Lego classic F1 cars

Author
Discussion

sgrimshaw

7,311 posts

249 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
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If you click through to rebrickable then you can see how many parts you are missing (as long as you have registered your sets with rebrickable).

For example, I have over 60% of the parts required to build the Lotus 79, this increases to 74% if I ignore the colour match.

Rebrickable also lists other sets which have the required pieces, so you could source a lot of parts from used (non-boxed will be much cheaper) sets from ebay etc.

There's no need to buy all the pieces "bit by bit", there'll no doubt be some part which will need to be sourced individually but the bulk can come from already owned sets or sourced in sets specifically for the build.


slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
If its any help to anyone heres how I "work" bricklink.

Set up a "my wanted" list of ALL the parts you need for a particular kit. If nothing else, this helps as a stored parts list.

You can then select to show sellers who most closely match your wanted list. Order by unique items - some sellers have multiple listings for the same piece - so it might look like they are well matched, but in actual fact only have 2 or 3 of the bits you need listed hundreds of times.

You can filter by sellers country - this is worth doing because postage from abroad is costly and slow - only worth doing if he's the only seller with the bits you REALLY need.

Always have a quick look at the store terms before you buy - many have minimum orders and some have more complex rules - but its a real pain in the ar5e to have to scrap your order because you dont meet the ts and cs. Also, be sure to have a look at the feedback - esp the negative. There are some stores I know to avoid, because everything turns up stinking of cigarette smoke. Many people forgive this and give good feedback, but the negative feedback will usually give you an indicator of stinky lego.

Once you've made your first order, you will have all of some bits you need, some bricks you need more of and some bricks you dont have any of yet.

Now you create another "my wanted" list, move the bits you have none of into this list and search by store from that. When you find a store that satisfies this "missing" list, pack it out and then search again for your original wanted list within the same store - often you will be able to fill some of your "partial" deficit from the same store.

You will need to keep a spreadsheet running of your current inventory/in the post so you dont accidentally over order.

Keep a list of what and who you buy from and how it went - it has saved me from nearly buying £200 of stuff from Mr faggybricks. and again from Mr "takes 3 weeks to post"

If this has helped, take a look at "TopTableLego" on FB to see my Concorde kits!


Edited by slybynight on Thursday 23 October 12:54


Edited by slybynight on Thursday 23 October 12:57


Edited by slybynight on Thursday 23 October 13:09

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
All a bit much I must say....

Someone could make good money by commercialising this 'process'.

slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
HA HA HA!!

NO!!!!!

My time spent sorting bricks/sales works out at me being paid approx 3p per hour!!!

Bricklink are trying to get a MOC thing going where you submit a design and sellers then have the option of packing up kits from their stock - nice idea, but Designer only gets 5% or something, whereas seller can set whatever markup they like. - Which is kind of fair enough because the real leg-work is bagging the kits.

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
meh, such a shame, finished article looks lovely....

TobyLaRohne

5,713 posts

205 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
On second thoughts knackers to that, I'd happily give £250 for the williams kit but I'm too busy to dick around with all that, I thought you could just order the parts from Lego themselves and they'd pack em up and send em off to you.

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
TobyLaRohne said:
On second thoughts knackers to that, I'd happily give £250 for the williams kit but I'm too busy to dick around with all that, I thought you could just order the parts from Lego themselves and they'd pack em up and send em off to you.
Likewise, what a ridiculous faff!

slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
I guess if you REALLY want it, you'll put the legwork in! From experience here's a rough estimate of the time involved PER MODEL ie Mclaren MP4 - not per kit obviously! - this guy seems to have about 10 models.

Generate wanted list - 4 hours
Sift stores to find parts and track inventory - 15 hours
Clean & dry (if used parts) - 2 hours
Pack parts (well! doublecheck) - 10 Hours
Boxing and Posting - 2 hours

so 33 hours of someones time

say a run of 10 models @£150 ea = £1500 outlay. - double or triple that if ordering new parts from Lego "PickABrick" - ridiculously expensive, but after 2 weeks of bricklink you'll be begging for the convenience of everything arriving new, clean, on time, in the Quantity you need.

