I do like to take care opening the polybags, making sure I tear them along the rim: because it feels right that way.

Like opening a chip bag?

I do that too. I usually try to make sure the bag splits perfectly at the opening, and then keep the bags inside the boxes, which I always open with a knife instead of tear tabs.

Rip bags open all over floor and just start building - I'm too excited when I have an new set to wash hands or sort bricks out (what a time waster sorting bricks out would be!)

I also wash my hands first (so that my dirty fingers don't tarnish the pieces ), then I open every bag into it's own little pile on the floor/table. After that I find every piece that concerns the minifigs, I build them and I admire them for half an hour. Then I just start building, slowly... to preserve the taste .

For building sets or MOCs, I wash my hands... and also keep a half damp (wet on one side, dry on the other) hand towel nearby to keep cleaning them... I can't stand oily or sweaty LEGO pieces with finger prints. Also good for wiping down and drying a surface before applying a sticker... and I use the towel to rub the sticker onto the piece.

I don't sort at first, but if I'm having problems finding a piece I will start sorting until I find it. By about halfway, the pieces are somewhat sorted and easy to find.

Although I don't save the boxes, for some reason I'm as careful as possible when opening them.

For building sets or MOCs, I wash my hands... and also keep a half damp (wet on one side, dry on the other) hand towel nearby to keep cleaning them... I can't stand oily or sweaty LEGO pieces with finger prints. Also good for wiping down and drying a surface before applying a sticker... and I use the towel to rub the sticker onto the piece.

I don't sort at first, but if I'm having problems finding a piece I will start sorting until I find it. By about halfway, the pieces are somewhat sorted and easy to find.

Although I don't save the boxes, for some reason I'm as careful as possible when opening them.

I hate sweaty hands too! There have been times when building a set I would wash my hands 3 or 4 times throughout because they would get sweaty.

Yup, step one wash hands here to! Abselutly HATE filthy bricks. There is nothing like a brick straight out of the bag, so nice and smooth. I basicly never use old used bricks anymore, only shiny fresh new ones. Maybe a hard to find part once in a while, but it has to have a close to new finish if I am to ever use it for any type of build. And I beliave that is the only two real "rituals" I have for building lego-sets or any type of MOCs really..

Cool topic by the way!

I have those:

-Wash hands

-Carefully open the box and polybags

-Put tires on the rims first

-Do everything as instructions say even if i don't like it very much (i would put the wheels on first but somehow i don't)

-Build Minifigs second

That's it.

If I buy a used set and it is still assembled.

I MUST strip apart everything, sort them into stacks of 5s and painfully count each and every piece and make sure they are in place, refusing to build and buying all missing parts before starting. (Once i bought a used death star 10188, man the stripping and sorting took 6 hours!!!)

I also insist to rebuild everything my wife did becuase i have to know how the construction was like.

Edited January 24, 201114 yr by Cloud0

I'm one of those obsessed with cleanliness, unfortunately. Wash hands, use paper towels to dry hands on to soak up any oil left, if my hands begin to feel a bit sticky during building I clean my hands again.

It tends to get socially awkward when visitors come over who want to handle the sets. How do I get them to wash their hands without offending them? Especially when different people have different ideas of what counts as 'clean'.

"I got icecream all over my hands an hour ago, but I totally licked it off and now they feel fine. What's your problem?"

Yeek. To be honest I'm not entirely sure why I care so much about cleanliness, I think it's just the way kids pick their noses and then handle things without thinking how gross it is for other people. It gives me a bit of a complex about clean toys.

As for the other building rituals, I tend to just pour out the numbered (or unnumbered) bags into a heap together and sort it as I go. If I'm looking for a small black piece, I put all the black pieces into a separate pile until I find the one I want. I don't have the patience to sort everything into colour beforehand, neither do I have the patience to search for the same black piece I saw a minute ago but have now lost because I didn't do anything about it at the time.

