New To Lego, Some Questions?

[coolmelon]

I am fairly new to lego, well, I have known about lego for most of my life  ( we will call it 20 years... ) 

is this the best place to ask questions with regards to starting out?  But not buy and sell questions?

Edited November 14, 2016 by coolmelon

[Phil B]

Welcome! You have a lot of "beginner" questions - which is really no big deal. Let me try to answer as many as I can in one post:

- You can buy normal LEGO sets to fill out your table (just buy what you like at any retailer that sells LEGO), or you can go the MOC (My Own Creation) route like you might have seen in pictures on the web, where you design your own buildings etc. This MOC route can be done in two ways: By buying sets and using the pieces in the sets to create MOCs (but you might have a lot of "spare" pieces left), or by visiting one of the two premier LEGO parts marketplaces: www.bricklink.com (the biggest and most established) or www.brickowl.com. Also, LEGO stores have a Pick-a-Brick wall where you can get a (small) selection of bricks - you just need to be lucky that the bricks you want are in stock. Finally, shop.lego.com has 2 offerings which allow you to buy individual bricks as well: Pick-a-Brick and Bricks & Pieces. Any of these methods will give you access to specific bricks for MOCs.

- Most of what LEGO does is measured in studs (the knobs on top of LEGO bricks). For modular houses, they come on baseplates (32x32 studs, though Pet Shop comes with 2 16x32 baseplates and the soon to be released Assembly Square comes with 1 16x32 and 1 32x32 baseplate). All the other baseplates you can buy (sets 10699, 10700 and road plates sets 7280 and 7281) also come in the 32x32 size, with 10701 (grey baseplate) being 48x48.

- non Modular house buildings do not come on baseplates, but on normal plates (the biggest "normal" plate is 16x16). To fit those in with modular buildings you'd need to get more baseplates (or not be worried about a tiny height difference - a baseplate is 1/2 the height of a normal plate). Each building will have its own footprint, and nowadays more often than not buildings come with parts at an angle, which makes them difficult to integrate with baseplates.

- back to baseplates: they are 32x32 studs, but more conveniently, 10x10 inches. So if you're measuring a table, keep this in mind. A 40 inch wide table is typically a great surface to build on, 30-inch is a little cramped.

- Finally, in lieu of using baseplates, LEGO also produces (or produced, haven't looked into this recently) cardboard "play surfaces" themed to Friends, City etc. They are only sold through LEGO LEGO Shop at Home, but often on sale. These mats can be used to place buildings on, and provide roads and lakes and what-not. Perhaps an alternative?

Happy building!

[coolmelon]

Basically, I don't really know where to start - myself and daughter bought some lego friends things (some of the funfair things) and some lego city things (construction things) - Sorry a lot of  "things" here! 

 

 

I think what we want to do is put them all on a table, we don't have that much room, although my daughter wants to get rid of her bed and make her whole room just lego (It's not happening, we are not going that far! lol) -  Is there anywhere we can go to for an idea on sizes? - I heard something about possibly needing baseplates and roads, do these come in all different sizes, or is there a fixed size, so we would need for example like 4 road plates?  - This part, I can get the size of the area we have to work with in the room, but, then need to try work out how big the lego "plates" (is that right) are... so we know what size of table to buy or make. 

I am not even sure if I am using the right terms, I have been trying to read up as much as I can. 

Other than the sets, I see a lot of people doing buildings etc, but, where do you get the parts for these, like windows, shapes, etc - Or even like a fence to go round our little fairground area - Do you buy like lego packs? ... or are these things people have had in sets that they don't use anymore, then put them up for sale?

 

For the size of things, lets say we bought one of the lego buildings, how are these measured, do they give the size in inches, width of bricks or something? So then we know which building can fit on which part of the table?

 

Sorry, I know I sound completely silly here, but we both seem to have found something that we can do togeather in the winter months that is actually fun and spending time togeather. I have tried to help myself by reading up all different things etc, perhaps I have missed something, if someone more experienced can point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it!

And apologies that my post seems to be all over the place.. 

 

[Bold-Arrow]

Welcome .. what kind of questions do U have in mind ?? Most likely we would have a thread for them but if u can elaborate more I can point you in the right direction . 

