Construction of the Lego Death Star has commenced! I got this for my birthday over a month and a half ago from my girlfriend and I've fianlly gotten the time and space to start working on it. I started working on this a couple nights ago and have been chipping away at it ever since. The set is 3803 pieces and in nearly 50 bags, so it's gonna take a while to build. I took some pictures at different stages of the building process for you guys to drool over who are interested. I will post more as I work on it.
These are all the minifigures in the set, a whopping 22! 2 Emperor Royal Guards, 2 Death Star Troopers, Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, Grand Moff Tarkin, an Imperial Droid, Han Solo in Stormtrooper disguise with hair and a helmet, 2 Stormtroopers, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper disguise with hair and a helmet, R2-D2, an Imperial Astromech Droid, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi, The Emperor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and an Assassin Droid. You also construct a Mouse Droid, the Interrogation Droid, the Dianoga (Trash Monster), and a diagnostics cart.
This is the manual for this bad boy. Biggest Lego instruction book I've ever seen and it's spiral-bound too.
Construction of the bottom level, which doesn't have much of anything special. The section with the black railing is going to end up being the pit that Luke and Leia swing over to escape the Stormtroopers.
Another shot of the bottom level. There will eventually be an elevator in the very middle that will reach every floor.
Construction of the first floor. There will be various things on this level, including the garbage, a maintenance bay, a laser cannon, the pit for Luke and Leia to swing over, and the tractor beam for Obi-Wan to deactivate.
Another shot just to show how high the first floor is above the bottom level. Also included is some cinnamon whiskey
Night Two of Death Star construction:
The first night of building the Death Star consisted of constructing the pieces in bags "1." Lego has been packaging sets in numbered bags for several years now and this is how it works if you're not familiar with it. When you build a set, the instructions have you build it in sections and each numbered bag corresponds to a section of the set. So, the first section of a set is in bag 1 (or there may be more than bag 1), the second section in bag 2, and so on. This is done to cut down on the sorting of pieces and really helps out on big sets. Many years ago, all the pieces were just put into bags and you had to open them all when building a set. Now, you can build them one section at a time Last night consisted of constructing all the pieces in bags "2" and I did a little bit of bags "3."
This is still the first floor prior to putting on the walls to the garbage. The walls were built up a little higher and a few minor details added to the rest of the set.
Here are the walls for the garbage. In this picture, it's not complete, but there is an assembly you construct which will make the walls close in.
A laser cannon will go here eventually and it will actually be the next thing I build in the manual.
A maintenance bay which will have a crane eventually. The string is for a platformer that will raise minifigures up to a vehicle bay which will be built in another section. Part of the elevator was constructed and also a couple ladders that lead on to the next section.
The pit which Luke and Leia swing over. My cinnamon whiskey makes another appearance
The tractor beam core/reactor/whatever you want to call it that Obi-Wan deactivates in the movie so everyone can escape the Death Star. It doesn't look that big, but it's probably the size of two minifigures standing on top of each other. You build it separate and then attach it to the Death Star.
The tractor beam reactor/core in place and the "trash" added to the garbage. You can also see the assembly which makes the walls close in. Just push the bar with the red piece on the end forward and the walls close That's all for now. If I build any of it tonight, it will be very minor.
