Today my girlfriend started sorting all my Lego.

While building a MOC, most of my time was waisted by searching bricks.

I have no idea how long it will take to sort everything but it will not be a quick job.

I hope that she doesn't get bored of it before its all finished :'-(

Wow, looks like a big job. Thankfully for me, i don't have that problem. I have all my peices in just one big bucket. *sweet*

Good luck on a job that:

A- vould take you all year, or:

B- Could be a worse job then watching paint dry. ;-) X-D

When I did that I started sorting color then shape. I filled a couple of very large tackle boxes with all the specialty pieces and many of the rest are in 12 organizer shelves. 2 mediun sized totes are for castle parts and two are for pirate pieces. 1 very large tote each for pirate ships, star wars, castle mocs\sets, bionicle/technic. And several large set boxes with misc. things like train or soccer.

I only sorted about half of my loose parts so far and that probably took about 2 weeks worth (waking hours)

I don't even want to think about how long it would take for me to sort my Lego collection.

I have over 54,000 pieces, which equals over 220 sets. There all built right now. It took me almost 6 1/2 weeks to build them all :-D if I had to take them apart and sort them into color or type of piece, it would take a long time :-|

I used to have all my Lego in one big box, but recently I sorted the parts into categorys.

Mr Bonaparte, how are you going to sort this? Colour, shape, something else? I myself sorted it on colour, and it didn't took me very long at all, say 3 to 5 days... But I have slightly less LEGO than you Boney. ;-)

Mr Bonaparte, how are you going to sort this? Colour, shape, something else? I myself sorted it on colour, and it didn't took me very long at all, say 3 to 5 days... But I have slightly less LEGO than you Boney. ;-)

My girlfriend is sorting it (with my help :-/ ) per color.

And for each color we are having 4 boxes: Plates, bricks Xx1, brick Xx2, all the rest.

And we are also having a box for the tiles and slopes (all colors mixed).

I'm afraid it will be a long project having sorted for some hours.

But the good thing is that I can already start using the sorted boxes for my MOCs.

I used to sort by color untill about a year ago. Then I switched to sorting by piece. Took me over a week to get everything set up, but it works like a charm.

I don't know how you guys can find the determination or time to sort by piece! I have a relatively small collection and even I know THAT'S a massive task! For me, I have no particular way of sorting. I have my sets (which I don't take apart), a grab bag of older parts, a grab bag of newer parts from recent purchases and yet another grab bag for all minifigures. I have to admit, while it may be troublesome to find a specific part, bricklink is awesome for helping me find that one part that's attached to other sets!

I have over 54,000 pieces, which equals over 220 sets.

Wow, never counted my pieces that precise, but I own some 500 sets, so about 100.000 pieces... I sorted by shape and some pieces by color and shape.

Not all my pieces are sorted, I have lots of build-up models, and I stored away lots and lots of models in plastic zip-locks.

But still it took me many weeks to sort all my lego's (apart from really big parts like wings, ships hulls etc.) in a drawer system. It took some time, but it makes searching easier (only up to the point when you have so many drawers you don't know in which one you put it though... :-/ )

Click the images to enlarge:

I used to have all mine sorted by colour only, with the exception of minifigs and wheels. Recently, I kept some pieces in colour boxes, and separated the rest in part/shape. Seems to work quite well, although it means I've got boxes, drawers and tubs everywhere. They're under my desk, in the drawers, on the top, on the floor... It took me a while, but really only because I amended the sorting as I aquired new boxes.

One thing though: If its not you sorting the Lego, how are you going to know where everything is?

One thing though: If its not you sorting the Lego, how are you going to know where everything is?

That's not a problem because I have made the "sorting criteria" :-D

hmmh

I sort by size

more or less

a small box full of detailed pieces, like car mudguards, snot bricks, 1*1s, minifig accessories

a medium box full of slopes and wedge bricks

a big box full of plates and beams

a big red LEGO tub full of 'standard' bricks

and then theres a buncha PaB cups and XPods, which tend to each hold about 100 or so of a single specialized part...

for example the old Blue Auto Xpod is full of steering wheels and carseats, for my car-building needs...

Heh, I have the exact same cabinets. Praxis, right?

While we're at it, here's some pictures of my sorting mission (made with my crappy, old camera though):

Heh, I have the exact same cabinets. Praxis, right?

Praxis forever! *y* Expensive cabinets but indestructable.

Hahaha... everyone's pics are so "neat".

I used to have dozens of different shaped and sized containers all over the freakin' place, in every room of the house.

It was nuts.

So now, I've exclusively dedicated one room of this house solely to Lego... nothing else in there but a space heater, incense burner and a few pillows. Oh, also a fluorescent blacklight, because some identical colors are in fact 2 different ones underneath that spectrum (fun for building glowy mocs).

Then, i sorted my parts out by color, putting them in these tall shiping boxes that the US Postal Service sends one free when you order them off their website.

So everything should be cool, right? Pffffft. When I start on a moc, no less than 3 of those colors get dumped on the floor. Next thing you know, during THAT build, I'm dumping other boxes because ideas for another moc presented themselves.

As it is now, ...well, it's a disaster area of parts. I love it, but it's a disaster.

No pics, for they would be most shameful. :-D

I have to say that I am quite impressed with the effort some of you put in to separate your LEGOs. As far as I am concerned, I mostly did the separation by color scheme.

Although I did separate out mini-figs, accessories, printed or sticker covered bricks, and various special pieces, like plants and wheels. I still have quite a few sets that are in boxes so I do not need to worry about that for now.

I guess I may have to get more organized in the future for MOCing purposes. If any of you can tell me where I can get similar containers here in the States that you all own that would be great too.

DB

I currently have my bricks sorted in:

bricks 2 studs large: 1 bucket;

bricks 1 stud large: grey(s), blue and white in one box, all the other colors in another one;

small plates (4x4 max.): black, white and grey(s) in one box, all the other colorn in another one;

large plates (from 4x6 up and 2x12 up): one box

black slopes: one box

red and white slopes: one box

slopes of all the other colors: one box

tiles: one small box

windows, doors, windscreens: one box

plus there are 3 boxes of specialty pieces (wheels, fences, hinges, minifig accessories, etc.) I haven't sorted so far.

I used to have dozens of different shaped and sized containers all over the freakin' place, in every room of the house.

I have loads of different containers, but all of mine are in one place. I asked family and friends for any boxes they had, my dad gave me some small tubs he found at work and I found some drawers in the loft gathering dust. I've got small plastic boxes, tuppaware containers (some with lids, some without), a Lego tub, some containers/boxes from things I've bought and 6 shoeboxes.

It takes forever to set them all up for MOCing. But its easier once its sorted.

As of 2002 all my brother's and my Legos were still mixed together and i started to separate them by making all the sets we each owned.

Now there is only about 1.5 gallons (or 6 liters) left that isn't separated kept in its own container. It's mostly just basic bricks.

I eventually would like to have all my bricks separated like my friend Brian in this picture. Have to look at the background and imagine there are drawers behind the paper though :-)

For organization style i go by type of brick first. then what ever's left i go by color, but only the rarer colors (i.e. dark gray, tan, green, better brown).

I don't quit have enough drawers for all the brick-types that i have, so those go in a misc. bucket for now.

I have no idea how many sets i have cause i've gotten a lot of my bricks in bulks of incomplete sets,

but i'd guess i have around 30 gallons of bricks.

Hey B,

If you have A LOT of bricks, eventually it would be easier if all your bricks are separated primarily by brick type and not color in my experience.