Building the new LinkedIn Logo in LEGO bricks for the Mountain View lobby required me to buy a huge number of specific bricks in the same color. This is useful because you can order any brick in production. Limitations are that you cannot order bricks that are out of production, and fulfillment times are often 10-15 business days for large orders.2) Fax an order to LEGO. The LinkedIn logo required over 5,000 blue 2x8 bricks as the primary component of the construction. For large, detailed orders you can call the LEGO store at 1-800-835-4386, and they will give you a fax number for the order. Unfortunately, fulfillment times here depend on brick type - I ended up waiting 6-7 weeks for some components of the order. Also, LEGO seems to have no concept of shipping notifications or tracking for orders placed this way.3) Local LEGO stores "Pick a Brick". I used both the Valley Fair and Hillsborough stores to acquire bricks at times. You can buy bricks three ways: a small cup for $7.99, a large cup for $14.99, and an entire box for $70.
As you can imagine, you are somewhat limited by your ability (or patience) in terms of cramming different brick types into containers. Most clerks will tell you that you can't buy bricks by the box - they are mistaken. Ask to talk to a manager, and they will sell you a box, but only if they have more than one in the back. They are not allowed to sell "the last box."The biggest limitation of this approach is that not only do stores not stock all brick types or colors, they also have no ability to "special order" Pick-a-Brick bricks. They get fulfillment once a week, and have no control over which bricks they receive. The trick is to call ahead, and be flexible with your design to adapt to the bricks they do have.4) Bricklink. For example, getting 20-30 small 1x2 tiles to finish off the base edges of the lettering. Bricklink is relatively slow on fulfillment, and it's common to get bricks that are discolored by age or cleaning. This means they may not match other orders of a similar brick.
It's also very hard to get large orders of many brick types & colors.Overall, for the LinkedIn in LEGO project I purchased approximately 12,000+ bricks. 8,000 I was able to get over 7-8 weeks from a Fax order to LEGO. /) and click on "Buy Lego." BrickLink is a kind of Craigslist for Lego bricks -- you can get pretty much any kind ever made, in any color it was made in./PAB/ Prices aren't great but they are actually roughly about the same as what you would pay in a boxed set.This article is the third in a series about buying and selling used LEGO. In my previous article, I looked at strategies to get a good deal buying bulk unsorted Lego. Hopefully there are some complete sets buried in the buckets you bought, but before we can start sorting the bricks into their respective sets, we will need to sort them to see what we’ve got. This article assumes that the bricks you purchased are largely unsorted and disassembled. Bricks that are snapped together should be disassembled during the sorting process, unless it looks like part of an official Lego model which you should set aside for now.
(A kid’s half-assembled “MOC” or My Own Creation isn’t going to help you determine which sets you have.) I will go into the process of sorting bricks into specific sets in my next article. Before you start sorting, take a few minutes to consider how your sorting goals. This will depend on your philosophy, the containers you will use to hold the sorted bricks, and the number of bricks you need to sort. For example, you might choose to sort a small collection of bricks by color alone, but you might want to sort a large collection so precisely that every different color of every different part has a separate container. When I started sorting, I thought that I would sort by rough type and color. For example, put all the 2×2, 2×3, 2×4, 2×6 bricks of the same color in one bag. Once I started sorting the bricks into specific sets I realized that it is better to sort by brick type than color, since it is a lot easier to find a red 2×2 brick in a large container of 2×2’s than finding a 2×2 in a large container of miscellaneous red bricks.
An “Algorithm” is a computer science term for a repeatable process to solve a problem. In our case, the problem is sorting a ton of Lego, and we want an efficient system for getting it done. If you need to sort a lot of Lego, it will be impractical to sort everything into their final storage location in a single step. That’s why I chose a two-pass system which first quickly sorts the bricks by general part type, then I can sort them more precisely later. Since I purchased the bricks on Christmas vacation, I had lots of time to begin the sorting process away from home. (It was football season and I don’t care that much for the sport.) As such, I did a lot of my sorting into 1 gallon Ziploc bags which I could purchase inexpensively from the Grocery store. Large plastic bins would be easier if I had them available. I found that the fastest way to sort was to grab a couple handfuls of bricks, spread them out on the floor. I then grabbed all the pieces that I could see of a given type, then moved on to the next type.
I usually started with large common parts like the 2x and 1x bricks; this thinned the pile making it easier to find the smaller pieces that remained. (I didn’t worry too much about making sorting mistakes, since I would discover incorrectly sorted pieces in the second phase.) When the initial sort was complete, I ended up with about 30 gallon-sized bags full of bricks. I had only a single small bag of Jumpers and Cheese, and but I had many one-gallon bags of 1×1 Bricks, 1×2 Bricks, Technics and Bionicle. After completing the quick sort, I took one large bag at time and sorted the parts into smaller containers. In most cases I sorted each brick into a bag containing only a single part type, although uncommon parts would go into a bag of miscellaneous less common parts. I don’t know about you, but I can easily distinguish a 1×2 from a 1×3 at a glance, whereas I need to count the studs to pick out a 1×12 from a 1×10. Technic axles are even worse! To make this precise sorting a lot easier, I designed and printed a Lego Ruler and sorting tool which I discussed in a previous article.
I highly recommend using this to sort larger plates, bricks and Technics parts. Even if your long-term goal is to sort the bricks back into the sets which they came from, you will need to temporarily store them in their sorted state. I looked into and tried several solutions, so you can pick the method which best meets your needs and budget. As a picture speaks a thousand words, I wanted to show a few photos of my finished sorting and storage system. As you can see, I am using five Akro-Mils plastic drawers. I have two units containing 64 small drawers which are perfect for fiddly bits like Technic pins, clips and hinges. I have three units with 24 large drawers which I use for Bricks and Plates, since they are more common parts. I also use them for Minifigures and other larger parts. I don’t have a great storage solution for big parts like wheels, large plates and BURPS, so for now I’m using a few large plastic drawers and some gallon Ziploc bags. I have painstakingly labeled almost every drawer using a Brother PT-1230 label maker.