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The worst is the female minifig hair. Stepping on it activates an artificial intelligence routine that rotates the pokey-est part of the hair to the softest part of your foot. DARPA is investigating the technology to see if it could have wartime uses.

Having recently gotten back into Lego (kids) I have been pleasantly surprised by how even the "special" pieces get reused to create interesting designs and details. I will say that the push that some people have made for some more unique but generic parts like additional sizes of the idler gears that are engaged by the driving ring. The justification is that it allows complex gearing in a more compact layout which I can see being useful. Also I wouldn't mind if Lego created some ring gears that weren't the giant original Hailfire droid wheels (too big ), the ones that are used for mining drills/mining wheels, or the ones that are part of the large turntable, as having a clean way to make planetary gear systems seems like it would be good. These would be special pieces but would be very generic and useful.

Having recently gotten back into Lego (kids) I have been pleasantly surprised by how even the "special" pieces get reused to create interesting designs and details. I will say that the push that some people have made for some more unique but generic parts like additional sizes of the idler gears that are engaged by the driving ring. The justification is that it allows complex gearing in a more compact layout which I can see being useful. Also I wouldn't mind if Lego created some ring gears that weren't the giant original Hailfire droid wheels (too big ), the ones that are used for mining drills/mining wheels, or the ones that are part of the large turntable, as having a clean way to make planetary gear systems seems like it would be good. These would be special pieces but would be very generic and useful.

You can also search Brink Link to find the pieces you want. I did this recently and wound up buying more bricks than I immediately needed because the per piece pricing and shipping cost were so low.

LEGO faced a decision whether they would keep their mediocre sales figures

Actually, LEGO faced a decision whether they would go bankrupt or do tie-ins. The BI BI linked in another comment is excellent in showing what happened to Lego and their comeback.

All the crying about crappy tie-in Lego sets is hysterical hand-wringing. Yes, those occupy the majority of retail store shelf-space, but that only reflects the reteail store's decision. The key thing is that those tie-ins have not replaced other "pure" Lego sets in Lego's catalog. It's 2015, search online: there are many online shops and alternatives. Even better, there's Brickset, an amazing database of sets, which not only will show you the wide variety of still-in-production sets but also useful tools to help you find the cheapest set for cost-per-brick.

Nah, for separate pieces you use BrickLink. Often far cheaper than the Lego website.

The kits that used to be just a random collection of bricks are a lot harder to find today. Head over to Toys-R-Us and almost all of it (other than big blox things for toddlers) are specialized kits. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. The lego kits we had in the 70s or 80s just aren't common at local stores.

If you're buying Lego from Toys-R-Us, you're doing it wrong.

Let me introduce you to http://vip.lego.com/ -- you can even order the pieces on your tablet.

The older lego kits are still there. You can get Educational Lego (which is the basic bricks), Space Lego is now Star Wars Lego (same stuff, just rebranded with some star wars specific pieces added), medieval Lego still exists, although they've changed the coats of arms, and Lego City still exists and is growing in parts selection.

And then, of course, there's http://www.bricklink.com/ and http://rebrickable.com/.

After that, find your local Lego store, and get your missing pieces by hitting the pick-a-brick wall from time to time to get the pieces when they come available at a discount (you fill a slurpee-sized cup with whatever you want for a fixed price).

What is this http://www.bricklink.com/ you speak of? Hm....
// looking

Oh crap. There goes my afternoon.

Legos cost 5 cents per brick.

You show me the same quality 3D printed Lego brick for less cost. Current 3D printed lego cost more and aren't even close to the same quality.

Yes, it's a site that allows you to buy pieces by the brick/specific minifig/part you're looking for. I was trying to get into the whole Lego Arbitrage thing a few years back and got quite familiar with Bricklink.

http://www.bricklink.com/

The LEGO employees do have access to bricks for free, the key difference is that what you buy from a store, in a kit has passed Quality Assurance, what the employees have access to have not,or may have, depends. They also don't have control over what they get, they get what is available.

If you want to see the "LEGO Economy" check out Bricklink

Playing with Legos as an adult is not weird. It is AWESOME!

