Rinse and Recycle: The AFOL and LEGO Life Cycle

A year or two ago my LUG received many old models that had been on display or stuck in storage for years—and they looked it.

Source: LEGO

Peeling back some of the bricks revealed layers of grime that had snuck into weird places, white bricks yellowed to the hue of a peach, and something unexpectedly gooey my fingers touched every now and then. I wish I had pictures to disgust you with.

Coming into possession of these old models, I couldn’t help but reflect on my early days building with LEGO and how I would build up my collection.

Inheriting Bricks and Humble Beginnings

When I was a little kid, I would play with LEGO at my grandparents’ house. Part of the ritual of leaving my grandparents’ home was to make them promise not to let anyone tear apart whatever I’d built on that visit. However, it was rare to find that promise fulfilled, and I was usually always disappointed—I expect all the adults thought I had forgotten. Though I may have not have always remembered what I’d built, I knew when it was was no longer there! But it was LEGO, and LEGO could always be used for something new.

Back to the near present, when the LUG offered the old display pieces, I jumped at the chance. I was stockpiling for a pretty big project and desperate for filler brick. I arranged to pick it up and drove across town through a faint snowfall that sparkled in my headlights and melted instantly on my windshield. It was like it was raining two feet above the ground and nowhere else. Spectacular!

one of the nine MOCs the used brick I aquired would go on to become. when I said big project I meant big.

It was cold and of course, I was wearing my thinnest hoodie. The MOC was an old stadium model that had aged in an absurdly heavy wooden box. My friend and I each grabbed one end of the box, and struggling to hold up my end, we slid it into the trunk and dusted off our hands. If it were half an inch wider and it wouldn’t have fit in my car! I don’t know what on earth I’d have done if it hadn’t fit.

Getting the used stadium reminds me of how I started my LEGO collection. I am not proud of my method, which was to scoop up a pile as big as I could handle out of the family stash and call it mine, leaving my siblings to gather what I had left. But my collection has always been low-budget (this is a story of me cleaning up a pile of old bricks, after all).

I appreciated what I had because there was less of it, or at least, I used a greater percentage of my parts. Even today, though I have half a dozen sets on shelves, I am aghast whenever I see a row of modular buildings on display in a builder’s space. It pains me to see so many good pieces off-limits for MOCing.

Image via Brick Architect

Disassembling, Sorting and Working for Free Bricks

For the next week, I spent sunny afternoons sitting on my driveway, tearing pieces apart. I occasionally wondered what the neighbors thought. There was glue in odd spots—I think where it had fallen apart and the display owners had tried to fix it—and a lot of the clear parts were brittle or breaking. There were whole sections caked with grime, and then there were parts that looked brand new. But hey, free LEGO. I wasn’t complaining.

Source: Reddit

I’ve spent so much time working to get free LEGO (whether through reviews or contest entries) that I’ve often felt like I wasn’t building what I wanted. But like any job, being forced to do what you wouldn’t choose stretches your skills, and it helped keep me going—always pushing off what I really wanted to build to earn more bricks so that I’d have what I needed. With this process, there’s no chance of a dark age.

I like sorting (I’m sure that’s a surprise). To be perfectly honest, I also like dirt, though I prefer to know where it comes from. I almost enjoyed tearing the stadium apart, crumbling it as fast as I could and tossing the unsalvageable bricks into a trash bag.

stadium parts drying in the sun. see if you can spot a single slope.

Thankfully, there were no surprises (other than dead insects) once the stadium was disassembled. It was pretty much “what you saw was what you got” on that thing. But here were loads of basic bricks in primary colors. The stadium was almost entirely constructed studs-up, mostly on grid, built without any really innovative techniques.

I have no idea who built that stadium or when it was built. There was a lot of old grey in there, so that may give a clue. Without wanting to sound harsh, it was a fairly simple MOC. It was super square, blocky and pixelated. I wasn’t surprised the displayers were getting rid of it—in fact I was kind of surprised they ever bought it in the first place (or that any builder had been willing to let it go on display).

But still, someone built that stadium, and they presumably enjoyed the building process. And that got me thinking…

Sentimental MOCs

For a long time, I built exclusively for pictures and didn’t get very attached to anything I built, save for a few models that I still wish I had been able to keep.

a donation to creations for charity

Every now and then, I would give a MOC away, or sell it, or donate it to Creations for Charity. I hope better things for those creations of mine than being sorted into a trash bag like the stadium I just disassembled. But I wondered… was this what they imagined for the stadium MOC? Do I think my own commissioned models will last forever? What is in their future? Dirt, grime, and finally, the ruthless fingers of some thrifty next-generation builder?

It could be worse, right?

No Trace of The Dark Age

life-sized LEGO swords I took to brickworld. also some sisters I took to Brickworld. and my pet dragon, let’s not forget him.

My mom wondered for a long time when I would grow out of LEGO. I wondered that myself. How long does a LEGO builder stay a LEGO builder? How long do you keep thinking of new things to build?

I’ve been part of the online LEGO community for thirteen years, and I’ve seen plenty of builders, forums, RPGs, Flickr groups and whole MOC hosting sites come and go. But why have I stayed?

The LEGO AFOL cycle goes something like this: you discover how cool LEGO creations can be, you buy some brick, start building, buy more, get decent, buy more, run out of room, become overwhelmed, quit building, and either quit the community entirely or take a break. Then you rinse and repeat.

We all experience variations of the process, but it’s a standard experience that runs through the LEGO community. And there’s nothing wrong with it. LEGO is a great hobby, if only for a certain time in your life, provided you don’t go too crazy buying parts.

After tearing down the stadium, I gathered it in two trash bags and dumped it into the bathtub. A splash of warm, soapy water did wonders for cleaning the bricks. If you’ve never heard the refreshing sound of bricks swimming around in warm, soapy water, I recommend you find yourself some LEGO to clean!

now for the fun part, draining the water without losing bricks down the drain. I may not have thought this through.

Recycling Bricks Into MOCs

But all that effort was not lost. The stadium’s bricks went on to be the backbone of a collab that was nominated for Best Small Group Layout at Brickworld. Since then, the pieces have moved on again, some to Bob Jones University’s library as part of a very different commissioned display piece. And plenty of the parts are still awaiting greatness in my drawers.

SourcE: Geneva D

The LEGO hobby, like the bricks themselves, thrives on a continuous cycle of building, disassembling, and rebuilding. This mirrors the life cycle of an AFOL’s passion. Just as models can be taken apart and used for new creations, our interest in LEGO can ebb and flow. Every time we disassemble a MOC, we gain the opportunity to learn from our previous builds, refine our techniques, and innovate in ways we hadn’t imagined before. And just like a MOC that isn’t coming together, the hobby can become overwhelming if you let it.

If LEGO is one of the hundred other hobbies you’ve cycled through, then welcome to the online LEGO community. Come enjoy what we’ve built and add your piece, and when the time is right for you, move on. Keep the memories and enjoy the next thing life has for you.

But always recycle your bricks.

What has the AFOL life cycle looked like for you? Let us know in the comments below!

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