Happy Birthday to Me !

I'm generally a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to birthdays. Finding myself one year nearer to death isn't really anything much to celebrate as far as I'm concerned. My wife thinks I've got it all wrong - she views it as a chance to celebrate having survived for another year. But maybe that's just because she's from up North where life expectancies are presumably lower.

All that having been said, I'm pleased to announce that this blog is two years old on Friday. Having previously given myself a big, self-indulgent pat on the back for having coaxed Gimme LEGO to the age of one, it would have been all too easy to let things slide having hit that milestone, but it's still going and people are still visiting. In fact, overall visitor numbers, and also the number of people following the blog, are gradually creeping up, suggesting that the time spent posting on here is worthwhile and that people are presumably getting something out of it.

Not everything in the garden is rosy, however. The Gimme LEGO Bargain Hunt ! page went great guns initially, but updates have been increasingly sporadic since I started to collaborate with Huw from Brickset on the Amazon Bargain Watch system which you may well have come across since its launch last year. For the uninitiated, Amazon Bargain Watch is a rather nifty LEGO discount tracker which has automated the process of finding the best deals on Amazon in Europe and the U.S., thus rendering my manual updates pretty much obsolete.

Anyway, one good thing about birthdays is that people generally cut you more slack than usual if you decide to get all nostalgic. On this basis, I thought it might be interesting to see which postings have attracted the most visitors during Gimme LEGO's 2-year existence, and you can see a list of the Top 10 postings below, ranked by the number of visitors.

  1. Review : Star Wars Set 10221 Super Star Destroyer

  2. LEGO Star Wars UCS Exhibition, National Space Centre, July 2011

  3. Great Western LEGO Show 2010

  4. Gimme LEGO Awards 2011

  5. Great Western LEGO Show 2011

  6. Review : Star Wars Set 10212 Imperial Shuttle

  7. Revealed : Kingdoms Set 10223 Joust

  8. Update : my MOC City Layout

  9. Preview : LEGO Star Wars UCS Exhibition, National Space Centre, June 2011

10. Review : Star Wars Set 10143 Death Star II

OK, so it isn't really very scientific - some postings have obviously been out there for longer than others so people have had more chance to stumble across them - but some clear trends nevertheless emerge from the data. My review of the Super Star Destroyer was some way ahead of the other posts in terms of hits, which isn't altogether surprising given that it was I think the first review anywhere on the net. There has in fact been a lot of love for LEGO Star Wars in general, with reviews of UCS sets occupying three of the top ten slots in terms of traffic. Reports from LEGO shows and exhibitions are also clearly popular, with four of the top ten slots occupied by show previews or reviews. I was also surprised how much traffic the updates on my MOC City Layout have been getting, although maybe I shouldn't have been given the number of e-mails I receive telling me to get a move on with it....

Set 10221 Super Star Destroyer - out in front

So what can you expect going forward ? Well, first of all, my enthusiasm for the blog remains largely intact, so Gimme LEGO will continue into its third year. I suspect that the current mix of excessively long reviews, opinion pieces, meandering event reports and general ramblings will continue pretty much as it is now. That having been said, I'm always happy to consider suggestions from readers, so if you feel inclined to get in touch with me and let me know what you'd like to see on here then please be my guest. Regarding the Bargain Hunt page, send me your tips and I'll endeavour to publish them on there. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to feature some custom Amazon Bargain Watch content on the Bargain Hunt page in due course, which should liven things up a bit on there. And yes, I really do need to press on with my MOC City Layout as there's more interest in it than I'd expected and I want to avoid another year's worth of "hurry up already" e-mails....

So thanks for reading the blog, and thanks for all your comments and e-mails. And thanks also to Huw for giving me access to Brickset's extensive library of photographs for my postings. I'd save you all some birthday cake but I'm just too greedy....

"It's an old code, but it checks out...."

It's been hard to find much building time recently but I finally finished putting together Set 10212 UCS Imperial Shuttle and she's a beaut !

You start out by building the body of the ship (including the mechanism for raising the wings into the landing position and lowering them into the flight position) and then construct the floor of the cockpit. This part of the build is great and proceeds almost too quickly - admittedly some Technic elements, but mainly proper bricks and plates. Then you build the enormous tail using a combination of technic beams and regular LEGO (which is a bit tedious, to be honest) after which you finish up the cockpit, and then build and attach the wings. Finally it's a case of adding a few details such as the laser and blaster cannons at the front before finishing off by constructing the huge stand which allows the ship to be displayed with the wings either up or down.

The mechanism for raising and lowering the wings works pretty well and is reasonably robust - 2 LEGO cranks fit into a couple of holes beneath the engines, and by rotating the cranks the wings slowly rise or fall. Then, once the wings are in the desired position, you can remove the cranks so as not to spoil the aesthetics.