For one thing you can build really awesome giant detailed models because when you need a certain brick that you don't have, you can JUST BUY IT! You can either buy a new set or go someplace like http://www.bricklink.com/ to buy specific pieces (there are people who run businesses where they buy sets and break them apart just to sell on bricklink).

There is a huge underground industry supporting adults who play with Legos and clubs made up of adults (like http://sealug.org/). There are even Lego conferences for adults.

If you think that playing with Legos as an adult might make you happy then you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.

A lot of the tie-ins are kind of meh; but the "cut part count nearly in half by encouraging re-use of parts and stopping one-off pieces" aspect makes everything better, and the bad aspects pretty much irrelevant.

"POOP"s(Piece Out of Other Pieces are, along with wholly inflexible merely decorative elements, pretty much the biggest enemy of Lego as a reconfigurable imaginative toy. Instead of getting a bag of bits that can be the model on the box, or any number of other things, you just get a snap together model. Might as well come with hobby glue. If that is the case, the quality of the model on the box really matters; because that is more or less what you get.

With the sharp reduction in one-off overdetermined crap, the goodness or badness of the model on the box matters a whole lot less, you can always just treat it as a kit of parts and rebuild it. The only thing that ends up really mattering is whether the color scheme of that particular tie-in is close enough to what you want.

If movie tie-ins are what it takes for Lego to stay solvent(and volume sales almost certainly are, I don't even want to know how expensive Lego sets would be if they went from doing high-precision ABS injection molding to short-run high-precision ABS injection molding), that may well say something unfortunate about the buying public; but(as long as the sets aren't made of worthless pieces) that doesn't really harm old-school enthusiasts. If anything, the more sets sold, the more bricks will show up in big Ebay lots, or on Bricklink.

For steel, maybe embed little magnets in the posts, or make them rough enough to give friction without giving way (a small clamp could be used to force them together), or just apply enough heat to soften them up a bit. Solder them together?

All of those defeat the purpose of having interlocking posts to begin with. If you need special tools (and especially potentially dangerous ones, like torches or soldering irons), they're not really toys, you know?

Lego actually does have chrome and metallic-colored bricks.

On that point, what is the feeling about using partially melted LEGOs to get more organic shapes?

If you deform the brick, it probably won't fit together correctly anymore. Those things are made to a 2-micrometer tolerance, you know.

Or melting holes through the join pegs with a hot needle for wiring for structure or electronics? LEDs inside blocks?

Actually, they have those already; you can just buy them.

How about a mold for making your own blocks out of ice for a LEGO hockey rink? With a functioning LEGO Zamboni? Maybe with a LEGO mobster figure trapped under the ice?

I'm not sure why you need a mold for that. Zambonis are designed to scrape the ice smooth, so they wouldn't do well if you made LEGO-shaped ice cubes (with posts). And if you made smooth ice cubes, then, well, you don't need a special mold anymore!

Plus, ice LEGO bricks would melt too fast to be useful, under normal conditions. It might be useful if they decided to put an ice hotel in Legoland, but that's about it.

For steel, maybe embed little magnets in the posts, or make them rough enough to give friction without giving way (a small clamp could be used to force them together), or just apply enough heat to soften them up a bit. Solder them together?

All of those defeat the purpose of having interlocking posts to begin with. If you need special tools (and especially potentially dangerous ones, like torches or soldering irons), they're not really toys, you know?

Lego actually does have chrome and metallic-colored bricks.

On that point, what is the feeling about using partially melted LEGOs to get more organic shapes?

If you deform the brick, it probably won't fit together correctly anymore. Those things are made to a 2-micrometer tolerance, you know.

Or melting holes through the join pegs with a hot needle for wiring for structure or electronics? LEDs inside blocks?

Actually, they have those already; you can just buy them.

How about a mold for making your own blocks out of ice for a LEGO hockey rink? With a functioning LEGO Zamboni? Maybe with a LEGO mobster figure trapped under the ice?

I'm not sure why you need a mold for that. Zambonis are designed to scrape the ice smooth, so they wouldn't do well if you made LEGO-shaped ice cubes (with posts). And if you made smooth ice cubes, then, well, you don't need a special mold anymore!