Time to do - about 2 weeks.

so anyone looking to make £10 per hour out of this would be looking to sell them on at close to £200

Savings made by doing it through PH....

No ebay fees.
Hopefully decent folk who wont claim the thing never arrived and demand refund.

I'd recommend getting the money in from interested parties first - an outlay of a few K is a lot to have hanging around in unsold bricks if people change their mind! I suspect that this is how most of the bricklink sellers end up there!!

But.... they do look beautiful and as a talking point, there is little to beat a BIG custom lego model of something that everybody recognises. Personally, I think they look great hung on walls as artworks.

Edited by slybynight on Thursday 23 October 13:36


Edited by slybynight on Thursday 23 October 13:39

slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
After all that typing I think I deserve one of these!

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
Nice!

Got any Spitfires?

DoubleSix

11,691 posts

175 months

TobyLaRohne

5,713 posts

205 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
slybynight said:
lots of stuff
in the time you take to write this you could just get going on collecting all the bits for me, now off you pop, chop chop!

slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
I'm always on the lookout for another model to develop. But because of the way I do it (I do all the legwork and the buyer is supplied with all the bricks plus instructions) and the money involved as detailed in my previous posts.... I have to recover outlay on one model before moving on to the next.

So I guess it depends on how the Concorde kits sell. If I don't shift them all then something that uses my enormous stock of white bricks will probably evolve! Vulcan in anti-flash white or TSR2 springs to mind!

I asked for new model suggestions on TopTableLego FB page - only one came in....

Aircraft Carrier!!!!!


BlueMR2

8,643 posts

201 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
Hmm, I have 479 of the parts required to build the Williams in my Bricklink stock already.

AshVX220

5,929 posts

189 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
slybynight said:
I'm always on the lookout for another model to develop. But because of the way I do it (I do all the legwork and the buyer is supplied with all the bricks plus instructions) and the money involved as detailed in my previous posts.... I have to recover outlay on one model before moving on to the next.

So I guess it depends on how the Concorde kits sell. If I don't shift them all then something that uses my enormous stock of white bricks will probably evolve! Vulcan in anti-flash white or TSR2 springs to mind!

I asked for new model suggestions on TopTableLego FB page - only one came in....

Aircraft Carrier!!!!!

I have a little lego model of the QE Class aircraft carrier, very nice it is too......and very rare, they had a few commissioned to give away at the ships launch.

Podie

46,630 posts

274 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
fatboy69 said:
So who, I wonder, will be first to buy the instructions & then calculate the cost?

They look epic - why haven't Lego picked these up rather than lumber us with that awful looking Audi Le Mans car?
Not sure why these are suddenly getting press - they've been around for ages.

Once I got above £200 in parts I stopped calculating the costs...

BlueMR2

8,643 posts

201 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
Podie said:
fatboy69 said:
So who, I wonder, will be first to buy the instructions & then calculate the cost?

They look epic - why haven't Lego picked these up rather than lumber us with that awful looking Audi Le Mans car?
Not sure why these are suddenly getting press - they've been around for ages.

Once I got above £200 in parts I stopped calculating the costs...
If your willing to substitute some parts then they can be had alot cheaper in some cases, eg silver wheel £20, Black wheel £2.

I might think about getting one or 2 sets of the williams together. Start off with the recent F1 car to get a fair few parts from.

MBBlat

1,602 posts

148 months

Thursday 23rd October 2014
quotequote all
AshVX220 said:
I have a little lego model of the QE Class aircraft carrier, very nice it is too......and very rare, they had a few commissioned to give away at the ships launch.
Any chance of a photo?

slybynight

391 posts

120 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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+1 I'd like a butchers at that

AshVX220

5,929 posts

189 months

Friday 24th October 2014
quotequote all
Here's a link to a thread I found on-line, will get pics of my own if you like, but it's the same as the one in the thread. Not proper "lego", but still pretty cool.
http://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=9793

smile