BrickLinking (another) 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon

[neoconagenda]

I have been looking over the last day or so and this is doable but when I factor in the value of my time its almost as cheap to buy a BL set. But you cant really value your time if you are doing something fun... Either way if and when I do start this I have a great source of information right here!!!

[Wonderpants]

Finished at long last! Missing a few parts unfortunately, so bricklink is calling. Now comes the hard part: modding an interior!

"Right Chewie, keep your eyes open, huh? There's been reports of an intruder sneaking around, and I don't want them getting anywhere near my ship."

"Rrrrrrr-ghghghghgh"

"Spaceship?"

"Spaceship!"

"SPACESHIP!!"

Need to rebuild some of my system scale Rebel fighters to go with them though...

Edited July 10, 2015 by Wonderpants

[rollermonkey]

I placed a couple orders yesterday. Once they arrive, I'll be at 263/266 lots, missing only two of the hinges and the dark red 2x2 tiles. (over $100 if I get them all new)

Started construction, finally. I'm waiting for the DBG jumpers from BNP for steps 17 and 42, but apart from that, I got through step 28 before going to before 46 tonight, but I'm about to be stuck, as I don't have 1x10 LBG bricks or 2x3 LBG wedges to start the engine room area.

The only mods I'm doing for now are (of course) related to the radar and the engines. The radar is being replaced by ScottishDave's excellent TFA/new rectangular dish mod. In place of the rigging, (which I always thought looked wrong anyways,) I'm using the 33L LBG tubing from the bow rail of the large Friends boat.

Edited July 11, 2015 by rollermonkey

[Lobot]

Finished at long last! Missing a few parts unfortunately, so bricklink is calling. Now comes the hard part: modding an interior!

*snip*

Congratulations Wonderpants, I never tire of seeing Bricklink'd Falcons

[ScottishDave]

Finished at long last! Missing a few parts unfortunately, so bricklink is calling. Now comes the hard part: modding an interior!

Congratulations, good luck and let me know if you need any more photos.

(Benny and the Falcon cartoon)

ROFL! Better hope that Chewie doesn't find out that Benny was sitting in his seat.

Need to rebuild some of my system scale Rebel fighters to go with them though...

Perhaps it's just seeing the two minifig-scale UCS sets together, but the thought occurs that if you get these two together with enough rebel fighters together on a dark grey floor, you could have a minifig-scale Home One Hangar bay scene from ROTJ.

[Wonderpants]

Yep, the idea was to have a Home landing bay style display. Unfortunately I don't have anywhere to put the Falcon and Tyderium together, but a display with a landing bay backdrop would eventually be cool.

Meanwhile, I've been closing up the annoying gaps in the Falcon's hull plating. It's always irritating when Lego leave holes in these kinds of sets that a little work could fix, like 10240's nose. I've altered the cockpit tunnel to make the plating more seamless and close the openings into the superstructure, closed the gaps between the left, right and top corridor panels, and done a similar thing around the top gun turret, which makes a hell of an improvement.

[rollermonkey]

I'm waiting on the last lot (light grey (not LBG) levers) to arrive, but building is well underway:

Steps 1-49 are completely done, the first lever shows up in step 50.

From there, I'm essentially done through step 60 apart from two levers...

But it turns out someone sent me the wrong part...

I ordered the 30, white 2x2 modified plates with pin, with studs; and I received the ones with 'antistuds' instead. It's been too long since I got them, so I just reordered them again from another seller. They start showing up in step 60/14.

Without the white plates, I can't attach the mandible top and bottom coverings, preventing me from proceeding, so I've been gradually doing the sub-builds after step 61 and just not attaching them.

Also, the engine mod I'm doing, I ordered 2 of a part based on what I'd been told, but I now know that 4 of that part are needed, those have been ordered too.

Finally... WOW. I knew this thing was big, but since I'd never seen one in person, I really wasn't prepared for how big it really is!

Edited July 29, 2015 by rollermonkey

[rollermonkey]

Done through step 90, and although it looks good, I can't imagine how it made it through the review process! There's so many panels/subassemblies that aren't held on by anything! If you turned it upside down, half the top would just slide out. Edited August 7, 2015 by rollermonkey

[rollermonkey]

Done, but somehow I'm short 7 pieces that I actually need, and have many extra parts that I don't. I guess the Bricklink inventory is off?