Plus, ice LEGO bricks would melt too fast to be useful, under normal conditions. It might be useful if they decided to put an ice hotel in Legoland, but that's about it.

For steel, maybe embed little magnets in the posts, or make them rough enough to give friction without giving way (a small clamp could be used to force them together), or just apply enough heat to soften them up a bit. Solder them together?

All of those defeat the purpose of having interlocking posts to begin with. If you need special tools (and especially potentially dangerous ones, like torches or soldering irons), they're not really toys, you know?

Lego actually does have chrome and metallic-colored bricks.

On that point, what is the feeling about using partially melted LEGOs to get more organic shapes?

If you deform the brick, it probably won't fit together correctly anymore. Those things are made to a 2-micrometer tolerance, you know.

Or melting holes through the join pegs with a hot needle for wiring for structure or electronics? LEDs inside blocks?

Actually, they have those already; you can just buy them.

How about a mold for making your own blocks out of ice for a LEGO hockey rink? With a functioning LEGO Zamboni? Maybe with a LEGO mobster figure trapped under the ice?

I'm not sure why you need a mold for that. Zambonis are designed to scrape the ice smooth, so they wouldn't do well if you made LEGO-shaped ice cubes (with posts). And if you made smooth ice cubes, then, well, you don't need a special mold anymore!

Plus, ice LEGO bricks would melt too fast to be useful, under normal conditions. It might be useful if they decided to put an ice hotel in Legoland, but that's about it.

Better prices and selection through bricklink. It's not just used parts, there are tons of brand new pieces there too (I presume bought in bulk from Lego stores).

The choice of bricks in Lego's shop might seem large, but it's actually quite limited, compared to the number of types of bricks which have ever been products (over 10000 at a guess).

Try here instead: http://www.bricklink.com/

Try http://www.bricklink.com/ if you want to find some great sets of the past.

Sadly, Lego did recently discontinue some great product lines, like the 9v lego trains.

The original 1978 version:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPriceGuide.asp?S=375-2

Average $301 Used; One new for $1,800

The 1981 re-release version:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPriceGuide.asp?S=6075-2

Avg $256 Used No new available

-Billy

The original 1978 version:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPriceGuide.asp?S=375-2

Average $301 Used; One new for $1,800

The 1981 re-release version:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPriceGuide.asp?S=6075-2

Avg $256 Used No new available

-Billy

US version, but:

http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=38390

Really, it depends on what condition it's in. Some old/rare lego sets are more expensive in new condition, but not many. Many sets said to be "rare" aren't really, just eBay hype.

Maybe this one:

http://guide.lugnet.com/set/420_1 (US version)

Or less likely:

http://guide.lugnet.com/set/600_2 (also US version)

Buy here:

http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=6270

etc.

There are a few sites out there that still have them. It will cost you probably about 50-80 bucks each. The BIG one probably 200 or more. http://www.bricklink.com/index.asp

But for free there is
http://www.ldraw.org/
and
http://www.peeron.com/

I have been having so much fun with this these programs recreating virtual lego sets and I dont have to DIG through my massive box of em. Plus the programs are more cad like (and have more pieces) then the offical lego editor.

I agree, the space sets were fantastic. You can still buy them on BrickLink. New in their box those sets sell for thousand of dollars.

Hello. My name is GfxGuy, I'm 40 years old, and I'm a lego-holic.

["hi, GfxGuy"]

Some sets are like that, but they are usually for the younger kids. My daughter has one set with a little fairy tale setting where the set really is basically four pieces (a floor plate, two wall/shelf things, and a pointy top), but it also came with a number of accessory pieces, plants and so forth that can be used anywhere. It's true that the wall is useless for anything else. There was a dinosaur kit my son got, and it was exactly like you mentioned - a foot piece that could only reasonably be used with the leg piece that could only be used with the hip piece...

On the other hand, I like a lot of the pieces. Sometimes I get ideas based around, for example, an interesting new cockpit design, or engines (they have several jet engines now).

