Christmas Morning

Sorry about the media black out I've been busy playing Lego with Dylan since Christmas.

So here it is, the big reveal WITH video!

I actually had to wake Dylan up Christmas morning, Christmas Eve had taken a toll on him staying up until 10pm with the grandparents. So I made him turn on the light in his room and he instantly noticed the first gift.  Attached to the awesome Lego Light (given to us by Nick and Kelly) was Emit, Santa and Luke Skywalker. That went over pretty well.

Then it was time to open presents:

Santa brought him his Lego Knights

Aunt Hope went Plaid with the Lego Star Wars

Here is he is about to cause a Legovalanche with the Ziploc bags with all of my old Lego collections.

What he wasn't ready for was the finished Lego table down stairs in the play room:

We broke him by the way, for the next week it was please and thank you almost every sentence. As promised here's his reaction to the table.

The Build

Now that you have the materials, let's move on to the build.

Before you leave the store have them cut the maple board down to size. Most big box stores like Lowe's or Home Depot offer you two or three cuts free of charge.  Its a great opportunity to ensure you have an even cut and you wont need a circular or table saw at home to make them.

The board is manufactured at 96" by 48", so the largest one piece table you could make conforming to the 10" Lego plates would be 92" x 42".  This is another reason I didn't go with a 60" x 60" table - I would have had to buy two pieces and dealt with a seam in the middle.

For the Love of God, Leave Room

When you have them cut the board don't go exactly 82" x 42", have them leave some space. I didn't, and it caused a lot of problems for us in the long run.  Make it 82.25" x 42.25 - that quarter of an inch is going to come in handy later.

Now that you have everything let the fun begin!

Miter Cuts

We laid the board on two sawhorses so we had the table at a decent high for working with.  The first thing we did was put glue on the side edges on the maple board to allow it to seep into the wood and seal it from moisture.

Then it was time to measure and cut the side molding. The inner part of your molding should fit the width and length of your board, so that the outer part makes a nice edge. Here's how we did this the fast way: first, lay the molding with the top side down and cut the first 45° cut, just trimming the end off.

Then line that corner up with an edge.

On the other side mark with a straight line the where the edge of the board meets the molding.

Now cut on the OUTSIDE of that mark, and do not forget to move the Miter Saw 90° to the other 45° angle. 

WARNING: Now you have one side perfectly measured to fit on the board you'll want to consider a few things.  If you've cut the board with that quarter extra you should have left enough space and all you have to do is just measure out the edges and you'll be fine. But it never hurts to test the space between the sides by filling up the board with the 10" tiles. 

This is where the block plane can come in handy. If you line everything up and you don't quite have enough room to fit the plates between the frame, your only option is to reduce the width of the molding and a hand plane will give you a consistent removal of wood from the molding.  

Remember this shot from the first post? I'm smiling like a goob in it because we finally got it right on the second day and everything was coming together. Now that you're aware of this pit fall lets continue.

When you line them up you should get a pretty good fit.

Measure twice, glue once

Before you start actually gluing anything down, make sure that all the edges line up, that the Lego plates fit inside the frame with room to move a little and be rearranged, and that everything is even.

Line up all the edges and clamp sides down with grips, one at a time release them and add layer of wood glue to the molding on both bottom and inner sides.

Put the molding back in its place and staple/nail it down to the plywood every 10 inches. I still had the plates on during this phase so I used them to measure, and added a top staple to the molding where the plates met and in the center of the plates on the side. They counter sunk enough for us to put wood putty into the holes they left.

Flip mode

Now for the bottom, you'll notice in the picture that the under edge of the molding is longer than the 3/4" plywood.  This could be a potential issue for stability, and that's where the white molding came into play. By laying these down we strengthened the bottom edge and gave us a nice bumper for the Trofast frames.

I just noticed that one of them is upside down. That might bug me if it was on the top but its not, so it won't.  

Here they are stapled into place.

Seal the Deal 

Again we used the wood putty to fill in any gaps in the corners and let it all dry, we then sanded it down before adding the clear finish.

We then opted to add a layer of clear stain for protection against children and whatever they are going to throw on the table. 

I'd already come dangerously close with my edges so I only went with one layer.

While Josh tempted fate and made his table gloriously shiny. 

All in all I think they turned out pretty well.

Next up The Reaction... might take a couple of days for us to get the video reaction up but it will be worth it.

The Supplies

One of my friends, Josh, has two young girls who also love playing with Lego.  When I explained my plan, he was enthusiastic, and so we decided to make two tables. Mine, which was 80" x 40", and Josh's at 50" x 30".  In early December my dad came up and we headed over to Josh's spacious garage and started the project.  Josh lives about a mile away from a Lowe's so we hopped in my van and grabbed all the parts we needed.

I'm going to price out everything, including things I already owned, and some of the tools.

Wood:

• 1 Top Choice Mable Hardwood 
• full size is 3/4" x 96" x 48" 
• $49.97
• Before you leave have them cut it to the size you want (I'll talk about that in the next section) 
• 4 Multiple Purpose Hemlock Corner Molding
• 8' x  1.16" x 1.16"
• $28.45 ($7.12 Each)
• We found some of these had different thickness, making them useless for our project. be aware of this when you are picking them out.
• 4 White Polystyrene Screen Molding
• 8" x 1/4" x 3/4"
• $9.88 ($2.47 each)

Josh wanted his to stand on its own.  So he ended up picking up some legs and top plates:

• 4 Waddell Leg Plates
• $6.72 ($1.68)
• 4 Waddell Traditional Wood Table Legs
• $19.92 ($4.98)

I'm using IKEA organizational storage and bins for my base.

