May the Fourth

Big post today!

I finally have completed the UCS Millennium Falcon! A little over 5100 Lego and 2 years of ordering from eBay and Bricklink and staring a bleary eyed at my spread sheet of parts have lead to one of the most awesome Lego sets, EVAR!

I have lots of pictures to share, so I will keep the jawing to a minimum. Happy Star Wars Day!

And done!

All in all it is great set. There is huge amount of greebling (detail work) that you can see in the close-ups below. All of the top and sides are cover with bars, taps, levers, etc which really give the set an authentic "What piece of junk!" feel.

The most surprising thing I found is that most of the top plates are just resting in place. The upper sections of the hull can be removed to reveal the inside of the Falcon. This would be awesome IF the UCS Millennium Falcon was like the 7965 set that had a detailed interior. Having a detailed interior would have made this set completely ridiculous both in awesomeness and in price, so I can give Lego a pass on skipping that.

Besides, it gives me the chance the to redo the interior myself one day. Glad I have a copy of the Millennium Falcon cut-away book.

This is the "Ops" bag.
All the parts that I got too many of or the wrong color.

It was a fantastic project and I would do again in a heartbeat (though I might settle for the cheaper off-color parts for the interior section). I hope you all enjoyed watching my progress! Stay tuned, I hope to start something new soon!

Last order for the Falcon Rebuild!

I have begun the final push to complete the Falcon before May the Fourth!

According to my notes I have 99.65% of all the parts I need, the only ones I'm missing are 8 3x3 round corner plates (Part 30357). I was suppose to get 16 of them in my last order but the seller contacted me to say they had an inventory error and only had 8. Given that my part counts on this project have been conically wrong, I had to sympathize with them.

So today when I got a 10% off coupon from another seller (Thanks iamklasick) I had purchased from, I went ahead and got the final parts (I hope MY counts are right). 

Here is the latest shots I have on the progress:

Now with side access hatches!

I also picked up Set 75136 Droid Escape Pod mainly because I wanted C3P0 for the Falcon (why didn't they include him in UCS set?) and I like the newer paint job they are doing for R2.

It actually is a pretty cool little set in its own right, 4 minifigs, lots of details on the escape pod itself and neat little hidden compartment for the Death Star plans.

Random progress shots

Here is trio pictures as I push through several more step on the way to completing UCS Millennium Falcon.

The first is R2 showing off the underside hull plates from steps 71-74 (see, boring).

The middle has Chewie working on the side air locks from step 79. (these were surprisingly complex assembles).

Last is Han posing with the top hull plates from steps 75 and 76.

With less than one hundred pages of instructions left and nearly all the parts in, I'm in good shape to make the May 4th completion!

Now if I can just find a good C3PO...

What were they thinking...?

I would love to be a Lego Master Builder. Working at Lego, designing new models, surrounded by all the Lego I could ever want...

And I know it would not all be glamorous, no job is. But even knowing that and limitations that folks like Ulrik Pilegaard and Mike Mike Dooley talk about in their book "Forbidden Lego", I think it would be awesome for at least a little while to roam the halls of Lego.

Barring that heady experience, I would love to have a few beers with one. Especially the ones that designed the UCS Millennium Falcon, if at the very least to ask a few questions about the design.

Every large set has a few instructions where you kinda pause and scratch your head trying to figure out what designer was trying to accomplish. Usually, fast forwarding a few steps, the puzzling instructions become clear. Every once in while though, you run across things like this:

All for one!

This is the rear of the Millennium Falcon, you can see the transparent blue 1x2 tiles used for the engine exhaust and light gray "Boat Rigging" that wraps around the rear of the ship to make the blue tiles look like they have their own little compartments. Those boat rigging piece connect via 1x1 dark gray tiles with a clip on top (center) and they, in turn, connect to a stack of three 2x3 light gray plates.

Why go with three 2x3 light gray plates when a single 2x3 brick should do the same job? Plates are not three times cheaper (and I doubt they were in 2007 when this set debuted). I cannot see how having a stack of plates would be more structurally sound than a single brick. My best guess is they experimented with a stack of two plates but then decided to bump to three near the end of the process.

Another example from the  UCS Millennium Falcon can be found a bit later while building out the assemblies of the outer hull:

On the left is the underside of one of the hull assemblies. Notice that near the middle you can see a single dark red brick.  

When you attach this assembly, only the top side is visible and what you see is on the right. 

That red brick is now on the inside of the Falcon, in a place where you will never see it. 

The compliment assembly on the other side does not have the red brick.

The Millennium Falcon has several asymmetrical features where one side will have a different color part, or different feature; just like the movie Falcon it is decorated to look patched and modified. So it is not crazy that one side has a random dark red plate that the other does not have. The strange thing is that you will never see it in the completed build!