But beyond that, my favorites were always various wheelsets and doors and windows. Sure, I could get a tub of lego and build a house, by why should I have to imagine working doors and windows?

So yes, I agree they've gone too far, I think it's mostly in sets that try to appeal to younger kids. My son also got a dragon set (it's a really big dragon - if you're still into lego, you'd probably know the one I'm talking about). He gave up right quick, so I built it for him. It's almost completely "generic" pieces that can be used elsewhere. Even the cloth pieces that came for the wings could be used as a sail or something.

So the more complicated sets, the ones with hundreds of pieces - I believe they still are like that; you can use the pieces for anything your imagination wants.

And if you have a specific idea you think would be cool with Lego, then BrickLink is your friend. I wanted to make a bridge to work with the lego trains, and got all the technique girders and pins from there.

I'm getting tired of people complaining about "special" pieces. Whine, whine, whine. No one is forcing you to use them. Just because your building from 1979 was a piece of multi-colored garbage doesn't mean that's how it should be today.

And while I admit they seem to be getting lazy about it (look at some of the new Lego City planes), you still need an imagination to use those pieces for your own models.

I was happy, though, with the new Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" model. Yes, there's the engines and nose cone, but the rest of the plane is strictly bricks (or so it seems from close examination). It may be hard to tell from the website, I have the catalog in which it's quite clear, and quite unlike the other planes they've recently released.

Moreover, Lego is really quite expensive - most models hover somewhere around the $0.10 per piece. This Boeing, despite being a licensed product, is way under that.

And for purists, there's always Bricklink.

To hell with the hyperadvertised, branded megafad-of-the-moment shite that the LEGO salesdroids are pushing. The way I'm going about it, there isn't any shortage to worry about... I've been getting my 5 y.o. son interested by doing LEGO kitbash construction projects with him. All sorts of crazy imaginative stuff...kinda like M.C. Escher meets Jane's Fighting Ships (-grin-). When we fall seriously short of some of the more esoteric/uncommon pieces, I go online to check out Bricklink http://www.bricklink.com/. Here, $US 10 or 20 stretches A LOT farther than it does at a retail toy shop.. Combined with the legacy space/town/police LEGO pieces from my own youth, our recent purchases from Bricklink sellers have given us a large mixed assortment to build with. And if you're looking for a particular type of LEGO piece that's hard to search for via Bricklink, first point your browser towards the Peeron online LEGO part catalog http://www.peeron.com/. Interesting stats are available on the pieces you search for, as well as the LEGO catalog item numbers. Harry Potter LEGOS? Not in this house. What's next...LEGO sets themed for Gilmore Girls? 24?? Nip And Tuck?!? (-shiver of revulsion-)

bricklink

Need parts without buying full sets?

http://www.bricklink.com/

You're welcome.

http://bricklink.com/ is sort of like ebay for LEGO. There are thousands of sellers around the world who buy Technic kits, break them down, then sell the parts. When you need exactly 5 of a particular gear it's a godsend. I built my Difference Engine using LEGO bought from various sellers there.

I offer one example of a niche market site that in my experience is vastly more popular than eBay: Bricklink, fixed price and auction-type sales of Lego bricks down to the individual brick.

This is a great resource for buying Lego pieces or even kits. It used to be called BrickBay but eBay felt they had some hold over the word 'bay'... /rolleyes

I was really shocked when I first discovered that site. The idea that you could buy any piece you wanted for just a few pennies was like a geek dream come true!

You can search here to find detailed kit inventories like this one for all but the newest kits. And the Price Guide is a great help too, so you can see what the part has sold for in the past 6 months. Of course the Search Page is the heart of it, allowing you to search for the part you want (once you know its part number) and allows you to restrict searches to sellers in your own country to keep shipping costs down.

All in all, it's a great site. I also love that I don't have to worry about submitting a winning (sniping) bid, or wait days for an auction to end.

This is a great resource for buying Lego pieces or even kits. It used to be called BrickBay but eBay felt they had some hold over the word 'bay'... /rolleyes

I was really shocked when I first discovered that site. The idea that you could buy any piece you wanted for just a few pennies was like a geek dream come true!

