Some things from Christmas: Legos, Star Wars, Indiana Jones

As many of you know, I have a lot of Legos (61,172 pieces in 330 cataloged sets to be exact). If you have not seen them, give me a call and a stop by my house can be arranged.

These are all sets I got around Christmas time. While I only opened the last of them last week, I had the idea of giving a pictorial tour.


This is the Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser set. There are a few things to highlight here. The A-Wing is on a stand that turns it and can move it forward and back in the bay. Moving one control, the ship can be perfectly situated. This makes it easy to use the crane above to remove part of the engine. There is a similar set up for Admiral Ackbar's chair. Lets not forget the other exciting part of the set, the mini-figure of Admiral Ackbar himself!


Assembly Process

The set of the Home One above has 789 pieces (which is at the high end of piece counts). The pieces came in numbered plastic bags. First a person opens all the bags labeled 1 and puts together the first part of the set. Next, all the 2 bags are opened, the second part of the set is completed with those pieces, and so on. The advantage is a person only has to look through one part of the pieces at a time instead of all the pieces. For the three bag sets of this model, this means the most pieces a person has to deal with at a time is under 300.

Separated bags can be very helpful. However, the idea is not consistently applied. My example is the next set, the Medieval Market Village. This set contains 1601 pieces, over twice as many as the above Star Wars set. (For comparison, 1601 is in the crazy section of piece counts. Of my 330 sets, only 3 have more pieces.) There were no separated and numbered bags with it. This makes no sense. If you are having trouble visualizing what that many Lego pieces look like before assembly, I can help.


While many pictures are wroth a thousand words, this one is a step above at sixteen hundred pieces.

All of these pieces come together nicely. There is a little blacksmith shop with a water wheel that drives a hammer and a furnace. Next door is a stable with stalls for two horses. Upstairs is a chimney with an enclosed oven. The other building has an inn or someone's fancy house. A door opens to a table and keg of beer. A stairway up leads to a bedroom with a bed, fireplace, dresser, and a table with a view out on the village square. The Lego website has some pictures and even a 360 view of the set.



There was also an Indiana Jones set. It is the Venice canal chase. One of the boats even has a detachable back end for when it gets destroyed.