Topic: How should I sort my LEGO?
/
Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:49pm))
Note: These days, community activity has largely moved to the BiM Discord. Join us!
Pages 1
Bricks in Motion
Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
A place to discuss, share, and create stop motion films.
Ad
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
/
Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:49pm))
Anybody have a good experience in sorting your LEGO? I feel I'm sorting a little to specifically and wasting my money on one too many sorting bins.
I sort my Lego bricks by colour. Once we've nished a tub of ice cream, I'll clean the tub and place a particular colour of bricks in it. I have loads of ice cream tubs stacked in my bedroom. When it comes to more specific pieces, like body parts, headpieces, flat tile pieces, exedra, I use resealable bags. You can buy a pack of resealable bags online for a couple dollars!
I'd suggest sorting by shape of brick rather than color, especially for things like tiles and plates; e.g. all 2x2 tiles in one bag, 1x4 plates in another, etc. I used to sort by color, but I switched because it's much harder to search for the shape you want in a sea of the same color than the color you want in a pile of all the same piece. Now I spend my time building making creative decisions rather than digging through boxes. For storing bricks you can stack bricks of the same color and shape together, which makes them much easier to find, and you can see straight away how many of that brick you have. This obviously means some work when disassembling a set, but boy is it worth it when you're building.
OK, take everything Backyardlegos said, and for your own sake, FOLLOW IT!
Imagine you want a black 2x4, well, you open your drawer/bin/tub to a sea of darkness that resembles a swirling black hole, obscuring details, and successfully hiding that valuable part. You dig and dig, but can't make out a thing.
Now imagine opening your container to a host of multi-colored 2x4 bricks. You execute a swift scan and see that corner of blackness sticking out. You plunge in your hand, and have the desired part in seconds.
I've never seen any good advantage to sorting by color.
I highly, highly, recommend sorting by function/part. First, you can quickly look for the part you want, and if you don't have it in that color, it's easy to find one in a similar color. Second, it's easier to spot the individual part you want as it stands out far better against the other colors. Third, sorting by part and/or function allows for a more precise and specific sorting scheme that can be better organized and split up.
/
Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:49pm))
OK, take everything Backyardlegos said, and for your own sake, FOLLOW IT!
Imagine you want a black 2x4, well, you open your drawer/bin/tub to a sea of darkness that resembles a swirling black hole, obscuring details, and successfully hiding that valuable part. You dig and dig, but can't make out a thing.
Now imagine opening your container to a host of multi-colored 2x4 bricks. You execute a swift scan and see that corner of blackness sticking out. You plunge in your hand, and have the desired part in seconds.
I've never seen any good advantage to sorting by color.
Unless of course you're just building a big black wall and need to dig through a zillion bins of multi-colored bricks to find all the black ones... 
Just about every system has at least some advantage. I've found that sorting basic bricks by color, and then everything else by type, is a pretty good system.
Eeehhh, I'm not so keen on the whole sort by type thing. There are too many disavantages, the biggest three being the need for so many containers, not having a good place for random pieces, and not being able to easily find pieces you need when you need them.
What I recommend is using large containers for construction-type color sorting (though, I have a lot more than just construction bricks in there, but I don't have any more containers so I just put large pieces in there as well)
Then I use smaller containers and drawers for small pieces and specific shapes and types, as seen below. Notice that I have tan bricks split up in the medium drawers. I have one drawer for tan construction and another for weird tan bricks. Since I don't have as many of those as I have of yellow or black, I don't give them their own large drawer. Also notice that I've sorted some of my bricks by shape, such as the "round bricks" in the medium sized drawers.
The small drawers are usually used for plates and specific type bricks, such as hinges. I used to dig or hours in my colored bricks to find the function bricks until I got the organizer. Now, I just find the brick with the specific function in the drawer.
For other stuff, such as decorations and minifigs, I use these small sorting bins. On the left are tiny pieces and below that are bricks that I usually decorate with and/or don't have a better place for. I often call them novelty bricks. My minifig parts, on the right, are in the large one and accessories in the small one.
This works well for me at least. Might not work for everyone, but I've found it to be a good way to conserve space and storage options and easily be able to find everything. A larger collection would take a different system, but as you can see, my collection isn't terribly large.
/
Last edited by LBF Productions (May 27, 2017 (01:49pm))
I recommend sorting by block type. I do this and finding bricks is so mch easier for me. I sort rare colors by color though.
as in http://holding-our-own.tumblr.com/post/ … ion-part-2
Last edited by HoldingOurOwn (December 22, 2016 (03:20pm))
We organize by brick type. It has served us well. The only disadvantage is that it takes a lot longer to piece out and put away a set when you're done with it.