I do love the beautiful, sleek cockpit with the huge windscreen (last seen used as a skylight in Set 10211 Grand Emporium). The cockpit drops open to reveal sufficient seating for 4 minifigs - Vader, Luke, an Imperial Guard and an Imperial Pilot. There's even somewhere for Vader and Luke to store their lightsabers. The set also includes a 5th minifig - a stormtrooper - but there's unfortunately nowhere for him to sit in the shuttle. So presumably his job is to guard the shuttle after it's landed, but he doesn't actually get to ride in it.....

The model looks pretty sleek and spectacular perched on its stand I reckon. A number of non-AFOLs have inspected it and all seem pretty impressed. The set comes with an alternative stand only a few studs high upon which the ship can squat when the wings are raised in the landing position; one of the downsides of this smaller stand is however that there's nowhere to attach the plaque (below), which does fit nicely on the taller stand.

The verdict ? It's sleek, elegant and it looks like it's supposed to. It's certainly a big step up from the 4 other versions of the Imperial Shuttle that I've got (Set 7166 is shown built below; the others are still sealed in their boxes & polybags) although it's admittedly significantly more expensive at £239.99 for 2503 pieces.

Set 7166 Imperial Shuttle (2001)

Set 4494 Imperial Shuttle (2004)

Set 20016 Imperial Shuttle (2010)

Set 7264 Imperial Inspection (2005)

Overall, it's not cheap but I think it's worth the money if you enjoy building and displaying big models, especially if like me you also happen to love the design of the ship itself. It was a no brainer for me from the moment it was announced, and I've had no regrets !

What's the Plan ?

After months of eager anticipation, Set 10212 UCS Imperial Shuttle arrived on my doorstep a couple of weeks ago, and I've been itching to get building ever since.....

I finally had some spare time over the past couple of days, so I took a deep breath and broke the seals on the box.

Building a big set like this, which has over 2500 pieces, requires some organisation. At least it does if you want to complete the build within the average human lifespan.... The problem is the sheer number of pieces. If you just pour all 2503 pieces into a huge bucket with a view to rummaging through them to find each piece you need for each step of the more than 300 pages of instructions, you will quickly lose interest and/or your sanity. To give you an example of the problems you'd face, this set contains 2 white 1x1 plates with a clip light attached. Do you have any idea how long it's likely to take you to find these tiny pieces amongst 2500 other pieces, many of which are also white ? Precisely - it could take forever. Which is why the experienced LEGO builder learns early to formulate a plan. Building is, after all, supposed to be fun rather than gut-clenchingly frustrating.

Every experienced builder will have their own way of doing things, but most will spend time up front sorting the pieces before they start actually building. This can take quite a while, but trust me - it will repay you many times over in the long run and ensure that you retain your sanity. I suspect that everybody sorts the pieces slightly differently; the key is that you need to have some sort of plan, and you mustn't forget what that plan is halfway through the build..... 

When I tackle a big set like this, I get hold of 3 large clear crates. One of them is earmarked for small pieces (generally 2 x 2 studs or less, plus a few additional pieces that I always sort with the small pieces such as Technic axles), one is for plates (i.e. flat pieces), and one is for bricks and everything else that remains. It's then just a case of opening the (many) sealed bags which hold the pieces and sorting them into the relevant crates. Sometimes you'll be lucky, and a bag will only contain plates, bricks or small pieces which you can quickly pour into the relevant crate, but other times there will be a mixture which you'll have to sort by hand into the correct crates. You can see a pic of my "work in progress" sorting the pieces included in the UCS Imperial Shuttle set below.

Sorting in progress - all 2503 pieces from the UCS Imperial Shuttle....

I'd always advise going for crates which are as big as you can possibly accomodate, so that once the sorting is done and the building begins you can spread the pieces as thin as possible over the bottom of the crate and find what you're looking for more quickly. And go for a clear crate, so that if you're struggling to find something you can lift it over your head and peer upwards through the clear bottom of the crate, or look through the sides.

Some people will sort more obsessively than this, making ever smaller piles of identical pieces, sorting pieces by colour etc. - whatever works for you. I have to admit that I'm reluctant to sort the pieces any further than I've described above. It feels a bit like cheating for some strange reason. Rummaging through the pieces, pulling your hand through them as if you're mixing hot and cold water in a bath, and of course the absolutely unique clattering sound of hundreds of LEGO pieces moving over each other, are for me as much a part of the overall LEGO experience as actually clicking the pieces together. So if I sort the pieces too much I miss out on part of the fun...... Consistent with this, I'm not a big fan of the way that the pieces in newer LEGO sets are often sealed in numbered bags which correspond to a specified part of the model you're making. Again, it feels a bit like cheating. I guess that for every builder there's a unique balance between making the building process sufficiently fast and efficient so that it doesn't get frustrating, but also prolonging the build for long enough to extract the maximum enjoyment. Each person just needs to find where that balance lies.

So happy building, but don't forget to sort first !