I got the new Lego Saturn V kit

[Johnny Wishbone]

Stopped by a Lego store on my way home from work and grabbed the new Saturn V rocket kit they just released today (June 1 2017). Unfortunately, I wont get to start building until later tonight or this weekend due to the small children I have in the house (one would "help" by hoarding and hiding parts, the other would probably try to eat them because everything that can be grabbed is obviously delicious). I will follow up here with pics of the build if there is any interest.

Alternatively, if anyone else has the kit and wants to one-up me by posting their own build pics, this is the thread. Feel free to do so if you want!

 

 

Here's the box. PS4 controller there to give it scale. I also got a free kit (the little yellow/orange box) with a minifig and some random parts, presumably because I spent over a certain dollar amount.

 

 

12 bags of parts and an instruction manual about a 1/4 inch thick. This is going to take more than a few hours. The first couple pages of the manual have some neat historical info on the rocket, some tech specs and diagrams, and info on the guys who came up with the kit idea and the Lego designers that finished the kit and made it happen.

The first 6 bags of parts are for the S-IC stage only. 

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[Johnny Wishbone]

The first bag of parts produced these 2 core pieces of the S-IC stage.

 

 

The right one stacks on top of left one. PS4 controller for scale.

The bottom is the thrust plate that the F1 engines will attach to. The top will be where the S-IC stage couples with the S-II stage.

 

 

 

Second bag of parts produced these 4 pieces

Which attach to the sides of core pieces to start forming the outer shell of the stage

 

 

Parts bag 3 produced these side panels

which attached to the upper half of the stage. The rest of the parts in the bag went on the top of the stage to start forming the coupler/interstage

 

Thats all for tonight. Took 2.5 hours to get through the first 3 bags of parts (with all the pics and these posts). I'll continue the build tomorrow and update the thread with more images. 

Edited June 2, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[cubinator]

Wow, that's going to be a pretty tall rocket! 

[Chel]

Hey! Nice job mate! I've ordered mine off the LEGO website and it'll be taking like 14 days to arrive, but anyway, I've got KSP to tire me over with before that! Can you post pics of the finished rocket?

[Johnny Wishbone]

14 minutes ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Hey! Nice job mate! I've ordered mine off the LEGO website and it'll be taking like 14 days to arrive, but anyway, I've got KSP to tire me over with before that! Can you post pics of the finished rocket?

Absolutely. I plan to post the entire build start to finish, unless people dont want to see it.

[razark]

1 hour ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

I plan to post the entire build start to finish

Oh, please do!

[Chel]

2 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

unless people dont want to see it.

If they don't want to see such an awesome and great kit, and piece of 60's engineering, they should go EVA out of their spacecraft into Jool!

[qzgy]

This looks sweet! Waiting for the backorder so that mine can arrive...

Can't wait for more pics!

[scottadges]

Awesome! I can't wait to get mine. By 8:30 AM CST on the Lego site, they were all back-ordered. No way I could pass up this set.

Edited June 2, 2017 by scottadges

[KSK]

9 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Alternatively, if anyone else has the kit and wants to one-up me by posting their own build pics, this is the thread. Feel free to do so if you want!

I have the pictures, but yours are better than mine. Carry on, sir!

[Johnny Wishbone]

6 hours ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

If they don't want to see such an awesome and great kit, and piece of 60's engineering, they should go EVA out of their spacecraft into Jool!

Internet forums can be weird places, in my experience. I'm a regular on some other forums and gone there with stuff like this (relating to subject matter of that particular forum) that I thought would be right up their alley, only to be told "Nobody cares. Go away." For all I knew, the response to this thread would be something like "Nobody wants to see you play with Lego, even if it is a rocket."

 

5 hours ago, scottadges said:

Awesome! I can't wait to get mine. By 8:30 AM CST on the Lego site, they were all back-ordered.

I'm surprised to hear that. I'm fortunate enough to have 2 Lego stores within 10 miles of me, and the first one I went to yesterday afternoon had a whole shelf of these kits. The store was empty, and the employee looked really bored, and that was at 3:30 in the afternoon. If they are that hard to find, I'd think they'd be flying off the shelves.

 

5 hours ago, KSK said:

I have the pictures, but yours are better than mine. Carry on, sir!