Again, I think this was probably an oversight. At some point in the build process that part was visible and over the series of design iterations it was covered but never removed or replaced. 

Aberrations like these do not detract from a great set, at most they may cause the builder a few minutes of time as they scratch their head head and think "That's strange" to themselves. In the case of one of the largest and most complex sets offered, you would expect to find a few of these puzzles somewhere in the 300+ pages of instructions. 

And for UCS Millennium Falcon, a ship that is famous for all the quirks resulting from years of tinkering by Han, Chewie, Lando and others, it seems appropriate to have a few oddities built in. 

February order is in!

Steps 71-74 are a bit boring to document with pictures. They all provide external hull plates for the underside of the Millennium Falcon.

The most exciting being step 71 which is in the background of the photo below. It attaches directly under the engines at the rear of the Falcon and has a lot antennas and movable triangular wings ("Angle the defector shield!" perhaps?). The rest are large patches of gray to fill in the gaps underneath.

Steps 71 (background) and 95 (foreground)

Far more exciting is I got the large 4x4 turn table that is the swivel mount for the radar dish (that Lando took out in VI).  This is actually Step 95 but since I had all the other parts I could not resist putting it together.

January's Falcon Order

That's all for January?

Yep.

One of the reasons I am not done after nearly two years is that this project is more about the journey than the destination. That is, I purposely limit myself to budget of X dollars per month and at this point I'm a little over budget.

My goal was to try and get some of more elusive parts, namely the gray-topped levers I need a bunch of. Sadly, after I placed the order the seller connected me to to say that he only had 2 of the promised 10. :(

Oh well, I still got the last of the 1x4 black tiles and the final binoculars I need along with the 10 of quarter circle bricks needed for the rear engine housing.

Better luck February!

December Status for Falcon

Through Step 69

After waiting nearly 3 weeks for all the parts for the Oct/Nov order, I was happily surprised that both sellers filled my Christmas Eve order inside a week!
 
She doesn't look much different right now because the both 68 and 69 add to the underside, but I have turned the Falcon around to get a better view of 68.

Step 68 was more of the underside hull but with a new bit of functionally I was not expecting: a working gangway! There's even some nice detail with what look like hydraulics to rise and lower.

Step 69 was the top and bottom quad laser mounts that set on full working gimbals so they swivel around in all directions. Someone at LEGO really spent a lot of time working this really cool feature out.

It is nice touches like these that can really bring a model to life and up the "WOW" factor.

Falcon Progress for Nov/Oct (and Sept)

The last shipment arrived yesterday afternoon so I spent the evening/night anxiously waiting to go into work early and make the additions.

First, I finished the steps left over from the September order where I miscounted a critical part and could not finish. That left me with something that actually looks like the Millennium Falcon:

Progress through step 60, finally!

With that out of the way, I jumped into my main goal: building steps 61-67. Two hours later I'd finished up!

These are all bottom hull coverings and detail steps. The large triangles cover the bottom side of the mandibles, the smaller wedges attach just behind them to provide a little angling for the hull and the tube to the far right is the covering for the bottom half off the starboard access. The four assembles in the middle are detail parts that viable through the circular openings in the hull.

It was not all Skittle-Pooping-Unicorns though: it seems that every month I am destined to either miscount or just plain forget to order a part. This month is was the lowly 2x4 Light Gray Brick, about the most common part in the entire set. Oh well, I improved and have them slated for December's order.

Finally, here is the progress for the Millennium Falcon through step 67:

Progress through step 67!

A long time ago ... (since my last post)

I was pretty excited back in September at receiving two shipments that I thought would allow me to finish up through step 60. Step 60 is important because that is the point that the set goes from looking like a big blob of bricks to looking like Millennium Falcon:

Step 60: Outer Frame Done

Step 56: Blob of Bricks

Turns out that at some point that I miscounted a piece I needed for step 60. As in I had 30 fewer than I thought. 30?! Ug. I have no idea how I screwed up that badly.

"No problem" I thought, "I'll just pick up the missing part in October's order and wait until then to post the update."

It was a great idea, right up until the "Great Daycare Plague" of 2016 (official name, look it up) hit my house and wrecked the chances of me doing anything for a month. If I wasn't sick myself, I was tending to a sick wife and toddler.

Anyway, November rolled in and I decided to just combine Oct and Nov orders not realizing the effects on shipping the impending holidays would cause. Of the 3 orders I placed on Thanksgiving weekend, I have received 2, with promises by USPS that number 3 may arrive today.

Yup. 3 weeks. It is nearly time to make December's order I am still waiting for the last of Oct/Nov.

The good news is that the shipment I got yesterday contained the part I missed counted in September! If all goes well I will finally have pictures of a completed step 60 by lunch!

September Order 2: The Netherlands Strike Back

Not exactly an impressive pile....

