Storage and Sorting LEGO

[mdoupe]

I just built a new shelf for my Bricklink parts with my dad. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.

Here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/BQ5h3

[Meiko]

I shared this in another topic but:

16 sets of these hardware drawers that you can get at home improvement/hardware stores. All are mounted on the wall and have labeled drawers listing design ID, colour, etc. Any overflow parts that are too big for drawers (wheels, boat parts, etc) and parts I have a huge amount of (black 2 module Technic pins, etc) go in Rubbermaid bins.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

16 sets of these hardware drawers...

Pfft, only 16? Lightweight I really like the labels you made. While I don't have individual parts separated (1x2's with 1x4's, etc) I did finally have enough of those bins for color sorting. I wish my were clear like yours though. The ones I bought from Lowes are opaque

Edited January 9, 2015 by LEGO Guy Bri

[Meiko]

I wish my were clear like yours though. The ones I bought from Lowes are opaque

I can see where that would be inconvenient. I don't remember where I got these ones; it was many years ago. I don't have drawers for a lot of recent parts either, so a lot of those end up staying in my bedroom in a box of disassembled sets from the past 3 or 4 years.

[owlbearsforall]

I had a small toddler rip through my LEGO organization, so it's hidden away in boxes for me to organize later, but here's a quick video of my office space were I show off finished sets and stash my bricks (not seen, hidden in the music cabinet where I keep my minifigs)

I have a few plastic organizer for everything, I just need a long weekend to put it all back together.

[fred67]

Ok; not meaning to hijack a thread, but instead of posting a new one I'm going to whine a bit...

I have so many pieces I don't know what to do with and doubt I will ever use. I post some things on the pay-it-forward thread occasionally, but don't understand why people don't want free LEGO.

But I just this past fall went through a huge process to resort all of my LEGO to, largely (not entirely) have it grouped into the Stanley organizers - each color gets at least one organizer (depending on how many pieces of that color I have); yellow has one big one... black has one big one and two small ones. White has one big one, one small one, and a lot of overflow into other containers for bricks I have a lot of.

So I go through all of this, and really for the first time decide I'm going to break up complete sets for various reasons (I previously have always kept them together, not buying for pieces). Well, I bought a couple of super hero sets, and after all my work of organizing things, I end up with:

That's just from one set. I can't imagine ever using these pieces, but they seem like useful pieces, so for posterity I try to work them into my collection, but that's seven new, distinct pieces that don't match anything else I have.

I'm tempted to have a bin just for oddball pieces, but then I'm afraid if one of these things ever becomes useful, it'll be completely out of sight/out of mind. On top of that, I wanted the set for the minifigures, and batman came with two types of cape and two heads. So now I have an extra batman head and cape.

So what do you do with these pieces? It's easy to sort "bricks," but when you get do these really detailed, almost one-off parts, and you start collecting a large number of them, what then?

This happens when you build the sets, too - as little oddball pieces often get left over (I don't know how many bucket handles I have... with no extra buckets to go with them). So what do you do?

Since I have the day off today, here's some pictures of my sorting:

Shelves of Stanley organizers. by FredJH, on Flickr

Shelves of Stanley organizers. by FredJH, on Flickr

Trans in small Stanley organizer. by FredJH, on Flickr

White in small Stanley organizer. by FredJH, on Flickr

4 Akro Mills and one Stack On. by FredJH, on Flickr

Hard to see, but the bottom has three Akro-Mills units, front to back; the top has one Stack On in back, and one AM in front... this is the problem I have with "storage density," and why I'm weaning away from these, despite the fact they look good and are easy to find pieces in. Since I only have room for two, with several of those units in behind, shelves of Stanley containers gives a much higher storage density that is easier to get to... just pull out the labeled organizer. I have to delicately move the Akro-Mills units around to get to the ones in back without spilling anything. If one of those were to tip over... someday I'd like to build deep cabinets that hold these on the doors as well as the wall. So imagine you open the two doors of a cabinet (and the doors fully swing open), and you'd get access to four of these.... and it would only take up the wall space of two.

Akro Mills flora. by FredJH, on Flickr

Partial LEGO overflow. by FredJH, on Flickr

Build a minifigure storage. by FredJH, on Flickr

Build a minifigure. by FredJH, on Flickr

Build a minifigure. by FredJH, on Flickr

Edited January 19, 2015 by fred67

[Andy D]

@fred67

It looks like you have a pretty good system going.

For the "odd ball" pieces, what I do is just put them all together "like you said" but when I get too many I try to break them down into different varieties of "odd ball". There might be "odd ball" decorator pieces and maybe "odd ball" structure pieces. It's not just "odd ball", but different varieties of "odd ball". Just like sorting bricks from plates or torsos from legs, just categories.

IHTH

Andy D

[LEGOmania-Workshop]

I have at technique to sort legos. You first make or find some bins. Then you sort out pieces on size or color, then store them neatly away!

[TheLegoDr]

Impressive. I only have cardboard boxes separated by color. I'll eventually separate each color into parts, but who knows when.

I'm guessing you bought Green Lantern. Very fun build actually. I liked how it did the missiles. But I agree, some weird parts that may or may not be useful.