You already have yours built? You must have got it first thing and cruised through the build. It's not a very difficult or challenging build, but I guess I'm taking a  lot longer due to all the documenting I'm doing. I've built many kits before, but this is the first one I've documented and posted about on the internet. It has been a lot of fun.

 

I'll resume the build at 8pm Eastern tonight. Since I enjoy eating and having money to buy stuff like this, I have to be a wage slave for the day. After work, I have to attempt to be a decent parent to my kids, so my free time doesn't start until they go to bed. My hope for tonight is to finish the S-IC stage and the S-II stage. Maybe more depending on how quick things go and how late I stay up. Thanks for the comments and interest so far; I'll try to build this as quick as I can so I don't drag it out too long and people lose interest. I'm enjoying this and hope you are too.

Edited June 2, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[KSK]

35 minutes ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

You already have yours built? You must have got it first thing and cruised through the build. It's not a very difficult or challenging build, but I guess I'm taking a  lot longer due to all the documenting I'm doing. I've built many kits before, but this is the first one I've documented and posted about on the internet. It has been a lot of fun.

Got mine early thanks to a tip-off on these forums. For unknown reasons, it was available in a couple of UK stores outside of the Lego stores, before the 1st June launch. I was lucky (and fast) enough to get my order in and had the box in my sweaty little hands on Monday.  Took me a few hours to build and as you say, documentation takes time too!

As you say, not a terribly difficult build. I made one mis-step lining up one set of sub-builds on the S1C stage but that was easily corrected. It was a very elegant build though, full of clever little techniques and with a remarkable lack of exposed studs on the finished model. Look forward to the rest of your screenies!

Edited June 2, 2017 by KSK

[TheEpicSquared]

Well this is brilliant! 

A question, all the accessories like the American flag and the USA letters, are thy stickers or are they part of the lego pieces? 

[Johnny Wishbone]

13 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Well this is brilliant! 

A question, all the accessories like the American flag and the USA letters, are thy stickers or are they part of the lego pieces? 

No stickers. Factory painted on the part. Personally, I prefer that as I've done builds with stickers before, and they always end up peeling off.

[Johnny Wishbone]

ok. build started later than expected, but here we go...

 

Parts bag 4 produced the following pieces

which are side panels to fill in more of the gaps and finish the coupler/interstage

 

 

Parts bag 5 produced the following pieces

which are more side panels to finish the gaps in the outer shell

 

 

 

Parts bag 6 didnt produce any separate parts, as it was the engines, fins, and lower part of the stage. This had the most greebles of the build so far, and finished the S-IC stage

It measures an impressive 16 inches (camera perspective makes it look an inch taller, but it is a true 16 inches) with our trusty PS4 controller there to give additional scale

 

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[Johnny Wishbone]

Part bags 7-10 will build the S-II stage. Moving on to bag 7, it produced this piece, which is the core of the S-II stage

Again, PS4 controller for scale

So, I'm going to call it quits for tonight. 4 1/2 hours of sitting on the floor has my back sore and I need sleep. I'll continue tomorrow and post more pics of the build.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[almagnus1]

If we wanted to conscript include friends and family with the build process, how well does the set allow for parallel construction?

[Galileo]

You didn't use a banana for scale?  Disappointed.  

That thing looks so awesome though!!!!! I can't wait until mine comes in. 

[Johnny Wishbone]

3 hours ago, almagnus1 said:

If we wanted to conscript include friends and family with the build process, how well does the set allow for parallel construction?

Each stage of the rocket is built from specific bags of parts, so it would be very easy to split them up and build in parallel. The only pain point would come from fighting over a single build manual. Overall, the build isnt very challenging, and has a fair amount of "build this piece from these parts, and repeat 3 more times." So it shouldnt be too hard to share the manual.

[Johnny Wishbone]

On 6/2/2017 at 7:39 AM, KSK said:

Got mine early thanks to a tip-off on these forums. For unknown reasons, it was available in a couple of UK stores outside of the Lego stores, before the 1st June launch. I was lucky (and fast) enough to get my order in and had the box in my sweaty little hands on Monday.  Took me a few hours to build and as you say, documentation takes time too!