I received the second half of the September order direct from DeenseSteentjes in The Netherlands.

I am still amazed that I live in a time when I can place an order on Saturday to a small shop on a different continent and receive the package the following Saturday. I have trouble fathoming the logistics of trying to quickly and efficiently route mail through two postal systems!

This is how I knoll...now the order looks better!

The exciting thing are those 46 1x2 dark blue transparent tiles, they are going to be the Falcon's engine exhaust. Previously I bought 20 or so of the light blue transparent 1x2 tiles because of an error (or discrepancy) in the Peeron listing for the UC Millennium Falcon. While they list the light blue transparent color, both Bricklink and Rebrickable list the dark blue version. :/  

Also, I managed to snag 3 more of those gray control hinges! Only 48 to go...



So that is all of September's order: 497 total parts of 23 unique types. If I have all my math right, I should be able to finish the frame and landing gear tomorrow when I get into the office!

Current stats:
I have 4167 of the 5196 parts on hand (80.2%)
Ihave all of 182 of the 287 parts needed on hand (63.41%)

September Parts Order (Happy Birthday!)

Straight from Toy Brick Brigade comes the bulk of my September order! 338 Lego arrived (slightly damp due the two days of rain) at my door this afternoon ready to be inventoried and verified. Turns out they actually sent 339, I got an extra 1x12 light gray plate. No complaints, I needed one anyway.

Zoe, who's paws are in the top-right of the shot, was so excited that she proceeded to try and help me count by first swatting at the piles I was making, then when that did not prove helpful enough, simply laying on the "to sort" pile.

I went over my normal monthly budget this time so I could get enough parts to finish the landing pads (Seven? The Falcon has SEVEN landing pads? I don't remember that!) and complete the main framework. This should take me to step 61 when it is all done. I'm kinda hoping that family and friends took me seriously when I said I wanted cash for my birthday to get a jump on the next steps of the Falcon! :)

Unfortunately, being Friday and the Falcon being at the office, I now have to wait until Monday before I can add these new parts. Ug! Starting off a new year with an exercise in patience...

If I get really lucky, the second half of the order will arrive (form The Netherlands!) tomorrow and I can slip into the office early on Monday and get everything added before work.

Falcon Progress

I threw in the towel at having a place at home where I could leave a half-completed Lego project and all the pieces laying around for months on end. Having a one-year-old always and large, semi--permanent piles of of Lego do not mix.

So I've drug the entire thing to work, cleared off a spot in my cube (that is now dubbed "Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 Restoration Center") and made space in a file cabinet to the parts bins.

To give you some idea of how big this set is, find Chewie minifig along the horizontal middle, towards the left. The picture is from the front where the "mandibles" attach, once they are on (hopefully soon!) she'll be near her completed length. My guesstimate is that will about 20% longer.

I'm going to have to stand farther back for the next pictures.

Wha-wha

I just returned from vacation with the happy sight of my August part order for the Falcon waiting for me!

I happily tore into the package only to find that in my haste to place the order before I left, I signed up for the wrong color...for this little cone I needed 56 of...UG!

More Bricks Arrive!

It's been a awhile since I last ordered parts for the Falcon, mainly because of the way I was going about putting together the orders.

Previously I was looking at the next few steps and ordering just what I needed to complete those steps. However, what I noticed is that as I ran out of certain common parts, every month I was ordering 5 or 6 '1 x 4 Light Gray Plates'.

So I changed my strategy a bit: instead of ordering just the parts I need to complete the next steps, I'm taking a few months and ordering only the parts that need the most of and selecting from sellers that have the best price on those parts.

Yeah!

The happy sight!

This means that I made an absolutely huge (for me) order of 1133 parts from hefBricks with about 200 of those 2x3 Light Gray Plates. His prices were fantastic and even offered discounts of lots larger than 20, 50 or 200. AND he included package tracking so I could indulge in my obsessive package tracking tendencies!

An evening of good beer and
inventorying LEGO. It doesn't get
much better!

The only problem with the order. Still
that's only a 0.08% error rate, pretty
darned good!

If my numbers are right (big 'if' there) this brings me up to 3290 of the 5192 parts that I need. Over half way!

Now I have my August order on deck with another 343 parts, they should be waiting for me when I get back from vacation!

On Radar Dishes...

This is LEGO part that serves as the UCS Millennium Falcon's radar dish. Specifically, is is LEGO Design ID 50990 (a 10x10 dish) colored in medium stone gray. You can find it in Bricklink  as part 50990pb03 or Peeron as 50990pb3 (the pb03 or pb3 meaning the 3rd pattern variation for that design).

Since the UCS Millennium Falcon is the only set to ever have this part, this means its expensive. Very expensive. Current prices on Bricklink are between $120-$340.