I used to be very anal about finishing each instruction before moving onto the next, but have begun to give myself some leeway. If I can't find a piece but it isn't necessary to continue immediate construction, I will move on and eventually the right piece will surface.

Oh, and there is one very important 'ritual'... if a set has more than 500 pieces, there will be one piece that I can't find for ten minutes, will eventually conclude doesn't exist at all, and will only find once I have almost completely given up.

Edited January 24, 201114 yr by David Thomsen

no rituals of any great significance. juz that all the parts are in an arc around me in boxes so i can juz turn and get what i need.

also i will need some sketches or plans of what i am doing..

- Let the wife sleep/do something else to prevent any disturbance to the building process.

this one is great! Must never forget

I say 'Kids, wanna build this one?'

Clean table & time ahead.

Edited January 24, 201114 yr by fff

Not many "rituals" but I like to do the following

- Have iTunes on

- Eat beforehand, no food or drink is allowed near the construction zone

- Ensure my camera is working, for photos natch!

- Mix all the parts together, I don't believe in doing things by bag or sorting pieces. I actually enjoy the little treasure hunt of digging through all the pieces looking for an elusive 1x1 piece

- Ignore the other half. And I mean completely ignore her!

I don't really have much of a ritual. I just need clean hands and a spot to assemble the set in.

As far as the bags? If they're numbered, I open the bags one at a time as i'm building.

If it's just one bag, i'll poor everything into a pile. I'm not really into sorting out stuff past rims/tires and minifigures/accessories.

If it's 2 or more bags I'll either pour them out into seperate piles or just open the bag a little and take the pieces out.

I would usually peruse the instructions first and figure out if their are sub-models I can work on without a required step before. For example, for the 8043 Excavator I built all the coverings first, followed by the boom assembly. I then build the "transmission and battery box" unit and only then did I start on the main tracked unit and body. And if there are numbers I would typically start with any number beside 1 first!

I would wash my hands and then sort the bags out, as some are multiples in the larger sets. I would for smaller pieces empty a bag(s) per container (have been using the packaging for those SW Galactic Heroes as they are shallow and rounded). For larger pieces I have several serving trays.

TV would be on in the background as well.

Washing your hands? Well thats weird. Why you even need to do that?

It keeps your hands clean so that the bricks remain in a new condition.

As for me, I always build on the floor. I don't know why, it hurts like hell, but it's just a habit. I also like to build in front of the TV, which usually doubles or triples the building time. I always keep the bags separate when I pour them out, but never sort them.

Well, I don't wash my hands (unless I have visited the WC that is ! ) but I guess sometimes a glass of wine and yes, I too put the wheels on my vehicles before the instuctions say so. But I like also building outside - getting some fresh air and sunshine - and the odd old person saying what are you doing ?

Brick On Everyone !

Ah, good topic brought back from the dead.

Here are some rituals:

-Wash hands

-Build all minifigures first. When they're all build, run and show them to my girlfriend. (She pretends to enjoy this, which I appreciate.) "This one has a female minifigure with a printed dress. She goes for like ten bucks online! What? No, I'm not going to sell it!"

-"Stack" the bricks. That is, connect all 1x2 pieces (for example) in a big stick, keeping colors together. Sort everything that doesn't stack into little tupperware cups. Sorting prolongs the process as a whole (a good thing) and yet makes building easier and more enjoyable.

-After building is complete, run and show them to my girlfriend. (She pretends to enjoy this, which I appreciate.) "See, you can pull this and the door opens, and then there's a cannon PEW PEW!"

-Nurse my sore spine that was damaged from all the hunching over.

Washing your hands? Well thats weird. Why you even need to do that?

Captain Becker

I wash my hands often while building to stop oil and fingerprints getting on the bricks (especially the black bricks).

Also very fussy about sticker placement, can take ages to get them in the right position, nice and square.

Put the baby to bed.

Grab a glass of wine for the wife and I.

