Lobot

BrickLinking (another) 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon

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bmerigan, I agree. The minifigs added up to about £30, though I got two Han Solo's as these were dead rare on BL when I was looking.

Hold0511, you're more than welcome. One thing I forgot to mention is that if your PayPal account is set up with a credit card (like mine is), the bank could charge you for transactions in foreign currency... My bank charged me a percentage of each transaction that wasn't in GBP. Oh well :)

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Hi there,

I am planning to start bricklinking a UCS Millenium Falcon. I have checked the several topics on this issue (e.g. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=67818 among others) but still have a couple of questions.

1) What is the best way to combine orders to save on shipping costs? I started by selecting piece by piece on bricklink, but shipping was crazy ...

2) Is there any chance that I won't find a certain piece, or suitable replacement and get the work unfinished?

3) Any particular advice for a starter?

Thanks!

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Hi there,

I am planning to start bricklinking a UCS Millenium Falcon. I have checked the several topics on this issue (e.g. http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=67818 among others) but still have a couple of questions.

1) What is the best way to combine orders to save on shipping costs? I started by selecting piece by piece on bricklink, but shipping was crazy ...

2) Is there any chance that I won't find a certain piece, or suitable replacement and get the work unfinished?

3) Any particular advice for a starter?

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure this thread will be merged with one of the various other 10179 threads but there are several people who can offer good advice on this. Lobot (the mod) for one has BL'd several 10179s so is a good source of info. You should be able to get all pieces but some are prohibitively expensive such as the dish, rigging, levers etc in the right colour.

My advice would be to compile a list of the parts that can be picked up as an alternate to the more expensive, genuine items such as the technic framing that is hidden in the build and go from there. Compare prices direct from Lego as that can also be cheaper and will have free shipping once you order over a certain amount.

Don't be afraid to order some items that aren't the cheapest available on BL if you can save on shipping costs.... and also be aware of any import duty you may incur when ordering from abroad. While you may look like you're saving money getting hit with a 10%-20% import duty and handling fees will scupper any savings.

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Any suggestion on the best way to combine orders to save on shipping costs? Does BL allow to see all prices and respectively quoted prices, so that I can easily choose replacements for the expensive ones?

Edit: Maybe brickefficiency is what I am looking for?

Edited by volcompt

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I'm doing it the old fashioned way. I start by looking for the piece I need the most of. I then look at the 5 stores that have the quantity I need, and the cheapest prices. I then look at the rest of their stock to see what other parts they have that I need. I add as much as possible to the order before ordering. I then move on the the next highest quantity piece, rinse, repeat.

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I'm doing it the old fashioned way. I start by looking for the piece I need the most of. I then look at the 5 stores that have the quantity I need, and the cheapest prices. I then look at the rest of their stock to see what other parts they have that I need. I add as much as possible to the order before ordering. I then move on the the next highest quantity piece, rinse, repeat.

That sounds like a nice strategy.

How do you define the piece you need the most?

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That sounds like a nice strategy.

How do you define the piece you need the most?

I think he means the piece that has the most quantity in the set... i.e. if there are 32 of a particular piece then find the cheapest store that has 18 of them and then see if they have any other items that are also needed in the set.

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Hi volcompt, and welcome to Eurobricks!

If you're debating this, I strongly recommend that you do quite a bit of research before committing to anything, especially if you haven't used Bricklink much before. Apologies if you're already aware of this, but you can add the entire parts list for the set (link) into a 'Wanted' list and then Bricklink will generate a list of the stores with the highest volume of matches. There are advanced settings that enable you to decide if you want to include 'part' lots in a store (e.g. if you need 50 of an item, and a store only has 45 of them, or not!) but be careful with this, as often the stores with the most stock will be more expensive! However, if you start browsing when you're logged into Bricklink, the top-left of the screen will show how many parts/lots are available in the store that's on your list, which can be very useful.

Regarding substitutes etc, try and decide what compromises you're willing to make at the start and then work back from there (e.g. dish, rigging, levers, red plate etc). I'd also strongly recommend running everything on a decent spreadsheet, and checking both the LEGO 'Pick a Brick' and 'Bricks and Pieces' ('Buy Bricks' option) websites as the prices are sometimes cheaper than Bricklink (and check both as the prices were occasionally different on each one for the same part! :wink:)

Oh, and you may find this thread useful! (link) :laugh: I'll merge this with it in a bit.