You can search here to find detailed kit inventories like this one for all but the newest kits. And the Price Guide is a great help too, so you can see what the part has sold for in the past 6 months. Of course the Search Page is the heart of it, allowing you to search for the part you want (once you know its part number) and allows you to restrict searches to sellers in your own country to keep shipping costs down.

All in all, it's a great site. I also love that I don't have to worry about submitting a winning (sniping) bid, or wait days for an auction to end.

This is a great resource for buying Lego pieces or even kits. It used to be called BrickBay but eBay felt they had some hold over the word 'bay'... /rolleyes

I was really shocked when I first discovered that site. The idea that you could buy any piece you wanted for just a few pennies was like a geek dream come true!

You can search here to find detailed kit inventories like this one for all but the newest kits. And the Price Guide is a great help too, so you can see what the part has sold for in the past 6 months. Of course the Search Page is the heart of it, allowing you to search for the part you want (once you know its part number) and allows you to restrict searches to sellers in your own country to keep shipping costs down.

All in all, it's a great site. I also love that I don't have to worry about submitting a winning (sniping) bid, or wait days for an auction to end.

This is a great resource for buying Lego pieces or even kits. It used to be called BrickBay but eBay felt they had some hold over the word 'bay'... /rolleyes

I was really shocked when I first discovered that site. The idea that you could buy any piece you wanted for just a few pennies was like a geek dream come true!

You can search here to find detailed kit inventories like this one for all but the newest kits. And the Price Guide is a great help too, so you can see what the part has sold for in the past 6 months. Of course the Search Page is the heart of it, allowing you to search for the part you want (once you know its part number) and allows you to restrict searches to sellers in your own country to keep shipping costs down.

All in all, it's a great site. I also love that I don't have to worry about submitting a winning (sniping) bid, or wait days for an auction to end.

http://www.bricklink.com/

.. and Lego parts.

(one of my first real Lego kits was the Expert Builder crane - can't remember the number right now)

This'un?

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?S=855- 1

"Just recently, I started collecting all the star wars stuff that I couldn't have when i was a kid. Like the AT-AT, Millenium Falcon etc. And they do sit there and wont go in with the rest, because they are models in their own right. So you can have a bit of both."

I am in the same boat. We couldn't afford "fancy" legos when I was a kid, so I just recently started building some of the more advanced kits. Try the new Technic Crane set 8421. Or try the Back-Hoe set 8455. They are both truely awesome. Then give the completed model to your kids to rip apart and build other, less complex projects. Both sets have Pneumatics....which are awesome. The Back-Hoe has a LOT of pneumatics. The crane is HUGE.

I have 2 of the Cranes for sale.....if you are interested.

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=legonut79

Here is the Back-hoe, which I don't have in stock, but others do.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=8455-1

NO, I didn't steal these from target.

"Just recently, I started collecting all the star wars stuff that I couldn't have when i was a kid. Like the AT-AT, Millenium Falcon etc. And they do sit there and wont go in with the rest, because they are models in their own right. So you can have a bit of both."

I am in the same boat. We couldn't afford "fancy" legos when I was a kid, so I just recently started building some of the more advanced kits. Try the new Technic Crane set 8421. Or try the Back-Hoe set 8455. They are both truely awesome. Then give the completed model to your kids to rip apart and build other, less complex projects. Both sets have Pneumatics....which are awesome. The Back-Hoe has a LOT of pneumatics. The crane is HUGE.

I have 2 of the Cranes for sale.....if you are interested.

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=legonut79

Here is the Back-hoe, which I don't have in stock, but others do.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=8455-1

NO, I didn't steal these from target.

MOD the parent up.

This is the guys online store that he uses to sell these legos.

Actually, just yesterday I was just considering buying some xmas presents from this store!

http://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?u=swanberg

http://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?u=swanberg

That's not the only stupid thing they've done recently. In 2004 they decided to change their 50-odd year core colour palette.

The light gray and the dark gray changed into a light blueish gray and a dark blueish gray, which were given the derisory name "bley" by the aficionado AFOL community (AFOL=Adult Friends Of Lego).