Already ordered the 7 pieces (3 lots) from someone fairly local, and stole two of the lots from another model. :)

[Regimus]

Looking forward to pics.

I really like to see these projects but I don't think I could part one together myself. Sorting and building the thing was good enough for me.

[thekingman]

It's been great reading all these updates. I feel like it's only a matter of time until I cave and go through this process myself!

[dwong]

Done, but somehow I'm short 7 pieces that I actually need, and have many extra parts that I don't. I guess the Bricklink inventory is off?

Already ordered the 7 pieces (3 lots) from someone fairly local, and stole two of the lots from another model. :)

Dear Rollermonkey,

What are those missing pieces when comparing with Bricklink inventory?

Dwong

[Lobot]

Done, but somehow I'm short 7 pieces that I actually need, and have many extra parts that I don't. I guess the Bricklink inventory is off?

Already ordered the 7 pieces (3 lots) from someone fairly local, and stole two of the lots from another model. :)

I don't think there's any problems with the Bricklink inventory for the set. I had a couple of missing parts for both of the ones I've built, but I think that they were due to errors by me or the sellers I've used. If you've ordered from TLG, the parts are manually counted and I've had several problems with the ones I've made in the last 12 months. It's just one of those things that you've got to accept, considering the volume and range of parts needed for it

[rollermonkey]

I added the inventory to my wishlist and printed the inventory, too. As each item came in, I checked them off and removed them from my wishlist. I counted and recounted several times while orders were coming in. It's possible something went awry, but I was very careful the whole time. I was short 4 DBG 1x1 cones, 2 LBG 1x3 plates and 1 LBG 2x3 plate. YMMV

[cooldude00]

i used the inventory list off the back of the instruction manual and ordered from lego.com; given the 5000+ pieces, guess it was inevitable that some were missed out; had to call customer service to request the missing pieces (8 or so) and even received 200 VIP points as a "sorry for the inconvenience"... great customer service

Edited August 14, 2015 by cooldude00

[lostcarpark]

Looking amazing!

I love you comment about building a cloud city landing pad. I would live to build one, but to would have to be one hell of a structure to support the UCS Falcon.

James

[rollermonkey]

It is done.

Chewie and a couple of astromechs are trying to get the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy flying.

Again.

Of course, Han stays in the cockpit, you know. Just in case they need him to flip a switch or something.

I wonder if it has anything to do with that last engine mod that Han had done, but then never paid for?

Naaah.

So, I didn't do a lot of substitutions, except light grey levers instead of light bluish-grey ones, a mix of the 5.5 and 6L umbrella posts, and I used almost entirely new parts. There are some older used plates to help with the weathered look, though. ScottishDave's excellent TFA radar mod and Gerechtigkeitsliga's super simple engine mod got rid of the need for $100+ individual bricks like the printed dish and boat riggings. (Both mods together probably came in under $10, with shipping, which is incredible, when you think that's like around $280 cheaper.)

Edited August 26, 2015 by rollermonkey

[Tariq j]

Congratulations, I'm thinking of taking on this project myself sometime maybe next year. I have 3 boxes of Lego sitting in the attic and just looking at some of the pictures I can tell I probably have at least half of all of those pieces in there. So I should be able to save a fair amount of money.

[kibosh]

Sorry I lied, it's yet another photo of the legs, but now they're finally finished!! I don't know if it's intentional but the legs act like suspension as they have a small amount of flex in them, so the model can absorb small impacts without any problems. The pairs of rear legs are really close together, it looks a bit odd, or maybe it's just me

I am at the very beginning stages of embarking on my own 10179, and I've been looking at all these threads with great interest, and I totally agree. Those rear feet look odd to me. I may need to find a fix for that...

[Artemis78]

Sorry if i'm late but what's the overall cost now that you pretty much finished it ?