Good luck if you decide to go ahead, it's an amazing challenge if you have the time and sufficient enthusiasm!

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Hi volcompt, and welcome to Eurobricks!

If you're debating this, I strongly recommend that you do quite a bit of research before committing to anything, especially if you haven't used Bricklink much before. Apologies if you're already aware of this, but you can add the entire parts list for the set (link) into a 'Wanted' list and then Bricklink will generate a list of the stores with the highest volume of matches. There are advanced settings that enable you to decide if you want to include 'part' lots in a store (e.g. if you need 50 of an item, and a store only has 45 of them, or not!) but be careful with this, as often the stores with the most stock will be more expensive! However, if you start browsing when you're logged into Bricklink, the top-left of the screen will show how many parts/lots are available in the store that's on your list, which can be very useful.

Regarding substitutes etc, try and decide what compromises you're willing to make at the start and then work back from there (e.g. dish, rigging, levers, red plate etc). I'd also strongly recommend running everything on a decent spreadsheet, and checking both the LEGO 'Pick a Brick' and 'Bricks and Pieces' ('Buy Bricks' option) websites as the prices are sometimes cheaper than Bricklink (and check both as the prices were occasionally different on each one for the same part! :wink:)

Oh, and you may find this thread useful! (link) :laugh: I'll merge this with it in a bit.

Good luck if you decide to go ahead, it's an amazing challenge if you have the time and sufficient enthusiasm!

Hi Lobot! Many thanks for this. I had added the project to my wanted list already. But I didn't know about that Bricklinl could generate a list of the stores with the highest volume of matches.

I am not finding that option ... What am I missing? :tongue:

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Hi Lobot! Many thanks for this. I had added the project to my wanted list already. But I didn't know about that Bricklinl could generate a list of the stores with the highest volume of matches.

I am not finding that option ... What am I missing? :tongue:

Once you've created a Wanted list, you should have a 'By Shop' option on the toolbar immediately to the right of 'My Wanted List' > Within that screen you have a 'My Wanted List Settings' which I found very useful :classic:

I'd also suggest dropping Soul (http://www.eurobrick...showuser=145005) a pm as he has not long completed his bricklinked UCS MF and it looks cracking.

Unfortunately volcompt needs to make 10 posts before he can access the PM system. I haven't seen Soul for a bit, so I'm not sure is he's still around.

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Once you've created a Wanted list, you should have a 'By Shop' option on the toolbar immediately to the right of 'My Wanted List' > Within that screen you have a 'My Wanted List Settings' which I found very useful :classic:

Found it! Thank you!

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Hi volcompt. It's nice to see another fan setting out on this ambitious task.

I've just received the last of the orders, except the parts for custom rigging and custom dish, so I’ll be starting the build as soon as. I’ve decided to go with custom rigging and dish, due to prohibitive cost of original parts. I’m pretty much (shamefully) copying the ideas shown in: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=114619 purely, because I think they’re awesome and will look great on the MF. I’ll reference original authors once the build is complete.

As the others have said above, you want to decide what substitutions you are willing to make. I went to for the usual: rigging, dish, levers, 5.5L bars, 6x14 dark red plate and the arches (full list in my previous post). But, I kept all original technic beams and pins, as I personally don’t like colour substitutions. However, this decision and buying all original, new, mini figures added to to overall cost. Mini figures alone will cost you about ~£30, depending on availability. Some are rare, like Han Solo, which is model sw179, which is very similar to updated version sw179a (updated head), which is much more and cheaper. In my case, the seller got confused and sent me sw179a by mistake. So, there is some consideration required in terms of how original you want the Falcon to be.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but using BrickStock to create your BL wanted list is a good option. You can use it to get average prices on BL and then make your substitutions. You can then export the list into your wanted list on BrickLink.

Like Lobot said, use a good spreadsheet. I used the sheet provided in this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/2wksds/the_cheapskates_guide_to_bricklinking_a_10179_ucs/ There’s some good advice there too. Tbh, I only used it for parts numbers, pictures and descriptions, plus quantity required, and then added my own columns.

It’s a bit of manual work, but I got a price of each part (if available) from Pick a Brick, Bricks and Pieces and BL. From BL, I took average price and a roughly the lowest price I can realistically buy the part(s) for.

For example, a part has average price of GBP 0.08, but most sellers local to me (in my case UK or EU), sell it in sufficient quantities for GBP 0.03 – 0.04, so I put 0.04 down in the spreadsheet. This allowed me to get the idea of how cheap roughly I can get a part for and whether Lego or BrickLink were the place to go for a particular part + estimated overall cost of the project (Excel is your friend here).

