Lego holder / stand

[lawrence]

Well, Thursday LOML asked if I could make a Lego stand for my boys legos and as she said she would provide the "drawers" I only needed to make the case. Friday Morning I went to the lumber yard and got a sheet of 3/4 cabinet grade 4x8 mahogany ply and got to work.

I'm quite pleased-- quick, cheap (less than $75 not including the cloth drawers), solid as a rock, and practical... and I'm even happy with the way it looks... It is 60 inches long, 32 or so high including the back, and 12 inches deep.
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Lego%20stand/P10408241024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Lego%20stand/P10408151024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Lego%20stand/P10408251024x768.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/Lego%20stand/P10408261024x768.jpg

The middle and bottom shelf are held into dados in the sides- the top is held in with a rabbet. I then trimmed the fronts of the ply edges with mahogany (boy using a shooting board to sneak up on the cuts makes them 'just' fit into place )

The back is a piece of 1/4 ply pinned into rabbets.

The top runner is removable by screws and was made with my carvewright out of solid mahogany. The finish is mahogany gel stain followed by a padded on 50/50 solution of 2# amber/blonde shellac topped off with 2 coats of tung/poly/spirits mix.

The carving is just a quick DXF and centerline done, spray painted black, then planed off

Thanks for looking--
Lawrence

[gregsolano]

Looks like there is imagination going all around in this family!

[easybuilt]

Nice job Lawrence!
I wish I had thought of that when my son was young. It looks great and makes it easy to clean up.
Thanks for sharing.

[Capt Bruce]

Very nicely done Lawrence,

You put a lot of care into the design and finish and it really paid off well. Boy do I remember stepping on those in bare feet on the carpet at night. So what's your solution for Hot Wheels left adrift. Thanks for sharing this and again nice project.

[Smoken D]

Great use of your Imagination!!

[b.sumner47]

Well done I'll bet that the kids really like the colors too. Capt Barry

[unitedcases]

My wife has tons of those drawers. Really wish I would have thought about that. Thanks for sharing the idea.

[fwharris]

Lawrence,

Great job! WOW your boy has lots of legos!!

[Ike]

Just came back from San Diego and went to Lego land and check out the amazing Lego cities and such!

Ike

[Ike]

Guess I am the only one that finds it interesting the cities made of Legos?! Seeing the Lego stand made me want to share the awesome things you can make with Legos

Ike

[rcdages]

I fine it very interesting.

How long did it take to build that city?

That would really be a great job to build the city as they did or something like it with Legos.

[lawrence]

Nope, those are awseome pics- I love legoland (my boys like it too)

Thanks for sharing them

(did you see the married couple at the vegas exhibit-- pretty funny as the bride appears topless)

Lawrence

[lynnfrwd]

LOL Lawrence! Are you going to now post, "Made ya look!"?

[atauer]

I would love to go to LegoLand! My son is big on legos and enjoys building stuff. We bought him several different star wars sets for his birthday and Christmas last year. We spent hours building them, and then he spent minutes destroying them in a battle of good versus evil. Hours later, they were back together again, only to be destroyed again.

And I have the same problem. Stepping on the little pieces that are stuck in the carpet. Hurts like.... Well, anyone that has stepped on one knows where I was going with that.

Great project! Gives me something to contemplate myself. I wonder what I could come up with, using my limited access to woodworking tools and my amateur skills.

[b.sumner47]

Lawrence, Did you think about sitting down and doing a count ? Wow ,the time it would take to do that just boggles my mind. Capt Barry.

[lawrence]

The cliff's notes version of the story below is that we started with this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/20poundsoflegoHa51024x768.jpg
Turned it into this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/20poundsoflegoHa11024x768.jpg
Which turned into this
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u313/ldr_klr/LEGO/reSmall.jpg
(sold for a profit of $600+ dollars)
plus over 20 lbs left for the kids to use/play with

The long version is below- (ps, after this story ended we still sold another lot of the men for an additional $200...