That ship is huuuuuuge

[kibosh]

Non-visible

40344 'Black Technic, Brick 4 x 6 Open Center' (LBG) - frame

40345 'Black Technic, Brick 6 x 8 Open Center' (LBG) - frame

6558 'Black Technic, Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise' (Blue) -frame (and dish)

30364 'Dark Bluish Gray Hinge Brick 1 x 2 Locking with 1 Finger Vertical End' (LBG) - part cannon turrets & engines

30365 'Light Bluish Gray Hinge Brick 1 x 2 Locking with 2 Fingers Vertical End' (DBG) - part cannon turrets & engines

3048c 'Reddish Brown Slope 45 2 x 1 Triple - with Inside Bar' (3048) - cockpit

3245b 'White Brick 1 x 2 x 2 with Inside Axle Holder' (3245c) - frame

3307 'White Brick, Arch 1 x 6 x 2 - Thick Top with Reinforced Underside' (12939) - frame

32555 'Yellow Technic, Brick 5 x 5 Right Angle (1 x 4 - 1 x 4)' (Black) - frame

Visible – Minor/no visual impact

6538b 'Dark Bluish Gray Technic, Axle Connector (Ridged with x Hole x Orientation)' (LBG) - feet

4589 'Dark Bluish Gray Cone 1 x 1 without Top Groove' (4589b) - exterior

6019 'Dark Bluish Gray Plate, Modified 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (thick open U clip)' (61252) - exterior

3456 'Dark Red Plate 6 x 14' (DBG or whatever you prefer!) - underside

42445 'Bar 1 x 12 with 1 x 2 Plate End and 1 x 1 Round Plate End' (99784) - exterior

75535 'Light Bluish Gray Technic, Pin Connector Round 2L (Pin Joiner Round)' (62462) - feet & frame

4095 'Light Bluish Gray Bar 6.6L with Stop Ring (Patio Umbrella Stand) (63965 - 6L) - exterior

3308 'Light Bluish Gray Brick, Arch 1 x 8 x 2' (16577) - frame

50990pb03 'Light Bluish Gray Dish 10 x 10 Inverted (Radar) with Radiating Spokes Pattern on Concave Side' (blank LBG) - exterior

Visible – Major visual impact

4592c05 'Light Bluish Gray Lever Small Base with Light Bluish Gray Lever' (black lever) - exterior

47996 'Light Bluish Gray Boat Mast Rigging Long 28 x 4' (Black) - exterior

Glad I found this list. This will be SUPER helpful to me gathering my parts!

[kibosh]

Folks following this thread might appreciate someone saving you a few dollars. When I Bricklinked the 10179 last year I spent a LOT of time finding ways to reduce the cost.

I have a table listing the part substitutions I made over on my page http://merigan.tk/lego/blog.php#save.

Swapping out these pieces reduced the price by $800, including the $130 boat rigging pieces on the engine and the $80 radar dish.

Another great resource. Thanks!

Having build it with the saving tips of bmerigan I can say most of them work perfectly, but I wouldn't agree to all of them if I would do it again...

The rigging and the dish are a no-brainer of course... but the long technic pins in blue are visible on some of the corners of the mandibles and of course on the radar dish... so it would be nice to have a few in black, too. The levers imho don't look good in black... I'd look out for light gray ones and switch them out, still a lot cheaper than LBG ones.

Also the 6L bars instead of the 6,6L ones is pretty visible in some areas (mainly at the cockpit) and (again imho) doesn't look too good... I bit the bullet and got used ones from the US.

I myself switched the colors of the long technic bricks to light gray and black for the internal parts... possible, but also very visible on the mandibles, so you must be extremely careful what colors you can easily switch.

My tip on switching colors: Have a very good look on the instructions first and think about which part goes were... then you can decide. Also it is muuuuch harder when your sitting in a huge pile of parts and look for DBG parts in the instructions, that you switched to black or light gray or something else... trust me! I searched some parts for hours before realizing I don't have them (in that color at least...)

Also very good to know!

[SpacePirate]

Hello Everyone. I have also decided to undertake the massive task of building a UCS Falcon. I think it was actually Lobot's original post that inspired me to do so.

