Bricklink Tiles

[Dallas20]

I'm reaching out for help on a giant project that I'm working on for my son's birthday. I've built a massive table and glued 32x32 baseplates (15 of them) to the legs of the table. My plan was to cover the baseplates in tiles for a nice finish...Ive got quite a few tiles I can pull from my very small bricklink inventory.

 

Now comes the tricky part. I need enough tiles to cover 15,360 holes on these baseplates. Purchasing that many tiles off of bricklink would cost me a small fortune. I've got enough out of my inventory for only about half at the moment. So for you longtime bricklink store operators or shoppers are there any sets out there that are overly loaded with tiles? Some of the bigger exclusives maybe? I haven't dealt much with parting out sets over the $100 range. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! I have about 3 weeks to finish his project.

 

I'm thinking of taking a road trip to the Lego store , 5 hours away to grab some off the wall. The gas would probally still be cheaper than this many tiles off of bricklink.

 

[Guest brickcrazyhouse]

the pickabrick wile often has 1x8 tiles you may want to go that route no matter what you do it's not going to be cheap

[@rtisan]

What colour would you like to put over top? Do you have a preference for tile size (i.e. 1x1, 1x2, 2x2, etc)?

[knarrff]

15360 studs would be 1920 1x8 tiles, which cost you about 5 cents, totaling $96 plus shipping. What price range do you have in mind?

[MathBuilder]

2 comments:

 

1) 2x2 tiles in colors red, yellow or dark tan (likely in that order) are the cheapest on BrickLlink. The 1x8 might also be affordable as other members suggested. For 1x8 the cheap colors are likely to be blue, white, black, red  (in that order?) There is also the 1x2 route with colors including lime, bright pink, and dark purple, but I don't really recommend the 1x2's unless you can make a cool pattern combining them (much more work than the 2x2s).

All the pieces mentioned before have been widely available in the PABs in the past years and there is a surplus of them. Also available were 1x4s in green and reddish brown I think those will be more expensive. 

No guarantee that you can find any of them in the current PAB selection when you go to the store in fact it is likely you will find completely different stuff maybe other tiles and colors, maybe nothing relevant  at all, best thing is to call the store and ask.  

 

2) This is VERY important: When gluing the baseplates to the table make sure to put some tiles/plates/bricks as place holders in the borders and mark the location of the plate. DO NOT glue baseplates side by side, there is always a little empty space in between baseplates which gets covered once you build on it. 

[comicblast]

2) This is VERY important: When gluing the baseplates to the table make sure to put some tiles/plates/bricks as place holders in the borders and mark the location of the plate. DO NOT glue baseplates side by side, there is always a little empty space in between baseplates which gets covered once you build on it. 

What reasoning do you have for doing this? Not saying I disagree (no opinion), but you don't mention the point to following your directions...

[gorbasho]

What reasoning do you have for doing this? Not saying I disagree (no opinion), but you don't mention the point to following your directions...

Basically if you line up two baseplates with the edges touching, you won't be able to put a tile spanning across the two because the studs are too close together. There needs to be a small gap between the baseplates.

[MathBuilder]

Yes what gorbasho said. I just did a few searches online for a tutorial on mosaics to see if somebody had pictures of what I was describing here is a good one (Not mine)

Picture:

https://6254fa4b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/legomickeymosaic/home/LegoMickey-13.jpg?attachauth=ANoY7cqFY4FAWRk5BveffBnjN8975nT0pa9lSzkM58jFw6r1g54EK44Eov00jzd9V6LUYm-5WfPOfNIxMBhrTgOTw-dlbabZjuEQgSmtqhDzyYkT-hgas1phaXIm2IzDtAabjydI1a2-lzexGa5slq9CYBeKCrOB7Lb9YQ_FWJtYQbny6J0-QXcml8Z2L8Myernf-kx5QJf_sU4dqp7sGn0XKZDKvIpk_2nXBArIQca1nhq076Cvn2A%3D&attredirects=1

And full tutorial:

https://sites.google.com/site/legomickeymosaic/

[kenchu2000]

2 comments:

 

1) 2x2 tiles in colors red, yellow or dark tan (likely in that order) are the cheapest on BrickLlink. The 1x8 might also be affordable as other members suggested. For 1x8 the cheap colors are likely to be blue, white, black, red  (in that order?) There is also the 1x2 route with colors including lime, bright pink, and dark purple, but I don't really recommend the 1x2's unless you can make a cool pattern combining them (much more work than the 2x2s).

All the pieces mentioned before have been widely available in the PABs in the past years and there is a surplus of them. Also available were 1x4s in green and reddish brown I think those will be more expensive. 

No guarantee that you can find any of them in the current PAB selection when you go to the store in fact it is likely you will find completely different stuff maybe other tiles and colors, maybe nothing relevant  at all, best thing is to call the store and ask.  

 

2) This is VERY important: When gluing the baseplates to the table make sure to put some tiles/plates/bricks as place holders in the borders and mark the location of the plate. DO NOT glue baseplates side by side, there is always a little empty space in between baseplates which gets covered once you build on it. 

 

I think MathBuilder is spot on with #1.  Since mid June, I have not seen much 2 x 2 tiles and 1 x 8 tiles at Lego stores.  I used to be able to get 1 x 8 blue, red, black, and white tiles, and 2 x 2 yellow, red, light bluish gray tiles easily, but not recently.

[kenchu2000]

15360 studs would be 1920 1x8 tiles, which cost you about 5 cents, totaling $96 plus shipping. What price range do you have in mind?

 

 

$96 is not a bad price for that many 1 x 8 tile pieces.   I know a small PAB cup could hold about 220 1 x 8 tiles.  So you need about 9 small PAB cups to get 1920 pieces.  That's roughly $81 + sales tax.   I think using large PAB cups you might be able to get it cheaper.

 

For $96 + shipping, I would definitely consider getting it from bricklink.

[Spartikis]

I'm reaching out for help on a giant project that I'm working on for my son's birthday. I've built a massive table and glued 32x32 baseplates (15 of them) to the legs of the table. My plan was to cover the baseplates in tiles for a nice finish...Ive got quite a few tiles I can pull from my very small bricklink inventory.

 

Now comes the tricky part. I need enough tiles to cover 15,360 holes on these baseplates. Purchasing that many tiles off of bricklink would cost me a small fortune. I've got enough out of my inventory for only about half at the moment. So for you longtime bricklink store operators or shoppers are there any sets out there that are overly loaded with tiles? Some of the bigger exclusives maybe? I haven't dealt much with parting out sets over the $100 range. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! I have about 3 weeks to finish his project.

 

I'm thinking of taking a road trip to the Lego store , 5 hours away to grab some off the wall. The gas would probally still be cheaper than this many tiles off of bricklink.

 

pick a brick

 

or

 

contact a seller for a bulk rate. I have had sellers almost cut their prices in half when i say im buying thousands of a certain kind of piece that they are over stocked with.

[gregpj]

Am I missing something? Why would you cover the baseplates with tiles for a "nice but you can't play with finish"?

 

(not trying to sound rude, but usually people glue down baseplates so you have a nice solid building area)