[coolmelon]

Phil, honestly, thanks so much for taking your time to write that and explain it in a way that's really easy to understand for a novice like myself. I know you had mentioned the play surfaces, I Did have a look around for those, but no such luck, seen a couple on ebay, but just really small ones - I think it's probably better to perhaps buy some wood and construct something or perhaps ikea? 

When you buy sets, I have noticed, I have quite a few parts left, does lego do this on purpose, or have I missed some instructions somewhere that I should have used them in? haha - 

 

Again, Thanks so much for your assistance, you have really helped a lot and really looking forward to buying more lego and hopefully adding it onto a table that doesn't fall apart!

[Brian Briggs]

On 17.11.2016 at 11:32 AM, coolmelon said:

Phil, honestly, thanks so much for taking your time to write that and explain it in a way that's really easy to understand for a novice like myself. I know you had mentioned the play surfaces, I Did have a look around for those, but no such luck, seen a couple on ebay, but just really small ones - I think it's probably better to perhaps buy some wood and construct something or perhaps ikea?

I'm not Phil so I hope you don't mind me trying to answer your questions.

What do you consider small? This Elves playmat for example is roughly 40x25 inches in size and has two different sides that can be combined to a bigger playing area (assuming you have two playmats).

If you aim at creating a larger layout but don't want to build it on the floor you have to use tables or build some of your own. Maybe a pasting table could work, too.

On 17.11.2016 at 11:32 AM, coolmelon said:

When you buy sets, I have noticed, I have quite a few parts left, does lego do this on purpose, or have I missed some instructions somewhere that I should have used them in? haha -

Don't worry, those are spare pieces. Every set contains extras of small pieces like 1x1 tiles/plates, sometimes also extras of specialized pieces like flames, weapons, wings etc.

 

[BMTHbuilder]

When my kids were just starting out with Lego I got a table from IKEA and stuck some base plates onto the surface with strong double sided tape. . If you google "Ikea Lego table hacks" there are loads of ideas on the internet.

 

 

 

 

[coolmelon]

Thanks very much both, really appreciate any assistance and for you taking your time to respond. I went a little crazy, and bought 5 "small" tables from Argos, then combined them - I liked the height of them as my girl is 6 years old, so she is able to easily add things on and play with it. We bought a lot of base plates now, and are putting them on the table.

I like your idea about the double sided tape, as I have noticed that they slide a little! 

It seems to be quite easy to get carried away with this stuff! We actually had to move her bed over a little to fit in the table, also there is a gap in the table so she can crawl under and play from the middle, seems to work?

I didn't realize the road baseplates were fairly chunky in size once they are laid out, we don't have any buildings as of yet, but with the responses above, I imagine them to be a little big - Is there any sets that's fairly cheap and easy to get a hold of that we can test out ? 

 

Thanks again for all replies!

[Phil B]

There is a lot of choice, and the size of building just depends on what you're going for. If she's 6 years old, I would check out the buildings in the Friends' line of sets ... tons of cool, playable buildings there (Supermarket, Bakery cafe, Popstar house etc.) that won't break the bank at $25-$50 (not sure what the UK pricing is for this). They are open from the back to allow dollhouse-like play but still look good from the front facing a LEGO street.

The creme-de-la-creme are the modular buildings, but you'll be forking out $150+ (again, I don't have the UK pricing handy) and the builds are long and challenging for a 6yr old (more something for you). The newest ones do allow for quite a bit of play, and are wonderfully decorated inside. However, to get to the inside you would have to remove floors (easy, because they are built to be removed), no dollhouse-style playing.

[coolmelon]

Excellent thank you!

Yes we seem to be going for the lego friends type stuff, there is so much choice it seems, we found it a little hard on where to begin (well, me!) 

On the plus side, she is quite excited about it all, and seems to be good fun for us to do togeather! It seems lego offers lots of entertainment, no matter the age! I really don't know why I didn't get into it when I was younger! ha! 

I think we will have a happy girl this Christmas, a lot of her list now consists of lego things!

[Redbricklayer]

Are the UCS  sets like 75060 Slave 1 ever offered at a discount , if so at what stage of their life span ?