Resurrecting my old Lego

Remouad

So I decided it was time to get my Lego from my folks to see what I had.

Plan is to put together all the sets that I had when I was a kid which is going to be fun since I have no instructions and a terrible memory.

What I can remember having for definite this space monorail.
Best Toy Ever!

There was definitely a castle too.

A lot of the stuff is sun damaged.

Anyone have any good tips for cleaning it up?

g0g

Well I'd be crossing my fingers you don't find a manky leaky 9V battery at the bottom of one of those boxes from the monorail!! Did I read before you can put Lego through the dishwasher? No doubt Google will have the answers you need! Looks like there are some 80's sets (?) in there which would be great!

Remouad

g0g wrote: »

Well I'd be crossing my fingers you don't find a manky leaky 9V battery at the bottom of one of those boxes from the monorail!! Did I read before you can put Lego through the dishwasher? No doubt Google will have the answers you need! Looks like there are some 80's sets (?) in there which would be great!

They're all 1980's sets.

I've pretty much skipped the 90s and 00s lego wise.

Going to give this solution a try.
Results look good but want to be sure careful the printed pieces don't get damaged.

Dunford

excellent! good luck.

Remouad

Has any else tried the above cleaning method or have any tips?

syklops

g0g wrote: »

Well I'd be crossing my fingers you don't find a manky leaky 9V battery at the bottom of one of those boxes from the monorail!! Did I read before you can put Lego through the dishwasher? No doubt Google will have the answers you need! Looks like there are some 80's sets (?) in there which would be great!

You can see the battery box from the monorail in the second picture. Looks ok to me.

OP, I am so jealous! If you decide rebuilding the monorail with no instructions is going to be too arduous a task, I'll happily take it off your hands.

Oafley Jones

Remouad wrote: »

Has any else tried the above cleaning method or have any tips?

Currently doing this with a load my old sets. Stick em in mesh bags or tights and chuck it in the dishwasher. That monorail is worth a lot (in good condition) these days. Plenty of instructions archived online.

syklops

Its like finding a trainset. A trainset based in space. And its lego!

its every geeks dream!

Or possibly just my dream.

Remouad

syklops wrote: »

You can see the battery box from the monorail in the second picture. Looks ok to me.

OP, I am so jealous! If you decide rebuilding the monorail with no instructions is going to be too arduous a task, I'll happily take it off your hands.

Turns out there are 2 battery boxes. Both empty of batteries so should work fine.

Good news: I've been able to track down a full set of instructions for the monorail set.

Bad news: I think I'm missing some track.

Looks I have everything else though Including all the bits for the train.

shedweller

You should find missing bits on bricklink or brickowl. Dealt with both and have only good things to say.

ButtersSuki

Biggest regret of my life? Giving away ALL of my Lego when I went to Uni to a kid on my street. We're talking 15 years of collecting - everything from regular to technic. I was a member of the Lego Builders Club if any of you are old enough to remember that? And I have not one, but two Lego Master Builder Awards! #beatthatfornerdiness!

juneg

We inherited a box of lego started by cousins 20 years ago and added to by us over the years.
A great box of fun

Deedsie

Remouad wrote: »

Turns out there are 2 battery boxes. Both empty of batteries so should work fine.

Good news: I've been able to track down a full set of instructions for the monorail set.

Bad news: I think I'm missing some track.

Looks I have everything else though Including all the bits for the train.

Bricklink will have any parts you are missing. I did a similar project recently. Very satisfying to have all the sets back together.

Remouad

shedweller wrote: »

You should find missing bits on bricklink or brickowl. Dealt with both and have only good things to say.

I've had a quick look for track on brick link. Was able to find the missing bits fairly easily. Might get some extra

Haven't heard of Brickowl so cheers for that too.

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Biggest regret of my life? Giving away ALL of my Lego when I went to Uni to a kid on my street. We're talking 15 years of collecting - everything from regular to technic. I was a member of the Lego Builders Club if any of you are old enough to remember that? And I have not one, but two Lego Master Builder Awards! #beatthatfornerdiness!

I feel bad because I'm missing a few bits. Would be devistated if it were all gone.

Remouad

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Currently doing this with a load my old sets. Stick em in mesh bags or tights and chuck it in the dishwasher. That monorail is worth a lot (in good condition) these days. Plenty of instructions archived online.

I checked out the prices on brick link and compared it to what it cost new.
Turns out it's pretty much the same price for a good used one as a it was new in the 80s.

New (sealed) condition ones are worth a fortune. Almost worth stock piling sets for 30 years!:D

Remouad

Deedsie wrote: »

Bricklink will have any parts you are missing. I did a similar project recently. Very satisfying to have all the sets back together.

