Building a 6080 King's Castle from spare parts

[questforcastle]

Hello all! I stumbled across this fine forum today in my quest to reacquaint myself with LEGO (and indeed the AFOL aspects of it). I am currently building a 6080 King's Castle from other childhood LEGO sets and new brick purchases as my pilot project. I never had this particular castle, so it will be an interesting project for me both because of the set and also getting back to LEGO after all these years.

I am documenting this process in a little blog I setup for the purpose: http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/ In addition to being a nice personal history for the project, I hope that eventually it might also contain some helpful information for other beginners such as myself, as I go through the process of learning about LEGO communities, brick purchasing and stuff like that.

This site has already proven useful, as the FAQ contains a very nice description of the different shades of grey LEGO uses. Thank you for that. I had already found some communal help and encouragement from the very nice guys at EuroBricks.com, but I think my topic may be even better suited to a castle-dedicated site like this. I hope to update my progress here from time to time and get some feedback from the pros.

What do you think, is this a good way to start digging into LEGO Castle as an AFOL wannabe? Any similar experiences?

[AK_Brickster]

Sounds like a fun project, although if you are going to piecemeal your Bricklink orders as you discover they're needed instead of properly inventorying what you have and will need and optimizing your order, you are going to pay a LOT of extra shipping. If you don't mind that, then carry on!

Welcome to the forum. You'll find a lot of extremely talented and friendly builders on this site.

[joee]

I'm currently in the process of completing a Grey version of Black Monarch';s Castle (6085). I have scavenged pieces from incomplete lots of 6080, 6073 and 6085, and I I have acquire some pieces off bricklink too (grey macaroni pieces). The one part I'm really missing are the corner walls as I haven't found a bulk lot set of 6074. I have a spare 6074 but don't want to break it up. Feeding pieces has been tedious but I think once it's all built it will look great. I'm going to have it set up as a Black Falcon Castle.

[biglesdug]

there was a seller on ebay who just listed a few older castles he built in old grey like the yellow castle 375/6075 and black monarchs castle 6085-1. I know the historical idea of a black castle doesn't really play out but the black monarchs castle in grey just didn't look right to me.

the 6080 is a castle that I really want but have yet to purchase. and like someone mentioned after making multiple orders from different sellers and having to pay shipping on them , the cost almost equals that of what it would cost to buy the complete set.

[joee]

I did see that auction too, and agree I didn't like the look. But he made the Castle as a reverse grey/black scheme and I found the reversed black really stood out and that is what I didn't like. When I build the castle I'm going to keep it all grey with a litte black thrown in where it makes sense (probably just the braces). I might add a bit of red on the front to make it seem like a large Knight's Castle (6073). Right now I have to wash all of bricklots I have one is really dusty and the other is just plain dirty. I'm still in the hunt for an incomplete 6074 for the corner walls, but if I can't find it then I'm going to bricklink it. I reckon the whole process will take a long time (I have two kids) but I'll post pics along the way.

[questforcastle]

Thank you for the fantastic response and solid advice. I agree that I have to find a good balance on piece acquisition - keep it suitably spontaneous so that this stays a fun learning project, but sound enough so that I won't go bankrupt before the castle is finished (and preferably not after it is finished either). For the moment I like to take it somewhat step by step, because I'm learning all the time and I don't want to rush it too much. I'll drop in to report (and post on the blog) as I make progress!

[dyntar]

Are you only planning on building 6080? While ordering pieces for the large castle it might be a good time to buy pieces for the smaller sets. [if you want them] Some of the smaller lion sets like 6061 could easily be made if you buy a few extra pieces for 6080.

When I started my mission to build one of each of the castle sets from the 80's just buying individual pieces from Bricklink.
I found it was more cost effective to place bulk orders for parts, than to complete one set at a time. Sure it takes a lot longer to create the checklists for all the parts but it saves a heap in postage. I think I ended up saving about $400 buying the pieces individually instead of buying the 30 sets already together from Bricklink.

[questforcastle]

I believe I already have 6061 - in pieces probably. Its bricks will probably go into the 6080 King's Castle, though. We shall see what else I might build afterwards, honestly don't know yet...

I am currently waiting for my first parts orders to arrive. In the meanwhile I got the new orange Brick Separator if someone hasn't seen it yet: http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/

[questforcastle]

Hi guys, it has been a while, just a quick note to let you know the castle-building project is still alive and well.

I have finally gotten started on building the actual castle. It may take a while, since I am still waiting for most of my parts.

Several new updates are on the blog: http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/

[captainamerica]

Just started reading your blog. Enjoying it quite a bit.

[questforcastle]

Thank you captainamerica!

And thank you all for your patience, I have finally started building the actual castle. I have made and will make a few updates over the next week or so on the blog: http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/

Still not enough bricks to complete the whole castle, but still I should be well on the way this week. I will of course finish the whole thing in due course, but that will take more time...

[questforcastle]

New updates, more castle built! http://questforbricks.wordpress.com

Just to let you know I haven't forgotten about my little forever-project...

[rogue27]

Cool blog!

I don't know if I ever mentioned it publicly, but I built a 6066 Camouflaged Outpost out of spare parts several years ago. I had fun building it, and it's still together.

Good luck with the rest of your castle project!

[questforcastle]

Thank you for the encouragement, rogue27!

6066 Camouflaged Outpost sounds cool, I can really appreciate that as my last bigger LEGO set (back in 1988) before the dark ages was the 6054 Forestmen's Hideout.

[questforcastle]

Thank you for the patience, all who have followed by struggles on this one. I got around back to this project this weekend and although I'm still missing a few pieces, I got surprisingly far. Basically I'm missing some details, but I got most of the castle built. It feels a bit surreal to finally see the castle standing there, this is something I longed for quite a bit as a child and while my adult-self doesn't exactly share the same childish passion for a toy castle, the long project (since March) to build it - and all the AFOL initiations that have come with it - has made it special in its own way. It is definitely exciting to see that strangely familiar shape finally in person. I look forward to sharing some nice playtime with my son once it's fully finished. I will finish the missing parts first of course.

For a photo, check out here: http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/201 ... ts-castle/

P.S. Very off-topic on this forum, but in case anyone is interested I have also started another "build a classic from spares I mostly don't have" project. This time I'm aiming for the 7740 Inter-City Passenger Train from the 1980 LEGO Trains theme (http://questforbricks.wordpress.com/cat ... ity-train/).