I got the new Lego Saturn V kit

[almagnus1]

9 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.

That's good to know =)

So factoring in:

2 hours ago, FishInferno said:

The instruction manual is available online :)

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

So taking the bag mapping and the stuff from the PDF, that means we have the following bags => hardware mapping

Bags 1-6: S-1C

Bags 7-10: S-II

Bag 11: S-IVB

Bag 12: Everything else

So with sufficient devices, you could definitely put quite a few people to work making stuff.  That could be quite a fun family project =)

[Johnny Wishbone]

45 minutes ago, almagnus1 said:

So with sufficient devices, you could definitely put quite a few people to work making stuff.  That could be quite a fun family project =)

Definitely good for a family project. Keep in mind that the S-IC stage is by far the biggest and most complex of the build, and will take the most time. Everyone else will probably be done with their parts long before the person doing the S-IC is.

Only other advice I can give is pay very strict attention to how the pieces are oriented in the diagrams. This is especially important with those "core" sections and attaching the side panels. Some of the side panels are designed to go on one side or the opposite (think 2 way symmetry in KSP) while the other panels are supposed to go on the other pair of sides (if that makes any sense). If you do it wrong, you're going to spend a lot of time breaking down sections to get them apart. I noticed that they used a lot of blue 2 stud pieces (that stood out against the gray, black and white parts that make up the build) in weird spots and figured it was to act as a reference for aligning the piece to the diagram.

[almagnus1]

3 minutes ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

Definitely good for a family project. Keep in mind that the S-IC stage is by far the biggest and most complex of the build, and will take the most time. Everyone else will probably be done with their parts long before the person doing the S-IC is.

Only other advice I can give is pay very strict attention to how the pieces are oriented in the diagrams. This is especially important with those "core" sections and attaching the side panels. Some of the side panels are designed to go on one side or the opposite (think 2 way symmetry in KSP) while the other panels are supposed to go on the other pair of sides (if that makes any sense). If you do it wrong, you're going to spend a lot of time breaking down sections to get them apart. I noticed that they used a lot of blue 2 stud pieces (that stood out against the gray, black and white parts that make up the build) in weird spots and figured it was to act as a reference for aligning the piece to the diagram.

From what I'm seeing of the S-IC construction, it looks like once you've gotten the core put together, there's a lot of subassembly construction, so you could have one person start working with bag 6 on the S-IC just building sub assemblies and allowing the person working on the S-IC to meet them in the middle basically, which would greatly accelerate the construction.  The same could be done for S-II also.

The only thing that's not clear on S-IC is how they're handling the intertank, specifically with the blocks that you're using to complete it.  Are those basically 8 of the same sub assembly, or are the two batches of four slightly different?

[Johnny Wishbone]

15 minutes ago, almagnus1 said:

From what I'm seeing of the S-IC construction, it looks like once you've gotten the core put together, there's a lot of subassembly construction, so you could have one person start working with bag 6 on the S-IC just building sub assemblies and allowing the person working on the S-IC to meet them in the middle basically, which would greatly accelerate the construction.  The same could be done for S-II also.

The only thing that's not clear on S-IC is how they're handling the intertank, specifically with the blocks that you're using to complete it.  Are those basically 8 of the same sub assembly, or are the two batches of four slightly different?

If the red ones are the pieces you're talking about, they are 8 of the same subassembly with a minor difference in that left 4 have a blank white panel in the middle and the other 4 dont. However, I found that 4 of them attach with the red part facing left and the other 4 attach with the red part facing right (I dont remember which went how). It isnt 100 percent clear in the manual but you'll understand what I mean when you see it. This is the part of the build that I was referring to earlier in the thread as being "janky" and didnt fit quite flush. 

Edited June 3, 2017 by Johnny Wishbone

[Johnny Wishbone]

The final push to complete the build. Parts bag 11 produced the completed S-IVB stage. There were no significant subassemblies; all the parts just came together to form the completed stage

And our PS4 controller gets one last chance to provide scale

Stacking the stage on top of the previous stages gives us a good idea what to expect with the finished product

One bag of parts to go to complete the build.