• 4 Trofast Frames
• $279.96* ($69.99 each)
• Various Trofast bins
• 9 small
• $27 ($3 each)
• 5* mediums
• $20 ($4 each)
• 4* large 
• $20 ($5 each)

For Lego I've found the white bins are better because they let in more light and they don't hide Lego pieces as much as red, black or blue does. *Also, I should say that I purchased 3 of these base units and a lot of the bins two years ago when we moved into the house, so this particular area is expensive, but for me it wasn't all in one chunk.

Grand total for each project:
Josh's total: $115
My total: $435

Tools: 

These are the basics - you don't need a full shop to do this project.  The nail gun makes it easy but is not 100% necessary, finishing nails and a hammer work just as well. The block plane was only needed because we got a little too close for comfort with our sides and needed to reduce the corner molding.

• Miter Saw  
• $129.99
• Nail/Stable Gun and compressor 
• $129.99
• Wood Glue
• 3.98
• 3 Synthetic Paint Brushes 
• $2.37 ($0.79)
• Wood Stain or Paint
• $8 ish
• Maple Wood Putty
• $3.47
• Hand Sander
• $9.97
• Block Plane
• $16.99
• Clamp Set
• $19.98

Previously The Plan                                                            Up Next The Build

The Plan

We are fortunate enough to have space for a play room in our house.  So rather than restrict him to his bedroom (like I was) we are putting the table in there. I wanted to use things we already had for the base - 3 Trofast Frames from Ikea and bins for all of his current toys.

Each one is roughly 37" x 18" and 20" high. The initial idea was one at the foot of the table and two on the sides making a 55" x 36" table. However I soon decided to add a 4th Trofast and made the base 74" x 36". That made the final design 82" x 42" including a 1" rim around the side high enough to keep the plates from sliding off, but low enough not to get in the way of playing. I spent some time toying around with making it square, but the dimensions ended up being 60" x 60" requiring 36 base squares and the center of the table is 30" from the edge. The longer design only requires 32 base squares and the center is only 20" in.

Originally I had come up with a plan to use 2"x4"'s as a deep framed side around 3/8" thick board. I didn't have the equipment I thought I needed so enlisted my Dad and Stepmother who have their own shop down in Oregon.

This was my initial plan I sent them:

However, finding a perfectly strait 82" 2"x4" and then attempting to rout it is a lot harder than initially thought, so my dad came up with a more feasible design.

Take a smaller piece of molding and cover the 3/4 plywood's edges, the design is low profile while still keeping the Lego plates on the board.

And from that we moved onto the execution phase.

Previously The Score                                                             Next The Supplies

The Score

I had a lot of Lego - it was my go to toy. I would spend hours flipping through catalogs deciding what to buy next. I day dreamed about growing up and owning every Lego set and having a special place for each and every one.  Like I said, I am Lord Business.

But luckily other things caught my attention and I moved on.  After my mom threw out all of my Transformers I figured out that if I wanted to keep something, I needed to put them away safely myself.  So I packed them all up and shoved them in the attic.

So just how many Lego bricks survived from 1992 to 2014?
Twenty-Five Pounds:

Here they are in the bin:

Here are most of the bags spread out.

With over 40 (mostly) laminated instruction sets

This is my Lego Legacy and this is what I pass on to Dylan (and Thea)

Previously Full Circle                                                                                Next up The Plan

Full Circle

When I was young I loved Lego.

How much?
I slept under them.

My room at my mom's house was probably 10' x 8' and when I was in elementary school my grandfather built a table out of an old door. I put my Lego city on top of the table and my bed under it, directly on the floor.

<inset lost childhood photo of my bedroom with giant Lego table>

I spent hours playing with my Shell Gas Station (6378-1), Big Rig Truck Stop (6393), City Airport (10159) and my Police Command Base (6386).. just to name a few.  Eventually I added the Steam Cargo Train Set (7722), the Fire Fighter (4020) and Lighting system. The whole town lit up at night and the town was surrounded by a train track loop. I was Lord Business, everything had its place and everything stayed exactly how I wanted it.

I was also the young boy who took the Mobile Rocket Launcher (987), the Command Center (926-1) and Space Transporter (924-1) and turned them into a giant robot to destroy the town. I would break up the buildings and reinvent them over and over.

Years passed and I gave up my Lego collection for a Am486 processor (with TURBO!) and my life long obsession with video games started. I carefully packed away Lego sets in neat little zip lock bags and put them in the attic.  Later, while I was in college, my mom took them out of storage and colorbetized the entire box ಠ_ಠ, oh and she laminated all of the instructions.

Now I am a father of a soon-to-be 5 year old boy who is starting to show a slight appreciation for the world of Lego.  Do I slowly introduce him with Duplo? Do I follow the age directions on the boxes?

Oh hell no! This Christmas I'm going to blow his mind by giving him all my Lego bricks in one day* and I built him a table on which to play with it all.

I present to you The Lego Table**:

*minus the train and lighting section, I feel that's a little above his pay grade and I have to hold something back for next year. right?
**Plates are not set in their final display position, they were placed for spacing and are not permanent. This was halfway through the process before we set the frame.

Next up The Score