Ferris Wheel (10247) - It's Starting To Look Like a Ferris Wheel!

We finished the 4 legs of the support frame for the wheel last night and it is REALLY starting to look like a ferris wheel now! Check this out!

Something that my mom and I noticed was that the color match between the instruction manual and the physical pieces took a turn for the worse at this point of the build. In Chapter 1, the color matching was pretty good and with proper light, it was not too difficult to distinguish between some of the more similar colors like light gray, dark gray, brown and black.

However, in chapter 2, the pieces in the instruction manual were all colored in a DARK gray while the pieces were a LIGHT gray. Luckily, we only had light gray pieces to work with in the chapter 2 bags so it wasn't a huge deal. However, this means that when we disassemble it, we are going to have to sort all the pieces back into their original chapters so we don't accidentally mix up pieces from different chapters when we build this again in the future.

Not sure why Lego did this but we will have to keep an eye out on the coloring in the other chapters.

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - Round 2 of Buying Complete & Part Sub!

After many hours of searching through Brick Link to try and find the best possible pricing combinations on items, I have completed my second round of parts purchases. I have now purchased approximately 2,100 parts with another 1,000 or so to go. Unfortunately, a lot of the 1,000 remaining are the harder to find pieces :(

I've had to make another substitution on parts, this time for the light bluish gray cylinders that form the engines on the SSD. The original part that is called for is code 30360 but these were not only difficult to find but very expensive (in excess of $15 per piece). After some research, I found that piece 93168 was a good candidate for substitution. The differences between the two are strictly internalized to the connection interfaces. Thus, from the outside, you would see no difference. The 93168 were still, by no means, easy to find. They are still rare and I ended up paying about $12 per piece after shipping but that's an easier pill to swallow than $15 for the piece and ANOTHER $12 for shipping.

I've got 6 purchased so far and am hoping I can find a 7th to complete the set. You can see there are minimal differences between the two pieces below.

Ferris Wheel (10247) - The Two-Faced Man!!

So building our ferris wheel last night led to a flashback to Harry Potter and when Professor Quirrel had Lord Voldemort living off the back of his head.

I was rooting through my box of pieces, putting together the rest of my minifigs when I came across THIS!

It's a TWO-FACED man! In the bottom picture, you can see the freckles and one eyeball from each of the 2 faces on opposite sides of the head.

In one, he is smiling radiantly and in the other, he looks decidedly morose. Personally I think it's because in one, he has had ice cream and in the other he hasn't. That's how I would look, at any rate ....

Not sure if this is an error on Lego's part or not. On the one hand, once I put the hair on, the other face is completely covered so this could be a clever way that Lego allows for users to easily change the mood on minifigs. On the other hand, I have never see Lego do this before. Either way, I kind of like it!

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - First Batch of Parts Purchased

So, as the title states, I have placed an order for the first batch of parts for this.

I was able to find a local seller so I'll be doing a pick-up and saving a few bucks on shipping. Of the 3,152 pieces I need, I was able to buy 1,327 on this first run. Not too bad, until you consider I still have another 1,800 ish pieces to go!

I just about went cross-eyed with my tracking spreadsheet over the weekend. For some reason, I was having some serious issues corroborating my list of purchased pieces against my master and my "to buy" lists. I was making simple subtraction errors, skipping over lines that I had ordered. It was a nightmare. Finally, after trying it for the THIRD time, I finally came up with a correct list of parts I still needed. How did I know it was finally correct? Because the sum of the outstanding parts finally equaled 3,152-1,327 =  1,825.

I must have expended all my detail orientation ability on building the ferris wheel because I sure was doing dim-witted things when updating my spreadsheet. Anyway, enough time spent being angry at myself. I need to start sourcing the next batch of parts!!

Ferris Wheel (10247) - ICE CREAM STAND!!

Alright ... so Chapter 2 has started off WAAAAAY more interesting than Chapter 1 already. We've only just begin the first few steps but there is already a lot more color and some play value. Including an ice cream stand. As a rather large fan of food, this was quite exciting to me (don't judge).