Here you can make substitutions and then use BrickStock to generate a wanted list for you.

I recommend you make Lego orders as soon as you decided which parts you’re buying from them, as there were some rare and pricey parts that went out of stock before I managed to place the order (due to my procrastination).

Once you start making orders on BL, I recommend first looking for shops that have rare parts AND as many of other parts that you need as possible. You can tell this by checking Price Guide for each part. The list of sellers that have the part in stock will give you a rough idea. You want to look in your country first and then countries from which shipping is the most favourable (EU in my case). To get a list of stores that have a part in your country only, click on “Group by currency” on Price Guide page for a particular part.

The task is mind boggling at first due to the number of part lots to get check prices and availability for.

You may want to use Brickficiency to do the research for you, although you may not like the total price it returns. You want to order from as few stores as possible, especially the ones outside your country, because the shipping costs do add up. I did a mistake of completely ignoring Brickficiency, because I didn’t like the total price it returned for all orders and ended up making about 20 orders in total, many small from abroad. So in the end, I didn’t really save anything. I actually spent much more than planned. Check my previous posts for “Learnt from experience” advice.

I’m not sure if this is the best way to go about it. There are probably ways to to improve it. I recommend you take your time and find the best balance between prices, availability and number of orders required.

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You may want to use Brickficiency to do the research for you, although you may not like the total price it returns. You want to order from as few stores as possible, especially the ones outside your country, because the shipping costs do add up. I did a mistake of completely ignoring Brickficiency, because I didn’t like the total price it returned for all orders and ended up making about 20 orders in total, many small from abroad. So in the end, I didn’t really save anything. I actually spent much more than planned. Check my previous posts for “Learnt from experience” advice.

I found the problem with Brickficiency is that the results can be distorted by the large, high-inventory, high-cost stores that Lobot mentioned. When I ran it, I was getting the only two-three store solutions were from various combinations of the stores and were around £1000-£1100. The four store solution got to around £950 (still mainly from these stores) and the five store took too long to solve. For comparison, the BL average price for the parts was in the region of £550.

The sweet spot probably sites around 10 stores, but this is not possible without modifying Brickficiency and would take an extremely long time to solve.

Before my Brickficiciency broke, I had planned to search for a subset of parts (around 20-30%) from five stores and then add any addition parts from the full list on to those orders (on the assumption that if they're well priced for a subset, they're probably well-priced for a large set). I'd then repeat the process on the remaining parts.

It's also worthwhile bearing in the mind that LEGO offers free shipping on orders over £50 (and cheap shipping below). This can be a good way to get large lots of bulky or heavy parts. This is how I got a good stock of 8x8 plates, 6179, 6565 and 6564 (sorry, SpacePirate :blush: )

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volcompt, you're more than welcome. Let us know how you get on.

EdmanZA, I'm glad you managed to get 6179, 6565 and 6564 from Lego. I let it slip and then didn't want risk waiting too long for them to restock it. Actually, I feared they'd ran out for good. So, I ended up paying double the price to order from two stores on the Continent, but ordered minifigs at the same time, so overall not that bad.

Yes, I agree about Brickficiency. It searching in the largest, most expensive shops first, is what put me off using it. You can blacklist the stores you don't want it to look at, but I just couldn't be bothered.

In terms of total price, Brickficiency returned totals of around £700 or so(without minifigs). Now, I'm not sure if that included all of the parts required. At the time, average total cost of all pieces added up to £830, which I was unwilling to pay. I believed I could get all the parts in for about £630-650 + minifigs, but ended up spending £850 all in, including parts for custom rigging and dish.....LOL (I feel like laughing at it now)

I think that prices on BL fluctuate a lot, being that others have spent about £600-650 and EdmanZA mentions £550. This all obviously depends a lot on the number of substitutions. It looks like TLG's stock is rather fluid, which affects total cost.

Overall, it's a quite fun experience, especially when you realise that a small bag of technic beams (DBG 3703) cost you almost £45 and you had to order it from Lego!

Edited by SpacePirate

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To use Brickficiency effectively I ran it first, noted which items only came up in a few stores and removed those items from the calculations and ran again.

I found that if an item is only available in 5 stores, Brickficiency will be forced to use one of those stores thereby not giving you the cheapest price possible.