They were a bit cheaper a before the teaser video of the new Star Wars movies. I think there was some hope that Lego would do a new Falcon using this part. The teaser's Falcon sporting a new dish design ended that (makes sense, the old dish is still in the debris of the Death Star II after all)!

This is a standard 50990 10x10 medium stone gray dish that you can get for about $10-$20 on Bricklink. Still pricey as they were only in 2 sets, both high dollar that had it (and somewhat ironically, set 10188: Death Star and set 10143: Death Star II).

The design is actually a sticker from a German seller on eBay that offers both the sticker loose or already applied to a 50990.

I've been mulling over getting a "real" 50990pb03 VS a stickered version of a 50990 since I saw folks selling decals for the 50990 (and in one case actually etching the pattern onto them somehow).

This morning I pulled the trigger. The price of the 50990pb03 are climbing without any real hope of coming down. And though I've spent a lot of money on rare parts in the past, if this 50990 with a decal looks just like a 50990pb03 unless your are right on top of it, I think I can handle not being 100% accurate.

Especially if that means I have an extra $100+ dollars to spend on all the other parts I still need!

It's good to have friends!

If you've ever had any LEGO space sets, you probably run across these lever / antenna looking things. According the info that I can find, LEGO has been making them since at least 1985 and they are pretty much a stable of space sets since that time.

Which makes perfect sense for them to be included in the Ultimate Collector's Series Millennium Falcon. The trouble for me are that the "light stone grey tops on light stone grey base" version of this part is comparatively rare and that the largest source of them is the UCS Millennium Falcon itself. It has 60 of the little buggers.

They are currently selling for ~$3.50 on Bricklink.  Even the old gray color from pre-2004 are averaging about $1 apiece. Since they are rare and I need so many, this one part is quickly becoming one of the more expensive line items on the rebuild.

Happily, a few folks that know what I am up to have offered a helping hand. Above are a trio that +Sean Dilda traded me for the comparatively more common "black tops on light stone grey base" version. This is the second batch of these that he's found for me making a total of 7.  That's over 10 percent of the way there (and about $25 cheaper of build)!

Brickficiency

I've started putting together the May order for the Falcon. My hope is to get enough parts to complete steps 54-60, which will mean that I have to pick-up 528 LEGO (roughly 1/10th of the set).

On orders this large, it is nearly impossible for a human to figure out a the cheapest way to order that parts. I use Bricklink for my orders (it's like a LEGO only eBay), but there are literally thousands of sellers with millions of bricks there, sorting through that to find a cost effective way to order is painful and slow.

Bricklink has some tools to help, for example you can enter a wantlist and then search for sellers that have all the bricks you want. The problem here is that they cab be huge difference in what various sellers want for a particular part. For example, my May order, there are 2 sellers that have all the parts I want, the total price for the lot are listed as $480 for one and $420 for the other.

Reading through both sellers offerings, I see cases where Seller A wants $3 for a brick while Seller B wants $0.30, and the reverse where Seller B wants way more of a different brick than Seller A. If I could only get the cheap bricks from each, then I could save a ton of money.

But how to to this? There are two sellers that have everything, but there are thousands that have a partial list. I have the go through them all, figure out what they have, and compare the prices.

Enter Brickficiency. Download the app, run it, give it your Bricklink account info (or a LDD file from Lego Digital Designer) and let it go.

It will scourer Bricklink for you, searching all the Sellers for your parts. You can control how many Sellers it will spread the order over trying to find the cheapest solution. It does default to stop as soon as it finds a solution (usually all the bricks in 1 store) but you can set it to continue past that point. Note: this can take a long time: if the status bar is any indication, it's going to take a few hours to find all the 3 Seller combinations for my order. Easily worth it if it saves a few hundred bucks!

April Order is Here (and full of Fail!)

Fail

This month, I ordered all the LEGO I needed to complete steps 48 to 53 of the Falcon.

Well, I thought I did at least.

I tore into the box from AFOL Supply and quickly verified my order (thanks guys!) and set to work on completing the steps. The very first part of the very step was a 4x8 light bluish gray plate that somehow I managed to order a 4x10 instead.

Bah! I came really close to breaking out the hacksaw.

Currently my step 48 and 49 are rocking a temporary 4x8 black until I make next months order. Other than that things went pretty well:

Steps 48 and 49

Steps 50 and 51

Steps 52 and 53

 

Set 10179: The Millennium Falcon

I've added a couple of 1x1 plates to make Chewie the correct height :)

This is my main project right now, a build of the 2007 Millennium Falcon.

I have about half the parts at this point, and a bunch of pictures that I'll be posting a bit later to should how far along I am.

Above is a reproduction sticker I got from eBay and a completed step 96 (the plaque and stand), along with my Father's Day gift from last year: Han and Chewie from the most recent Falcon set!