All new sets since 2004 contain only pieces with the new grays, making it difficult for owners of existing sets to build anything without ending up with a patchwork of different shades of gray in their creations. The brown color was also changed into a more reddish colour.

The official response from the LEGO CEO can be read here: http://f24.parsimony.net/forum61776/messages/97463 .htm.

As far as I am concerned, I think LEGO is aiming too much towards the market of "grown-up" children who are interested in robots and monsters. The Bionicle sets are cool, but they do not belong in the LEGO construction system. They don't even have studs, they don't interlock with the standard pieces. They sell well, good for them, but they are just one of endless companies to fight in that market.

My feeling is that LEGO could rediscover its roots (and sell) by targeting once again the small children market, with small sets mostly made of standard pieces, as in the famed Legoland series, or the much-loved Classic Space series.

The fact that LEGO is currently showing no sense of direction saddens me to no end.

To conclude with a further tiny bit of information, if you want to find again the old sets that you loved as a child, you might find this site quite interesting: www.bricklink.com

I wonder if this is what he looks like now...

Lego has re-released several old sets through the years. Unless I'm halucinating, I seem to remember them re-issuing the Black Seas Baracuda pirate ship last year. You just have to keep your eyes open.

If you really want one of the old sets, try something like http://www.bricklink.com/ and just buy an old one. Or if you are feeling ambitious, build it yourself. Legos are interchangable, after all. :) Find the instruction sheet online at somewhere like http://peeron.com/ and go buy the bricks in bulk from http://shop.lego.com/.

A joke, but they'd be sued by eBay if they did. A Lego sales site with the name "brickbay" was ordered not to use any name with "bay" in it.

Pretty pathetic of eBay in my opinion.
And please no horseshit about "if a company doesn't defend their trademark... blah blah blahhhh" which has been repeated to death around here.

I assume you mean something like this: NWBrickCon

Already way ahead of you.

I also think it fair to mention one of the better places to buy older Lego sets and parts, Bricklink.com, though I may be biased because I am one of many people who sell parts through the site.

They (eBay) would fight it (GBay) like you would not believe. About 5 years back a guy in HI started a site called BrickBay to sell LEGO toys and parts. After a year or two the powers that be noticed this upstart and dropped the legal hammer on him. He finally changed the site name to BrickLink to avoid spending tons of money on something that was a useless excersize. BrickLink has flourished. Probably does more than twice the LEGO business that eBay does. Serves em right !

The case itself is going to look pretty much like a standard (if not a little bigger) full size tower. It'll have an opening door on the front that allows you to get to the removable hard drive bays. I'm only using black bricks, I tend to be somewhat anal that way, I can't mix brick colours, (well, unless it's symetrical.. heh).

I started off with designing the hot-swappable removable hard drive enclosures, followed by their housings. Then moved on to the 5.25" enclosures. Everything is pretty much as breatheable as a screen door, so no fans in the removable enclosures are required. After the enclosures and their respective enclosures had been designed, I moved on to the case itself, which was pretty much a breeze except for designing locking mechanisms for the enclosures that made sense. (Ie, accessible.) I have a number of fans strategically positioned around the inside of the case, and the intake and outtake air is channeled in and out of the case respectively.

Once I had the case completely designed, a quick export of a parts list later, I was on Bricklink.com [http://www.bricklink.com/] to start searching their online stores for parts. (They have HUNDREDS of stores accross many, many countries, they're online auctions, you can find pretty much ANYTHING there, with many degrees in price to chose from.)

And that's where I am today, I'm slowly (it's expensive to buy 30,000+ single lego pieces) getting parts in the mail, and saving up for more. I'm taking pictures of the entire process, and I have renderings done by MLCAD, but I don't have a website to host them. If anyone would like to see it or would like to help me host it in the near future (read: a week or 2), you can always drop me a line at 'PseudoSchizo@gmail.com'.

I should really sign up for /. so I can post under an actual name.. hrmm.. ah well, perhaps next time. ;)

Cheers,

Ben 'Jammin