Build until we're sleepy.

Lego is really the only together activity we have in the winter with a baby.

I once suggested having all the lego logos on the studs facing the same direction, but she said I was nuts. Maybe I'll do it on the next set I do, just for fun.

Edited January 26, 201114 yr by wtfbbq

I'd probably wash my hands if they were not clean or if I had just touched megabloks, but otherwise I don't specifically wash my hands before building, I always wash them when I arrive home and before food though.

Regarding the building ritual, I just empty the bags on my bed, grab the instructions and begin building. I never got the chance to buy a set so large that it really needed to sort before building it.

I do keep my MoCing pieces very sorted, and before attempting to MoC, I would have to move all my tuppers to my bed , and that takes time.

I'm a Technic builder and I usually build only larger sets (from about 750 pieces and up).

I usually put the tyres on the wheels first, as this is usually boring.

I just make sure to open ALL the bags and double check to make sure ALL the bricks are out. I cannot count how many times I have had to go through the garbage to find bricks somehow hidden in the polybags.

I usually hold the bags in front of a window after emptying them to make sure there's no parts left in the bags. Then I put the empty bags in the original box. I only throw away the box and bags after I have built allmodels, so that I'm sure I've got everything.

I use 1 liter storage boxes. I open all bags, keeping the original bag assortment except for throwing a few bags together if there's not enought boxes. Large parts are separated.

On a Power Functions set I make sure I have a working battery box before starting the build, and I test the PF components that come with the set so I'm sure they work.

When building from digial instructions, I sit behind my computer with the keyboard moved away but the mouse within reach so I can select music while building. When building from paper, I usually sit in the living room because there's more daylight.

I closely follow the steps and go at a slow pace. Sometimes when a new submodule is introduced, I play the game of guessing which parts are in that submodule and pick those parts apart, and then see how close I was. When a large module has a 2x I pick each of the piece callouts 2x and put away the second batch, so that when building the second copy this takes less searching.

When deciding that the new parts go with the rest, I first sort them and look how many there are before actually putting them in their respective boxes. Sometimes I keep the set's part list at hand when doing this, so I have an idea what parts there are and what new possibilities these will give me.

...Sorry for talking so much :P

P.s. I love Aanchir's method :D

Oh and one more thing:

- Let the wife sleep/do something else to prevent any disturbance to the building process.

Amen to that!!!!

Great topic !!!

Besides having my fiance distracted by some chick flick or random activity,my ritual involves :

- A theme/build related movie (usually PotC or SW)

- Cleaning the coffee table

- Making sure my Nerf gun is loaded for cat-distraction/shooting if he/she sits in my pieces

- Having either a coffee, rye and ginger or beer close by, not too close though

- Sorting by color (makes the build at least twice as long)

- BUILDING!

It also generaly involves large amount of time swooshing, I have this thing where I swoosh EVERYTHING I build cars, ships, planes, boats ..... swooshing is FUN!

pirate

My process is :

1. Lie down on the living room carpet

2. Open all the bags and pour them in the box.

3. Build.

Edited January 26, 201114 yr by richthelegodude

Depends whether I'm building alone or with my girlfriend:

1) Clear and (wipe) clean table

2) Cold drink nearby

3) Kettle on standby for tea during breaks

4) Music in background

5) Wash hands

6) Open box without damaging it

7) Open all bags and trow empty bags on the floor to "bribe" the cat;

If the cat has nothing to play with while we ignore her build, she's likely to "help" us building

8a) Start building without sorting (is slower, more fun) when I'm building alone

8b) Meticulously sort every piece, not only by colour, but also by type.

My girlfriend likes building the modulars, but hates searching.

9) Have a break between different "sections" during the build, enjoying a cup of tea.

10) Desperately looking for a spot to display the set

- Making sure my Nerf gun is loaded for cat-distraction/shooting if he/she sits in my pieces

Oh... you wrote "sits". My bad.