Any tips on restoring the parts to their former glory?

Remouad

Remouad wrote: »

Any tips on restoring the parts to their former glory?

Hydrogen Peroxide can be used. I never tried it but I might some day the wheels on my 8880 supercar are more of a sour cream colour than white.

Aside from cleaning as others have said restoring old sets is great fun. Search boards.ie for bricklink as there is a useful thread from a couple of years back explaining how to use the "wanted list" feature in bricklink. Its ideal for fixing up old sets as you can upload the set inventory and remove items you have leving you with a list of your missing or broken bits.

One time a kind soul gave me a bag of 1980's lego I wanted to get the set numbers. I tend to use Peeron for this task. Look for a distinctive piece in the pile and try read its part number. Type into Peeron's serch box and you will get list by colour of all the sets that had tht part. Then you look up the listed set numbers to try see which it is. The correct set can be easily spotted by the presence of other bits in your pile.

Then you seperate them out and go on bricklink or other sites to fill in the gaps.

Hours of fun....

I am currently steeping some sun damaged LEGO in hydrogen peroxide the results are amazing. From tea brown to white in a few hours. You must do it in direct sunlight for the reaction to work. There are YouTube videos made by others if you want to see how it's done.

Fratello

Fratello wrote: »

I am currently steeping some sun damaged LEGO in hydrogen peroxide the results are amazing. From tea brown to white in a few hours. You must do it in direct sunlight for the reaction to work. There are YouTube videos made by others if you want to see how it's done.

How easy is it to do? My wife got me 7965 as a wedding present a few years ago and it got horribly sun damaged in our old house. I'd love to get it looking new again.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

How easy is it to do? My wife got me 7965 as a wedding present a few years ago and it got horribly sun damaged in our old house. I'd love to get it looking new again.

Very easy to do. I was doing white mostly and you can't go wrong with white. It would appear that grey can be tricky as too strong or too long long can bleach it to a weird grey. So be careful. I got 130ml of 6% solution in pharmacy for €2.25 which I think is about as strong as you would want. I would say one good sunny day in 6% would cure most damage. For grey you would need to keep an eye on it. Avoid contact with skin and especially eyes so keep kids away. The problem originates from LEGO using bromine as a fire retardant in the plastic. It was phased out as some point so newer lego doesn't suffer from bromine making it go yellow although it might go yellow due to other chemicals reacting. So what I am saying is it worked for my 80's bits but it might not work for 2000's bits. Have a Look at YouTube anyway.

Trebor176

I got my old LEGO down from the attic. I've been constructing the Custom Rally Van (5550) and am slowly putting together the port set (6542) and a fire brigade (I will have to check the number, but a few variants can be made. The only issue now is a missing side window off the rally van.

As I am missing some parts, such as a side window off the rally van and one of the opening flaps off the ship from the port set, I don't know if any stores here do spare ones in those buckets of spare parts. I have checked online, but to no avail. I am reluctant to try eBay or one of those, but may have to resort to them, if I cannot locate the parts. I'm sure they're around the house somewhere, and I do have the rest of the parts for what I'm building. It's just annoying when these things go missing.

It's more for my niece and nephews that I'm making these things again for when they're here. So far they've been having great fun with the LEGO, but seeing the various sets and that, I just had to get cracking on building

Necronomicon

Trebor176 wrote: »

As I am missing some parts, such as a side window off the rally van and one of the opening flaps off the ship from the port set, I don't know if any stores here do spare ones in those buckets of spare parts. I have checked online, but to no avail. I am reluctant to try eBay or one of those, but may have to resort to them, if I cannot locate the parts. I'm sure they're around the house somewhere, and I do have the rest of the parts for what I'm building. It's just annoying when these things go missing.

Have you tried Bricklink?

g0g

Trebor176 wrote: »

It's more for my niece and nephews that I'm making these things again

Yeah, keep telling yourself that! :rolleyes::pac:;)

Trebor176

Necronomicon wrote: »

Have you tried Bricklink?

I'll take a look, thanks. It's only a couple of small bits, but it's bugging me. I'll get sorted

shedweller

Bricklink is good. Brickowl is good also. Postage varies so have a good look around.
I've been to both and they are trustworthy.

Deedsie

Trebor176 wrote: »

I'll take a look, thanks. It's only a couple of small bits, but it's bugging me. I'll get sorted

Be sure to work out exactly what pieces you need and add them to your wanted list. Minimising the amount of orders will save you on postage.

Trebor176

It's just a few things. I'll have a rummage in the attic and see if there's any more bits in boxes. They can't have gone far at all. But yes, I'll certainly be looking into those sites.