[Johnny Wishbone]

Parts bag 12 produced these pieces: the CSM and LES, the Lunar Module Adapter, the display stands, and the static displays of the LM and the CM at splashdown. Includes 4 mini-minifigs (single stud figures)

And here is the full assembly in front of my couch

Here it is against the giant ruler. Again, camera perspective makes it look taller, but it is actually just over 39 inches

Here it is laying on the display stands

Here with the stages separated

And a final shot of the stages from the bottom looking up

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed this build as much as I have. It was a lot of fun to build the kit and a lot of fun documenting it here. If you have any questions about the kit or the build, feel free to ask. I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Also, if you have the kit yourself and want to post your own build pics, feel free to do so in this thread!

[Regor]

It looks pretty darn amazing!

[KSK]

3 hours ago, mabdi36 said:

It looks pretty darn amazing!

Yup - great job with the photography @Johnny Wishbone!

 

[Johnny Wishbone]

33 minutes ago, KSK said:

Yup - great job with the photography @Johnny Wishbone!

 

You are too kind. Thanks! 

[sevenperforce]

On 6/3/2017 at 2:16 PM, Johnny Wishbone said:

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!

I daresay building a Saturn V out of Legos IS your parenting duty.

Edited July 3, 2017 by sevenperforce

[tater]

Presumably they will not leave money on the table and make more. It didn't occur to me that they would sell out instantly, and I wanted to get one for my son's b-day.

[JonathanPerregaux]

I just got this myself. I haven't gotten a LEGO set since I was a kid (I'm 51) but this proved far too tempting. Still, I was on the fence. Then I watched Scott Manley's video about it and I pushed the BUY button.

In related news, my cat hopped up on the bed, caught sight of the big box sitting up against the wall, and got all creeped-out for a minute.

"Something new! What this! I can has rocket?"

[TheSaint]

On 7/3/2017 at 11:01 PM, tater said:

Presumably they will not leave money on the table and make more. It didn't occur to me that they would sell out instantly, and I wanted to get one for my son's b-day.

I would get on this ASAP. Past experience is that Lego is perfectly willing to let kits go permanently out of production, even very popular kits.

[tater]

Their site says temporarily on back order.

[TomSawyer2112]

Nice, I remember having a smaller scale Saturn V, plus the Apollo LCM, and Lander from an earlier set from my childhood around 2004 to 2005. 

[razark]

5 minutes ago, TomSawyer2112 said:

Nice, I remember having a smaller scale Saturn V, plus the Apollo LCM, and Lander from an earlier set from my childhood around 2004 to 2005.

I have that set.  The Saturn V and CSM are on my dresser, and the LM is on top of my computer at work.

The rover fell victim to the monsters that have been the bane of many of my Lego sets, my children.

[Johnny Wishbone]

17 hours ago, JonathanPerregaux said:

I just got this myself. I haven't gotten a LEGO set since I was a kid (I'm 51) but this proved far too tempting. Still, I was on the fence. Then I watched Scott Manley's video about it and I pushed the BUY button.

In related news, my cat hopped up on the bed, caught sight of the big box sitting up against the wall, and got all creeped-out for a minute.

"Something new! What this! I can has rocket?"

Feel free to post pics of your build in this thread, if you'd like.

[JonathanPerregaux]

A couple of weeks into June, I went into the LEGO store in my area and asked about the set. The guy there said it was sold out in a day, and that they expected getting more in about a month. He told me many of the LEGO sets are never made again, and pointed out a few in the store. If they are popular for some reason (cough, Millennium Falcon, cough), then you better grab it now.

That doesn't preclude a reappearance of a similar set in the future (cough, Millennium Falcon, cough), but something like this? Doubt it.

[Johnny Wishbone]

I still regret not getting the original Star Destroyer kit that came out back in 2002. The version out now is a pathetic imitation. I saw the original one in the Lego store at Downtown Disney back then and almost bought it, but 2 things kept me from doing so:

1) the $300 price tag was hard to justify back then (still hard to justify $300 on Lego today, but whatever)

2) I flew to Florida, and had no way of getting it back home except shipping it. The box was too big for my luggage, and I didn't want to go through the hassle of crating it up and shipping it and hoping it didn't get lost or stolen.

I always figured I'd have time to pick it up at a later date. Unfortunately, I didn't realize back then that Lego would make so few of them and then NEVER make that kit again. Unopened kits are now going for upwards of $1500 on ebay. *sigh*

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/10030_Imperial_Star_Destroyer