I make sure my LEGO pieces are together with other pieces where they belong.
I don't have any methods of my own to share but I can point you to a phenomena called granular convection otherwise known as the Brazil-nut effect.
It is where large things inside containers will rise to the top and smaller things to the bottom when they're being shaken.
It'll explain why when you open a bag of chips, and eat them, the slices become smaller and smaller until you have grains of salt at the bottom. The larger slices are the easiest to grab and the smaller ones are too deep to reach.
Step 0: If you start sorting in a situation where you have all your LEGO pieces mixed in one container (maybe a bin bag), you'll find that you'll have trouble picking up your studs because all the 6x8 plates are at the top.
Step 1: My tip for this situation is to first separate the bricks into three categories: large, medium, and small.
This depends on what you think is large and what is small. I would classify studs, 1x1, cones and cylinders or pieces of similar size exclusively as small pieces.
This should be easy to do. Grab handfuls of pieces (they'll be large) and sort them into a pile (a container is better) until you think your handfuls belong in the medium category. Now put the medium sized bricks into a second pile (or container) until all you have left are the small pieces.
Step 1.2: You can divide your brick sizes even more, into as many categories as you please eg. Extra small, small, a bit small, medium, above medium, large, very large. You can skip this step if you don't have much pieces to start off with in the first place.
Step 1.3: You should divide even each categories into bricks, plates, tiles, technic etc. if you're collection is huge. The piles should start looking like: medium plates, medium bricks, large bricks, large plates, large slopes etc.
Step 2: Pick a category. Any category. And sort your pieces by size. Once you're done, take a break and move on to another category and repeat until you've finished your entire LEGO collection.
Step 3: This is completely optional. You can sort each sizes by their colour if you feel the need to.
-------------------------------------
If you sort each pieces by their colour, you'll find that granular convection may be an pest.
Imagine all your black pieces are in one large cardboard box. You need a black 1x2 for your black and very, very dark grey Bat-unicycle. You look at the top layer of bricks in your box and don't see your desired piece. You dig for your piece but don't see what you want. With your hand halfway in the box, you find it hard to get your hand to the very bottom. After all, you're not dipping your hands into water, you're pretty much doing the same as punching sand. In the end, you tip your box over and instantly find the piece that you want.
The reason this happened was that the black 1x2 is at the very bottom of the box. Even if the box was see-through and you can see where the piece is, you'll still have a hard time digging for the piece you need..
Hence, the even with super good sight, the size of the bricks will work against you.
Here's a double post. Please mods. Don't merge this with the previous post because this is a separate topic and it may be overlooked because the last one was already too long.
If you would like to stack your pieces one on top of each other, maybe to separate colour or take up less space, be careful of how you stack your plates.
Here's an image of my how a friend of mine sorts his plates.
From left to right: 4x8 plates, 2x3 plates, 1x2 pieces, jumpers.
You'll notice that they are staggered (I'm not sure if that's the right word).
If you were to instead put them directly upon each other, you may find it hard to separate the pieces because they're too thin.
If you know a better method of condensing your plates and other pieces, and make them easy to find and separate, please share it in the forums.
I know this page has not been active for a few weeks, but I just though I might be able to help if anyone looks at this again 
I don't know how many pieces you have edmo, but there are basically 3 levels of sorting:
1. By colour (for a small collection)
2. By type (for a medium-sized collection)
3. By colour AND type (for a HUGE collection)
I sort by type, and it works quite well. However, the one thing which is till sorted by colour is large transparent pieces. My bricks are sorted into 1x(x studs) and 2x(x studs), however since I have a lot of white, tan, brown, D.grey and L.grey 2x4 bricks, they are separated into their own sections.
It is a similar thing for plates, as I sort them by 1x(x studs), 2x(x studs), 4x(x studs) and any plates larger than a 6x6.
Pieces which I only have a few of are all mixed together in a miscellaneous draw, but some things are kept in their own small draws.
Minifigure head accessories are generally sorted by colour, however bulky accessories have their own space, and because there is a lot of black head pieces, there are several containers for those. Minifugure heads are usually sorted by a common feature, whether it is an open smile or a double sided head. Legs are sorted by plain legs, printed legs and legs with more than one significant colour. Body parts are sorted by yellow, flesh and 'other'.
The only thing which is sorted by colour and type (for the most part) is studs (although, I should point out that this is only necessary for me because I once got thousands of trans red studs at PAB xD).
When it comes to sorting bulks of random lego, I find the most efficient way to sort is to sort specific pieces first. For example, I will start off by sorting any plates, then any bricks then any tiles etc.
I hope this helps!
Posts [ 13 ]