The first few steps involved putting some finishing touches on the base to make it look like a professional theme park attraction - hand rails on the inclined walkways, "concrete" pillars and barriers to direct traffic to the attraction's entrance, etc.

Then there came the operator's booth, a park bench for visitors to sit and relax and an ice cream stand! Because no theme park attraction is complete without an ice cream stand. We couldn't help ourselves - we had to start posing the minifigs.

We've got our ice cream stand. Looks like the ice-cream-lady is doing some swift business. She's got a big spender waving a fat $100 bill around. Either she really likes ice cream and is planning on buying it for 20 people or this theme park charges even more exorbitant prices than Disneyland!

Someone's already gotten their ice cream and is enjoying it on the park bench. And the girl with the huge-ass lollipop has a massive grin on her face. I guess I would be pretty happy too if I had a lollipop that's bigger than my head.

And here is our ride operator - at this point, just familiarizing himself with the controls and how things work since there is no ferris wheel to run yet. He looks like he is having fun.

And a few more shots from various angles:

The next step is to start building the support structure for the ferris wheel itself. My mom is super excited to start on this!!

Ferris Wheel (10247) - Chapter 1 Done!

Chapter 1 (AKA the boring stuff) is now done! Chapter 1 was mostly the base and foundation for the ferris wheel. Very necessary but not really the most interesting stuff to build in terms of play value.

I did, however, have a fun little time doing some troubleshooting as the mechanism that operates the "floorboards" and causes them to raise and lower wasn't working. It turns out that we had used the wrong size of gear on one of the internal connections. We used one that was too small and was not reaching and meshing with the tooth plate underneath.

As my mom likes to point out, it was completely my fault as I was the one picking the pieces for her and she was doing the actual building. Nonetheless, it wasn't too bad of a fix. I took apart a few things so I could access the gear and had everything slapped back together (AND working!!) in less than 10 minutes.

The amount of mechanical function on this set is pretty amazing - there are multiple gear connections that we have built already. I can only imagine there will be more to come to make the wheel actually move .... CAN'T WAIT!

Here are a few shots from various angles of how the set looks like Chapter 1 complete.

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - Sourcing the Parts

Now that I have my spreadsheet set up with (hopefully) all the parts I will need, I have to research where I can get them and how much I am going to have to spend to get everything.

I started with Lego's Pick-A-Brick. Unfortunately, they don't stock all the pieces - only the newer and more popular ones. Of the 3,152 pieces required for the set, I was only able to find 1,839 on Pick-A-Brick. Even then, those priced in at $380. Assuming equal pricing on the remaining parts, that puts the total at roughly $655 (not including shipping). Not a cheap build.

I decided to look at other options, like going through a 3rd party site like Brick Link. Not only are the prices a little more reasonable but there is also more variety available via 3rd party sites as Lego tends to stock only newer and more popular pieces.

I am only partway through my list right now. I am going through and making notes on each part so I can get a ballpark feel for how much going this route may cost and whether it's even possible to find all the pieces. Given that I am planning on displaying this and not necessarily playing with it, I've pretty well decided not to bother with getting any of the mini figurines.

Additionally, I've already found 1 set of pieces that I will be substituting with a different color as the exact ones called for in the kit are prohibitively expensive due to their rarity. The kit calls for 6 of the Right Angle 5x5 Yellow Technic Bricks.

Unfortunately, Pick-A-Brick does not carry these and Brick Link has them selling at almost $12 PER PIECE not including shipping. The thought of spending more than $70 on 6 pieces of Lego makes me want to puke so these will be swapped with the same piece but in black (which I can get for a mere $1.15 each). While still considered pretty expensive for a Lego piece, it is at least palatable.

Of course, before deciding whether to do a substitution, one must consider where the piece will be in the final product. These yellow pieces are internal to the SSD and not visible from the outside so I am not too concerned about the departure from standard.

As luck would have it, I found a dealer who lives in the same city as I do so I am hoping to pick up as many pieces from him as I can and saving on the shipping costs.