As you say, not a terribly difficult build. I made one mis-step lining up one set of sub-builds on the S1C stage but that was easily corrected. It was a very elegant build though, full of clever little techniques and with a remarkable lack of exposed studs on the finished model. Look forward to the rest of your screenies!

On yours, do those latticed sections above the "USA" on the S-IC stage fit flush with the rest of the outer shell, or are they kinda janky? I mean that whole section around, not just the specific piece above the "USA". On mine, some fit flush and some are kinda crooked or stick out more, etc. I spent about 45 minutes last night messing around with those pieces trying to get them to sit correct, but they are just a little off. Part of the reason why I didnt get as much done as I wanted to was due to wasting that time messing around with those parts. Its not a huge deal, but if you look close in my pics above, you can see they arent exactly flush like all the other pieces that make up the shell of the S-IC. 

 

For what its worth, the completed S-IC stage has a fair amount of heft and feels really solid. A lot of Lego kits often end up feeling delicate or have parts that can easily break off or fall off. Not this guy. Very solid build so far.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[KSK]

55 minutes ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

On yours, do those latticed sections above the "USA" on the S-IC stage fit flush with the rest of the outer shell, or are they kinda janky? I mean that whole section around, not just the specific piece above the "USA". On mine, some fit flush and some are kinda crooked or stick out more, etc. I spent about 45 minutes last night messing around with those pieces trying to get them to sit correct, but they are just a little off. Part of the reason why I didnt get as much done as I wanted to was due to wasting that time messing around with those parts. Its not a huge deal, but if you look close in my pics above, you can see they arent exactly flush like all the other pieces that make up the shell of the S-IC. 

For what its worth, the completed S-IC stage has a fair amount of heft and feels really solid. A lot of Lego kits often end up feeling delicate or have parts that can easily break off or fall off. Not this guy. Very solid build so far.

Mine aren't too bad but I suspect that's more by accident than design. I wouldn't call them janky but I wouldn't call them flush either. But yeah - that first stage has some weight behind it.  That carries on all the way through - I can hold the completed model over my head like a javelin and it never feels in danger of falling apart on me. The clips and general seating between the various stages are pretty solid!

[Johnny Wishbone]

18 minutes ago, KSK said:

Mine aren't too bad but I suspect that's more by accident than design. I wouldn't call them janky but I wouldn't call them flush either. But yeah - that first stage has some weight behind it.  That carries on all the way through - I can hold the completed model over my head like a javelin and it never feels in danger of falling apart on me. The clips and general seating between the various stages are pretty solid!

Ok. Good to know its not just me then. After messing around with those parts, I did get them to sit a lot more flush with the rest of the shell. Not perfect, but good enough.

I havent finished the S-II stage yet, but i did sit the core on top of the S-IC and I can see already how its going to fit together and should be a nice snug fit. Impressive design. I'm hoping to resume building in a few hours when the kiddos take their naps. For now, we'll continue with our tea party while The Martian plays in the background on the TV. 

[TheSaint]

I bought a copy on the Lego store on backorder, which is fine because it will probably end up being Thing #2's birthday present in October. I'm so happy to see this come to fruition, I was about supporter #1,000 on the Lego Ideas site, been watching it literally for years. I just wish they had gone with the deluxe version with the internal tanks and all, that was really cool.

Anyway, nice build thread!

[Johnny Wishbone]

The build goes on. Parts bag 8 produced the following pieces 

which are the first side panels for the outer shell of the S-II stage

 

 

Parts bag 9 produced the remaining panels for the outer shell of the stage

Our trusty PS4 controller for scale again

And although we arent finished with this stage, I couldnt resist stacking it with the lower S-IC stage. It fits in snug and secure. Very nice

 

 

Parts bag 10 produced the following pieces

which complete the stage. Here is the finished S-II stage

 

And thats enough for now. Nap time over, so time to resume my parenting duties. I should finish the build tonight and will update the thread. More to follow!

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[FishInferno]

7 hours ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Each stage of the rocket is built from specific bags of parts, so it would be very easy to split them up and build in parallel. The only pain point would come from fighting over a single build manual. Overall, the build isnt very challenging, and has a fair amount of "build this piece from these parts, and repeat 3 more times." So it shouldnt be too hard to share the manual.

The instruction manual is available online :)

I got mine today, I probably can't build it until Monday but I'm super duper pumped!