Here's the story from a couple of years ago-- long and rambling and not in any way shape or form carvewright related, but here you go...
From another forum and a couple of years ago--

Mar 09-
Well, as some of you know, I have 2 boys aged 5 and 7. We recently went to legoland and they have, as of late, been pretty occupied with the little box of lego that they have. We even bought them a new set while there, and they loved putting it together.

Because I spoil my children to no end and I am really just a child at heart I have been watching legos on ebay for the last couple of weeks to buy some- new or used... the prices are OUTRAGEOUS. Used sets of bulk star wars stuff (what my boys really would like) sell for $500-$1000....

Anyway, yesterday I saw an add on craigslist for "around 20lbs" of legos, mostly star wars... I gave the guy a call and he was asking $220 for them... this is a lot of money for some toys, but I thought I'd better take a look. I drove the 45 minutes with my 7 year old and it only took one look for me to know there were waaaaaaay more than $220 worth of legos in those boxes. (total of over 30 sets... including star destroyer, millenium falcon, ATAT, 150+ figures, mos eisley, emperor's shuttle, etc etc) I mentioned this to the seller and he said that was ok, he was happy they were going to a good home... besides which he didn't really want to sort them out to sell them After I got home I did a quick ebay scan on values of the sets we got, and USED prices for these sets (including the little men which we have) add up to well over $1500... my boys are going to have fun for a long time to come! By the way, we weighed them and they ended up being over 40lbs....

Anyway, just wanted to share our good fortune... we pretty much bought a powermatic 66's worth of toys last night for the cost of a benchtop craftsman saw... and these things hold their value just as well as a PM too!

Lawrence

part 2 - May 4, 2009
Long and rambling as usual

Well, we've sorted and Lawson and Ian (with a little help) have completed stage 1 of the lego assortment-- we estimate this is about 8,000 of the pieces or so (of our estimated 25,000 that we have total) We've completed 20 or so sets so far and have instructions/inventories for around 20 more... To say this has been a much bigger project than I estimated is waaaaay understating things. I've sorted and seperated until my fingers (literally) bled... LOML and I did the sorting and (for the very most part) my oldest put the sets together (he is 7) with his brother's help (he is 5) They also have made dozens of airplanes/ships/models etc that don't follow a plan and are from their imaginations (my favorties)

We're going to sell quite a few of these as the star wars sets are rather valuable (even used resale)... to put it in perspective, the millenium falcon alone (though new in box) retails for over $400... we paid $220 for everything

part 3-May 17 09

well-- obviously we didn't need 46 lbs of legos... we've given some away to friends and just sold a few sets on ebay... (around 19 lbs) FOR $640!!!

I love e-bay-- for those that arn't aware, there are things that you can do to increase your profit and one of them is timing... always end an auction on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon... lots of bidders http://www.woodworking.org/InfoExchange/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

The boys still have 20+lbs of legos to play with and we walked away with a tidy profit and we all had a blast sorting and building together.

Just wanted to let y'all know the outcome,
Lawrence

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[CarverJerry]

Wow, what a story Lawrence, and such a nice project too. That makes me think way back when the erector sets were popular when I was a kid, (and they still make them today) not a lot of plastic was used back then, and also the lincoln logs.........but the legos really blow those out of the water. Thanks for telling your story and I'm sure your boys will be happy for a long time.

CJ

[Ike]

Sorry Lawrence, if I highjacked your post! By no means did I mean to take away from your great project! The end of last month I took my whole family to San Diego for my parent's 50 anniversary ( their request!) My mom and dad, the wife and me, my oldest boy and wife and 2 grand daughters. My middle son, wife and grandson and our youngest (18yr old) boy ! Twelve of us and Lego Land was one of the places we visited!

My oldest grand daughter who is almost 3 was so amazed by the all the cities and the whole park! Still I should have started a new thread and not invaded yours! Thank you for letting me share the pictures I did share.

Your Lego stand turned out awesome and it is great your boys enjoy building with them! I have seen first hand what amazing things can be done with those little blocks!

Ike

[lawrence]

Not a hijack at all Ike-- just a welcome addition!

Lawrence

[dougmsbbs]

So does this mean you won't be ordering this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/star-wars-legos-/270734623795?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f090a8433#ht_8202wt_1139

Yipes!