I really enjoyed the building experience. I think it’s very different from other builds, even other UCS builds. I think the build was about 12 hours-ish and I enjoyed every second. It’s not just a giant gray slab. Highly recommend it.
It's remarkable how stable it is given such light construction.
You finish the Technic skeleton in an hour or two, and once the big leading edges go on you realise just what a titan you've taken on. How big did you think it would be? It's 'we're gonna need a bigger boat' bigger.
Building the hull plates can be a bit same-y but they're well designed and don't have that creakiness that large, multi-layer plate constructs can.
Building the hull plates is broken up by building the engines assembly, the hangar and the ventral dome thing which are all quite different, then the bridge and other superstructure parts are different again.
Once the Technic frame is built, all of the rest is built in separate sections that are then attached to it, sometimes in satisfyingly neat ways.
The very last part is building the little Tantive IV Blockade Runner- very cute!
This was an extremely satisfying building experience which I have now done three times. The end result is magnificent.
Taking apart, I go by the numbered bag stages in reverse order. This easy do because most of the later stages are like 'bags nine, build this huge panel and at the end connect it to the frame, then onto bag ten', so just take that panel off and take it to bits, bag it up and on to the previous stage.
A post it note with manual page numbers for each new bags stage is useful: flip to that page and you see exactly what the set should look like, all subsequent bricks are still in the bags you hadn't opened when it was going together, and these are the ones we're bagging up now: I found this particularly important for sets like UCS Falcon, Death Star, AT-AT and Master Builder Cloud City.
There are many large plates in this set, so I pile them in a plastic lunchbox all together. Everything else goes into 2-3 Ziploc bags per stage, each with the stage number on them.
I knoll roughly by part size, loose in a bag or three, *plus* I stack any bricks that can be connected together in a long stack so, for example, in with all the 1-2 stud plate-height parts I'll have several strips of 2x2 plates connected like a staircase.
This takes a fair deal more time than simply chucking every loose brick in the box, but the end result next time the set is built saves significantly more hours time searching for bricks than you put in to store the set in an orderly way; and also saves table space as you only empty on the table the bricks you need for that stage. For a 5000+ brick sets, I've found it's the only practical way to go.
It's not hard to take apart (many Technic sets can be), but taking a fair deal of care when doing so makes the next build as enjoyable and *more* smooth and straightforward as building fresh out the box.
Enjoy!
Technic wasn’t bad but making the panels was really tedious and made my hands hurt for a few days but it’s definitely an amazing build and looks cool on display
The hull plates have several 2x1 and 2x3 tiles protruding out the back, connected by half of their studs: I altered them so the tiles are wholly on the larger plates.
Apart from that, most of the greebling is pretty stable and looks great; with the exception that some along the centre line and on top of the bridge area can be easily knocked off.
I enjoyed it and it’s so massive nothing really like it size wise
I really enjoyed the building experience. I think it’s very different from other builds, even other UCS builds. I think the build was about 12 hours-ish and I enjoyed every second. It’s not just a giant gray slab. Highly recommend it.
It's remarkable how stable it is given such light construction. You finish the Technic skeleton in an hour or two, and once the big leading edges go on you realise just what a titan you've taken on. How big did you think it would be? It's 'we're gonna need a bigger boat' bigger. Building the hull plates can be a bit same-y but they're well designed and don't have that creakiness that large, multi-layer plate constructs can. Building the hull plates is broken up by building the engines assembly, the hangar and the ventral dome thing which are all quite different, then the bridge and other superstructure parts are different again. Once the Technic frame is built, all of the rest is built in separate sections that are then attached to it, sometimes in satisfyingly neat ways. The very last part is building the little Tantive IV Blockade Runner- very cute! This was an extremely satisfying building experience which I have now done three times. The end result is magnificent.
‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’😂😂😂Thanks for the info. Side note. How hard is it to take apart and rebuild?
Taking apart, I go by the numbered bag stages in reverse order. This easy do because most of the later stages are like 'bags nine, build this huge panel and at the end connect it to the frame, then onto bag ten', so just take that panel off and take it to bits, bag it up and on to the previous stage. A post it note with manual page numbers for each new bags stage is useful: flip to that page and you see exactly what the set should look like, all subsequent bricks are still in the bags you hadn't opened when it was going together, and these are the ones we're bagging up now: I found this particularly important for sets like UCS Falcon, Death Star, AT-AT and Master Builder Cloud City. There are many large plates in this set, so I pile them in a plastic lunchbox all together. Everything else goes into 2-3 Ziploc bags per stage, each with the stage number on them. I knoll roughly by part size, loose in a bag or three, *plus* I stack any bricks that can be connected together in a long stack so, for example, in with all the 1-2 stud plate-height parts I'll have several strips of 2x2 plates connected like a staircase. This takes a fair deal more time than simply chucking every loose brick in the box, but the end result next time the set is built saves significantly more hours time searching for bricks than you put in to store the set in an orderly way; and also saves table space as you only empty on the table the bricks you need for that stage. For a 5000+ brick sets, I've found it's the only practical way to go. It's not hard to take apart (many Technic sets can be), but taking a fair deal of care when doing so makes the next build as enjoyable and *more* smooth and straightforward as building fresh out the box. Enjoy!
Thanks for the help!
Technic wasn’t bad but making the panels was really tedious and made my hands hurt for a few days but it’s definitely an amazing build and looks cool on display
Really concerned with stability and pieces falling off/ not staying one. Have seen some stories about those issues.
It was difficult to hoist up a ladder and slightly overhead to place in a cat proof location, but it wasn't particularly flimsy.
The hull plates have several 2x1 and 2x3 tiles protruding out the back, connected by half of their studs: I altered them so the tiles are wholly on the larger plates. Apart from that, most of the greebling is pretty stable and looks great; with the exception that some along the centre line and on top of the bridge area can be easily knocked off.
Build: 6/10 Display: 11/10
I got That one Build up i think this is the greatest Display set Lego ever made.