Obsession with build times

[paul_delahaye]

I personally like to mix all the bags up in a new big set, as finding the pieces adds to the fun of the build for me.  These sets are expensive now so the longer the build, the better for me.

[doug72]

I tend to build either bag by bag or stage by stage.
Then double check everything is correct before moving onto the next stage - saves a lot of frustration later if a part has been inserted wrongly or missed !

With the onset of ever bigger lego sets - its essential to check at every stage things are correct.

Also with onset of arthritis in my hands speed building is not possible.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Doug72

[1963maniac]

20 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

The best set as far as educational purposes that I can remember is 8448. The build was split across multiple modules and beforehand, it's clear what each module is going to be. I have the idea with studless sets, with all their little fiddly bits, that every sub-build starts with an image of what it will be, but it's not always clear what a module is supposed to represent. It more often than not juts looks like a chunk of bricks. It doesn't help that the parts used for structure and the parts used for function are the same parts. With studded builds, there was a clearer distinction between structure (bricks, plates, pins) and function (axles, gears, liftarms), making sets easier to "read".

If you check the Chiron, it looks like designers didn't spend much time thinking about how to make the gearbox easy to understand. Sure, it works, but it looks like a random mass of bricks. Compare to the gearbox of 8448, which is nicely aligned into two layers with some speed-changes in each layer. True, it's a simpler build, but I think nowadays, sets are designed so that they work, not so that they are easy to learn from.

I usually buy big sets, so I don't always visualize what every mechanical system is doing til the end. Sometimes it helps to visualize when you have a digital file. I very much appreciate when a digital file is available on a MOC. Sometimes I build slow and sometimes I build a lot faster. On MOCs, I don't always have all the correct parts, so I have to improvise.

[TeamThrifty]

3 hours ago, M_longer said:

There's also another problem with new builders - they have never built anything bigger than a shoe, but decide to make a nine axle, fully motorized crane, without having enough knowledge about mechanisms, performance of Lego parts etc.

Thats awesome, not a fault. when i was 9 i tried to build things that were way to ambitious - you should never knock ambition!! (also its in danger of sounding like a 2 tier lego culture, the experienced builder looking down on newbie's, i'm sure that wasn't your intention )

You never learn by playing it safe (and thats a rule business/life as well as lego!!)

My advice to new builders is try to build the impossible, fail, learn, try again. Repeat. 

"Move fast and break things" is a saying common in science and engineering industries. In that context, it means that making mistakes is a natural consequence of innovation in a highly competitive and complex environment"

[Appie]

When I got back into Lego I quickly noticed I took 1.5-2x as much time as Sariel's build time in reviews. To this day, that hasn't changed, because I have no desire to rush, during builds I can spend alot of time already "playing" with the model and making sure everything runs smooth (and all pins are ocd aligned). 

[MangaNOID]

13 hours ago, TeamThrifty said:

Thats awesome, not a fault. when i was 9 i tried to build things that were way to ambitious - you should never knock ambition!!

 

 

 

I agree too. I have only finished 2 builds (42042 and 8459) savoured every minute but the amount I’m learning from trying to build a MOC is , well, hopefully a lot. Especially when it comes too structural integrity.

I fail a lot, especially this MOC I’m on now, but it’s pushing my building more than any instructions following will.

[Lipko]

17 hours ago, TeamThrifty said:

Thats awesome, not a fault. when i was 9 i tried to build things that were way to ambitious - you should never knock ambition!! (also its in danger of sounding like a 2 tier lego culture, the experienced builder looking down on newbie's, i'm sure that wasn't your intention )

You never learn by playing it safe (and thats a rule business/life as well as lego!!)

My advice to new builders is try to build the impossible, fail, learn, try again. Repeat. 

"Move fast and break things" is a saying common in science and engineering industries. In that context, it means that making mistakes is a natural consequence of innovation in a highly competitive and complex environment"

That's true but I think M_Longer meant that the scale is too ambitious. Meaning investing a lot of time and a lot of money (for example 18 power puller wheels) on something that's more likely to fail causing frustration and burn-out.

Only a very few and experienced builders are able to make such big and good quality models. For the others, like me, "normal" scale models are the way to go.That doesn't mean playing safe. I build mainly cars, yet I'm building an aircraft at the moment for a contes, built a backhoe for another one.

Just like in programming: everybody wants to make the next "WoW killer hockey MMPORG" or the next "compress anything to 2 bytes then recover it perfecty" or "simulation from atomic level to galaxy level" program, but these are bound to fail. You get the idea

[iLego]

I read through this topic in 5 seconds flat 

[HeresJohnnny]

Some interesting comments! Maybe I need to go through all my builds and make sure the lego logo is the correct way up on all of them

[knotian]

On 2/8/2019 at 7:50 AM, Maaboo35 said:

Well said! Slowing down allows you to check mechanisms as well and make sure everything is working properly.

You also bring up an excellent point - check mech and working. I would love to see LTG and MOC builders include stopping points where functional checks could be made. There have been some kits that I have had to take apart because of mistakes made in construction.

Ed

[dr_spock]

2 hours ago, HeresJohnnny said:

Some interesting comments! Maybe I need to go through all my builds and make sure the lego logo is the correct way up on all of them

I used to line up all the LEGO logos perfectly when I was younger.  But having to use a magnifying glass to see the logo now slows down my building.  So I don't bother any more.  Funny how priorities change as you get old. 

 

 

 

[Yevhen]

After having several crucial mistakes made in past, I always build models slowly and carefully simply because it could take much more time to rebuild a model considering complexity of the modern models.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Yevhen

[pleegwat]

I have occasionally seen intermediate function checks in TLG models. But it's rare.