I'll keep them in my colors, since that is how I separate stuff

[henrysunset]

I updated my LEGO Brick labels collection to include 40 new bricks...

- NEW FILES: (7x) bricks_large, (10x) wedge_plate, (6x) wedge_brick, (3x) door_rails

- ADDED TO: fence (5x), bricks_curved_more (7x), cones (plain Minifig head), slopes_3 (3049)

Some of the new brick labels...

Enjoy!

[SweetiePie88]

What I do for the oddballs is a try to categorize them by like items. Take a the images you posted for example. Number 1 and 4 would go in the misc container I have in a sterelite drawer until I get a chance to figure out what they are. Number 2 would be in my curved bin with other 1 and 2 wide curves. Number 3 is technic and I could see it in one of 3 containers in the drawer. 5 and 7 are shooter type things so they get stored in the cannon/catapult/shooter bin. Number 6 is the doodad for number 5 but since the doodad is so narrow and could slip out the basket in the drawer, itd go in a stack-on with other really thin stuff.

As far as the extra batman parts, unless I was going to change things up, thats easy. The head would go with mini figure heads and the cape would go in my "between the torso and head or on the feet" container

[mdgas]

I just built a new shelf for my Bricklink parts with my dad. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.

Here are some pics: http://imgur.com/a/BQ5h3

I'm working on sorting all my bricks similar to how you have. I think it will allow for easy expansion as my collection grows. Where's the banana for scale?

It seems such a daunting task when I look at the bins I had at my folks house.

[Lady_Scarlett]

I'm just in the middle of that right now.

My son gave me two boxes of... well... everything. I put all the bricks in the middle of my living room and I try to sort everything. I try first by color, and I put all the plates together, all the roofs, the minifig etc.

It will be long.

And I have no idea how to store all that after, since it will be in my linving room and I want something beautiful.

[JohnnyBrix]

i wonder if you can get insurance on these massive lego caches lol...

[mpfirnhaber]

I just bought 10 of these, I can't wait to fill them up! I don't have plans for all of them yet, but I know I'm devoting one each to 1x1 plates, 1x1 round plates, 1x2 plates, 1x1 cones, 1x1 cylinders... Beyond that I'll just have to see what other small parts I have in lots and lots of colors :)

[ficbot]

I just moved my main stuff into these drawer things I found in one of our closets. It is so much better! It has three drawers so it is a bit heavy to get to the table, but once I do get it there, I have everything I need. Before, I kept running back to get just one thing and it was a lot of effort.

[LegoGunInstructions]

I store the depending of in they are round, flat, smooth, tall and wide, tall and skinny etc. That way when I am building a MOC it would happen faster. Like when I build my KAP-40 pistol

[mpfirnhaber]

Classic Space bits, neatly sorted.

[DougleGo]

This intrigues me. Currently just starting collecting sets, mostly Star Wars and City stuff. Right now I'm happy building these sets and displaying them, do all you guys dismantle sets after being built and store it all like this for MOCs or are these just pieces that you've accumulated through lots of eBay or whatever that you use as well as keeping sets built?

[antp]

A little of everything...

In my case, there are parts from my childhood, parts from lots bought on Ebay, parts bought on Bricklink, sets bought just for parts, and some sets that I dismantle after a few months/years because I do not consider as good enough to be kept as they are indefinitely.

[KingDom]

Since I don't think it's worthy of a new topic, I'll post my question here:

I'm about to put up my first big lego set for display, it's the SHIELD helicarrier and I'm going to be displaying it on my desk for a few months before eventually sealing away the parts in ziplock bags. I want to know if anyone has any preventative measures to keep the parts in as good condition as I can?

I was thinking about just using a feather duster on it every now and then but I will be away at university for up to a couple straight months during this display period. I was thinking maybe putting some cloth over it then? Any ideas from people more experienced than myself will be greatly appreciated.

[Karalora]

My storage is kind of a mess, honestly. I have a mishmash of shelves with pull-out bins, tool caddies, compartmented boxes intended for sorting beads, food storage containers, and miscellaneous other containers. Some parts are separated by shape, others by color. Sets that I still rebuild from time to time (Winter Village) get their own bins. I'd really like to revamp my system, but I have so little extra space at this point that I'm not sure it's currently feasible.

What I'd like to do is sort by color and then part type, in order to make it easier to design buildings and landscaping where I would want some color coordination. My collection isn't big enough to justify getting too detailed and granular, but I could certainly do better than I am currently.

[Aus_Robert]

I don't have a huge amount of lego. It all fits in a 60 litre tub. I have six chinese food containers (the plastic ones with a lid) in the big tub that have certain parts (tiles, 1x1 round bricks, signs, 1x1 plates, roof peaks etc.) in them, just so they're easier to find when I'm building.

The rest is loose in the tub. There's only the 5 main colours that we had for bricks and plates in the mid 1970s, plus trans clear bricks and the odd grey plate so it's nice and simple for me to pick the colours I want !! haha

Edited February 22, 2015 by Aus_Robert

[Kelso]

I don't own that much Lego so I have everything sorted by color, minifigures and other.

[Duq]

Do you have a real-life GL1500 as well?

I've a GL1000 and a GL1200 myself.