Of course had to balance this with making as few orders as possible. It's a balancing act - there will always be a trade-off somewhere.

Took me 21 orders. Should have been less. There's nothing worse than placing your final big orders and then the order being screwed up and having to place another order for missing pieces.

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That's a really good way to use Brickficiency, bmerigan. I'll have to give the software another chance with a next, smaller project.

In my case, my B&P order was short of one (!) 4L LBG lightsaber stick. I just couldn't be bothered to ring them, so I ordered is as part of another BL order.

It's definitely a balancing act, which is especially tricky being that UCS MF is one of the most, if not the most, complex set to put together in terms of ordering parts and building it.

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Right, after two afternoons, the frame (or most of it) and the legs are finished. Han Solo is having a test drive...

I must say that searching through the parts is tiring and probably takes most of the time, but it's still it's great fun.post-149977-0-96196300-1449175323_thumb.jpg

Close-up

I'd upload the photo of the actual test drive, but the forum won't let me.

I think that steering wheel is ridiculous, and completely out of place in a Star Wars vessel, but I'm sure the designer put in there for a laugh :)

post-149977-0-93848000-1449175489_thumb.jpg

Edited by SpacePirate

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Hi SpacePirate, that's looking really good, it brings back lots of good memories! I'd recommend you take your time building it, and just do a bit now and again. It's a mammoth project and I've never been able to do it in less than 20 hours.

If you want to post photos on Eurobricks you'll need to upload them onto a 'hosting' site (e.g. flickr or Brickshelf etc) and you can then deeplink them from it using the 'Image' icon on the toolbar (it looks like a framed tree!). Please ensure that you keep to a maximum of 600 x 800. It's reasonably simple to do, but the process may differ slightly depending on the browser you use; just ask if you need any help with it :classic:

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Hi Lobot. It's already taken me about 16 hours, and I'm only on page 170. Thanks for the advice on uploading the pics. I'll have to sign up with one of those services and post some pics of the progress :)

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Right, in the picture, is my progress as of Monday, 7th. I am currently at the page 280 and will be posting pictures of complete set tomorrow.

To anyone planning to build it, I must say (even though this has been said a million times) that UCS Millennium Falcon is massive!! It takes up half the dining table and I'm really struggling to find a place for it. It currently sits on the freezer.

I really like the design. You can tell a lot of thought went into the project. It was either designed by a genius, or there was a whole team working on it. The set is very complex and despite huge amount of random parts, all the sections of the fuselage fit very well together. There are a couple of flimsy sections on the top, but being as this is a display model, it doesn't really matter. Other than that, the set is SOLID.

I'm really impressed with it and I am looking forward to seeing Lego release another iconic UCS set like this one. I wonder what they could do next. They've released Sandcrawler, which is impressive an unique in its own way, but it would be great to see another spaceship. In the meantime, I've got Red Five X-Wing and UCS Slave 1 to build :)

23057172303_9432a8bda8_b.jpgUntitled by SpacePirate, on Flickr

23601757861_1740074c57_b.jpgUntitled by SpacePirate, on Flickr

Edited by SpacePirate

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That looks really good SpacePirate, I'm looking forward to seeing the final version! :classic:

When all of the top plates are added they mesh together and the finished model will be a lot more solid. I think that you've made the right decision about the rigging; using the LBG ladders gives a far better look than the black rigging. How much did it cost if you don't mind me asking? I was almost tempted to build another one as a project for the winter, but I'm really busy with other things, and I still need to build my UCS X-Wing, TIE and Sandcrawler which are currently in their shipping boxes...!

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Hi Lobot. Thanks. It was quite an effort. I've just finished it, so I'll be posting pics later.

I also like the idea of using LBG ladders. It's not mine, though. I originally saw it in another thread, on a Falcon built by our forum user Schneeds.

In terms of total cost, it added up to about £850 all in, including mini figs. I had to re-order few lots, because I completely missed (!) them during the ordering process, bit that didn't add up to more than £5. I think it was mainly placing too many orders from abroad. I think I should have used Brickficiency and ordered parts at slightly higher price, but from fewer shops. I guess it's the issue of striking that balance. In total it was about 23 orders, not including re-orders.

I also have UCS X-Wing (x2) in the box, still need to order Slave 1 and considering purchasing TIE and Sandcrawler next year. Apparently, there's UCS Hoth Base coming out next year, so it'll be interesting to see how TLG portrayed it :)

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