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Hi Alex,
The other suggestions in this thread may be better for you, but since you
asked us to share, I will tell you my methods for sorting... As usual, I
will share this in the form of a long babbling story. ;)
When I was six (1978) I owned a Fire Engine, a small Universal Set, and a
plastic tool box with compartments for small parts. One day, I took the
pieces from my Fire Engine and sorted them neatly into the bins. Then I
walked away for a short while. When I returned, I found that my older
brother had taken my well-organized Lego elements and used them (along with
most of my other pieces) to build a two story building that included an
eatery and an apartment. I was mortified! I was angry! I was a
six-year-old whose brother just ruined my great organization!
But somehow, my brother convinced me not to destroy the building. Over
time, we decided to add other buildings and make it a town. We collected
the Exxon Gas station, the Police HQ, etc. Eventually my brother lost
interest in the hobby and the town became mine. And so, through this ironic
twist, the building that I was angry about became the cornerstone of the
biggest and greatest hobby I could ever want. Now called Dawson's Diner,
the little building still stands (now surrounded by high rise office
towers). And elements of that old Fire Engine are still within its walls.
For the next two decades, I rarely thought of returning to my roots of
sorting. The kid in me grew to love the thrill of the hunt when looking for
a specific piece. I loved rustling through a box and hearing the familiar
sound of sifting ABS.
...Jump forward to 2002. Eventually my collection surpassed 50,000 pieces.
About half of that is in the Town/Train/Boat layout, where most models
remain built and are not assimilated into the "spare piece collection" from
which my MOCs are designed. Thus, elements from those themes are "sorted";
they are sorted by set or model. But except for the odd pirate ship and
Blacktron I model, most everything else is subject to dismantling in favor
of newer MOCs. Since I joined Lugnet over a year ago, I became increasingly
inclined to build MOCs only, and started to buying sets only for pieces with
no intention to build the TLC model. This combination of so many pieces and
the transition to me building more MOCs resulted in me having a need to sort
for the first time. As fun as it is to sift through a box looking for a
piece, it becomes a tedious chore when there are several TLC boxes of
varying sizes to look through. Heck, it can be a chore just to find the
right box!
But I am someone with other hobbies and limited funds. So I resolved to use
the best method I could devise: a free one. Where I work, we periodically
get shipments of new printer/photocopier paper for use in our office. The
paper reams get stacked in a cabinet, and the company disposes of the
emptied boxes. So I asked if I could grab the empties when I felt like it.
Over a few months, I ended up taking home twenty or so of the things and
then reinforcing their seams with packing tape.
I find these boxes to be very useful for many reasons:
They are...
..all the same size and stack nicely.
...easily stacked tightly to fill the space beneath my display tables when
storing sets that are not in use.
...large enough to allow easy packing of Lego models for transport
...made of recycled cardboard and can be marked with large labels or marker.
...free or cheap to replace.
...big enough to allow sifting through bricks with ease (if not completely
full).
...covers flip over to make great shallow sifting trays when working on
bigger projects –especially great for unsorted pieces or for element types
that I don’t sort completely in the first place.
So, with these boxes, I have sorted things to a point. I do not have the
space for enough boxes to sort completely by both color and style, so I have
sorted based on my own building habits as follows:
-All basic bricks and basic plates (not including 1x1 plates or plates
larger than 4X4) are sorted by color; each color gets its own box.
-Larger plates are in their own box, regardless of color.
-Wheels, tires, and chassis elements are in their own box, regardless of color.
-Doors, windows, and translucent elements get their own box, regardless of
color.
-Arches, fences, and railings get their own box, regardless of color.
-Castle walls, BURPS, and the like get their own box.
-Hinges and turntables get their own box.
-Base Plates and Road Plates are stacked neatly on a shelf, although 10”X10”
plates fit perfectly in these boxes.
-Sloped elements get their own box, regardless of color.
-1x1 plates and tiles of all colors are in a small TLC cardboard tray that
fits neatly in the other boxes.
-Connectors, clips, and small SNOT elements are in a similar tray to the 1x1s.
-Green and Brown are mixed in one box since I have so little.
-Dark Gray and Tan are mixed in one box since I have so little.
-Minifig parts, tools, and flags are in a box cover.
-Whole minifigs are in box covers, sorted by theme.
-Decorated elements are in their own box cover.
-Technic elements are in their own box cover (I don’t have much).
-Whole sets that are not on display are in boxes.
-Odd things I have few off and broken elements (I save everything) are in
their own box.
(Elements sorted in box covers rather than boxes are stored on shelving.)
I think that covers most everything.
There have been a few interesting side notes since I sorted everything. For
one, my build-time has been dramatically reduced for MOCs, since I only pull
aside the boxes that have elements relative to my current project and can
easily sift through them. Also, I have a much better grasp of how many of a
given piece I have. For example, if I am building with gray inverted 2x2
slopes, I can glance in the slope box and quickly gauge whether I can
complete the project with what I have.
For anyone building their own models and using a collection of around 10,000
pieces, I would say sorting is worthwhile. Regardless of the method you
choose, my best advice is this: Don’t wait until you have 20,000 spare
pieces (like I did). The sorting was itself a huge undertaking that took me
three months –and that was with my display tables cleared off to do it.
Also, once you have a system, be willing and ready to modify it as your
collection grows. And I recommend sorting new sets as soon as you open
them. That will allow you to move right into your next project with ease.
See? I said I would babble. ...But you did ask. :)
FUT .storage
-Hendo
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Brick Sorting
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| (...) Babble? John, you didn't babble...no, you just delivered an Odyssey to Lugnet ;-) Actually, thank you for the great advice and wonderful story. It's nice to see that you "won" in the end against your brother :-) -alex (22 years ago, 3-Jan-03, to lugnet.storage)
| | | Re: Brick Sorting
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| Oh, another sorting tidbit: Be careful of over sorting. I have bins with 1xN bricks sorted by exact size and color and bagged. These rarely get used during construction. Instead, my overflow storage bins are what is usually used. My overflow bins (...) (22 years ago, 9-Jan-03, to lugnet.storage)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Brick Sorting
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| Being the New Year and all, I made but one resolution that I truly want to carry out: sorting my Lego collection. Scanning through Brickshelf, I've noticed a lot of pictures with an array of sorting bins, containers, boxes, etc. My question to the (...) (22 years ago, 1-Jan-03, to lugnet.general)
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