buying 2-3 more for "eventual growth of collection" :laugh: 
Maybe if i remove red bar ill be able to squeeze them in there. :innocent2:

 

Those are great indeed!

I use them myself as well for sorting - I have about 28 now :blush:

I also started with 6, then I bought 10 more and I quickly realized even that would not be enough.

They're really great. I love that they exactly fit nx8 plates. Would have liked there were some drawers that you could split up in two rather than 3 though, but most work perfectly with 3 compartments

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Though, there is something of a disaster if they tip over.

I use one for MF heads and it was set in a place that was secure. But one day disaster struck, the whole thing was tipped. *oh2* And some choice words were all I could do!

It took some picking and re-sorting afterwards!

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On 1/19/2019 at 9:59 PM, Peppermint_M said:

Though, there is something of a disaster if they tip over.

I use one for MF heads and it was set in a place that was secure. But one day disaster struck, the whole thing was tipped. *oh2* And some choice words were all I could do!

It took some picking and re-sorting afterwards!

I can imagine... none of mine have fallen yet, though one has almost. I do stack them 2 high, too afraid to stack them higher haha

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Getting back into LEGO after having my most of my collection in storage since high school, I'm confronted with the daunting task of starting a sort. I've entered all of the sets that I own into Brickset and it looks like I've got about 20-30,000 pieces. Some sets are individually sorted into bags with their instructions, but at least 75% of it is loose mixed up pieces in bins.

Since my main goal is to start designing MOCs, I'm thinking of only keeping a few sets assembled for display/play (an X-Wing, a modular building, etc.) and sort everything else into some kind of drawers eventually. I hope that if I have everything sorted as precisely as I see users on here doing then it won't be too hard to grab the pieces that I need when I want to re-build an old set.

Based on what I've been reading and the type of collection I have, I think the easiest way to start sorting is into these categories: bricks, plates, tiles, SNOT, slopes, Technic, terrain (plants, BURPs, etc), special elements (e.g. Pirate, Castle, Space elements), and minifigs. After I've got that done I can more discretely sort those groups by size and color.

Any tips from others who have gone through similar sorts would be great. I'll also keep reading through the back pages of this thread for guidance.

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23 hours ago, Leverandon said:

Based on what I've been reading and the type of collection I have, I think the easiest way to start sorting is into these categories: bricks, plates, tiles, SNOT, slopes, Technic, terrain (plants, BURPs, etc), special elements (e.g. Pirate, Castle, Space elements), and minifigs. After I've got that done I can more discretely sort those groups by size and color.

Any tips from others who have gone through similar sorts would be great. I'll also keep reading through the back pages of this thread for guidance.

4 posts in and you've already got it! Go by those criteria and you'll be well sorted in no time. For big pile sorts I grab the biggest pieces first and do similar pieces at a time using two hands to grab one piece size each, for example 2x8s in right hand hand and 2x6s in left hand, then 2x4 and 2x3 and so on.

Also recommend going by what you most use or think you'll most use. For example a Technic builder's draw organization would likely look a lot different from this/mine:

Plates!

48057265563_aaa0ab9853_c.jpg

48057265623_12996837d9_c.jpg

Bricks!

48057312822_6600da19a7_c.jpg

Frequently used:

48057265913_7ba94d330a_c.jpg

Some pieces just won't fit in many drawer sizes (or they're not easy to grab from the drawers) like these large plates.

48057217671_230700f4db_c.jpg

With all drawers basically full or taken the other larger or incredibly abundant parts get their own containment: angle/round bricks, angle/round plates, hinges/clips and doors/windows/walls:48057265828_df6a2e8c8a_c.jpg

In addition to this there are 3 unsorted plastic tubs. Once you start it is never ending!

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8 hours ago, koalayummies said:

48057265563_aaa0ab9853_c.jpg

The longer plates can be sorted by color, since they are in 2 or 3 stacks. E.g. warm colors, cool colors, neutral colors.

 

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11 hours ago, splatman said:

The longer plates can be sorted by color, since they are in 2 or 3 stacks. E.g. warm colors, cool colors, neutral colors.

Yeah good tip! Kind of forgotten about that with the 1x6s, I've done that with the 1x2s since grey/black/white are abundant in my collection while all the other colors are together.

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After 25ish years of playing with LEGO on the floor, I am getting tired of having LEGO-legs everytime I build something. The time has finally come to start building a proper desk and storage racks for my collection. The first image below is a crude Sketchup drawing of what I am going to build. The desk will be made from 18mm plywood and will be 1650mm long, 533mm wide and 660mm high. The shelving will be made from 12mm ply and will have 28 shelves, each shelf will be 789mm long and 150mm wide. Total height of desk and shelving unit will be 2238mm. I am also going to build a wall unit to give me extra shelves which will be 825mm long, 150mm wide and 1017mm high. The main shelving unit on the desk will hold 168 plastic food containers and the wall unit will hold another 54 containers giving a total of 222. Each shelf on the desk and wall unit will be angled at roughly 18° and they have an edging strip to stop the containers sliding out. I have also added a piece of offcut in the centre of the desk shelving unit that sticks out to fit a worklight as this unit will be in the corner of my living room which isn't that well lite. I'm planning on getting an LED batten light fixture which is 1800lm which should be planty bright enough. I am hoping to get the wood and build this next week sometime.
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This second image is of the plastic food containers I have like half of my LEGO collection in. Still need to sort all my plates, tiles, technic beams and other bricks.
65053667_450945575720803_785335885047110


Hope you all don't mind me posting this in this thread, but I thought you might be interested. Ill post another update when I have the desk and shelves built.

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3 hours ago, MxWinters said:

The time has finally come to start building a proper desk and storage racks for my collection.

That is a massive task indeed! I just wish I had the available space to do something similar, but a 3-room apartment dont leave much free room. Most of my LEGO bricks are in large boxes in a basement room I rent in a house a few hundred metres from mine, but its still a challenge to find what I need in a little box in a big box in a big heap of big boxes...

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