Anyway, I followed all the tips and went ahead and ordered all the parts from BL, PAB and B&P. And to my surprise it added up to about £830 :/

I'm not sure why it added up to so much, being as Lobot only spent about £650 only 6 months ago. I do realise, however, that I made some mistakes in terms of ordering, BUT I got all the original minifigures and tried to make as few substitutions as possible. Namely:

4589 'Dark Bluish Gray Cone 1 x 1 without Top Groove' (4589b)

4095 'Light Bluish Gray Bar 6.6L with Stop Ring (Patio Umbrella Stand) (63965 - 6L)

3308 'Light Bluish Gray Brick, Arch 1 x 8 x 2' (16577)

50990pb03 'Light Bluish Gray Dish 10 x 10 Inverted (Radar) with Radiating Spokes Pattern on Concave Side' (blank LBG)

75535 'Light Bluish Gray Technic, Pin Connector Round 2L (Pin Joiner Round)' (62462)

4592c05 'Light Bluish Gray Lever Small Base with Light Bluish Gray Lever' (black lever)

3307 'White Brick, Arch 1 x 6 x 2 - Thick Top with Reinforced Underside' (12939)

32555 'Yellow Technic, Brick 5 x 5 Right Angle (1 x 4 - 1 x 4)' (Black)

I have also replaced the dark red 6 x 14 plate with a 6 x 2 and 6 x 12 dark red plates. Oh I also picked black rigging instead of LBG, but I may instead opt for LBG ladder mod, as others have done.

I haven't made as many substitutions as some of you have, but I tried to keep it as original as possible. I even opted for black Technic pins instead of blue. I understand that this could have contributed to the higher total, than I expected (I estimated £650-700 as per my Excel sheet), but it could also be because Christmas is coming, or there's renewed interest in UCS MF due to Episode VII coming out.

In total I made about 20 orders from BL + large orders from PAB and B&P. I'm still waiting for smaller orders to arrive from the continent (they are taking a whil, tbh).

From what I've learned I can offer the following advice in addition to what's already been discussed:

• Create a spreadsheet with all the parts listed, as per BL, ideally with pictures, detailed description, part number, colour and quantity required
  
• Look at PAB and B&P to see what's available and write down prices
  
• Do the same for BL and compare prices against PAB and B&P
  
• Order everything (that's not much cheaper at BL) from Lego. Even if it's slighlty more expensive or the same price at Lego as BL, it's still worth getting from Lego.
  
• Trust me, I've left ordering from PAB and B&P til last (about 10 days between initial research and placing orders) and parts 6179, 6565 and 6564 have literally sold out at Lego! They were already expensive at TLG and getting them from BL was even more expensive (that's £10 + postage on top)
  
• Avoid penny pinching!
  
• Look for the rarest items first and see which shops that have them also have the largest number of other pieces needed. Even if a 500+ part order will cost you £5 extra.
  
• The above is something I didn't pay much attention and I ended up making a lot of smaller orders from the continent (Europe) and postage + insurance + other fees added to a lot of money.
  
• Try and order as much from your country as you can - UK in my case. Postage DOES add up to a lot of money. Personally, I didn't order from anywhere outside Europe due to shipping costs + potentially customs fees etc.
  

Brickficiency probably makes the process much better and is worth using. I didn't use it, because it wasn't giving me the results I was expecting. Basically, suggested shopping lists added up to more than I estimated. This was probably a mistake, as I ended up spending much more in the end.

For me, it was a lot of flipping between BL and Excel, searching for the best price and store stock combination.

I recommend you use BrickStock a lot to create multiple wanted lists and firstly consider what substitions you're willing to make. See what others have done, see what you like and create wanted lists from that. I initially stuck mainly to the original inventory and ended up making last minute additions, which ended up costing me more money.

Oh and one more thing, before you begin, decide what you're going to do about the dish, the engine rigging, etc., and incorporate your choices into your wanted list before you begin the search. I initially went for black rigging and plain dish, but since decided to build one of the mod dishes, as seen in links above, and also use gray ladders for engine rigging. This means more orders to make :)

All in all, I'm happy with the whole thing, despite the total bill (£830) and I'm looking forward to building it. I will post pictures of the process.

[bmerigan]

I didn't get any minifigures - if you bought all 5 of the originals there's a few dollars/pounds there.

[Hold0511]

Thats a very helpful summary SpacePirate - thanks for sharing with us.