To super glue together lego sets?

[Chickpeaohchickpea]

I've seen two lego sets my children would really love for christmas(sorry! I'm an early shopper!!). They are pretty expensive around, £40-£50. They are only 5 & 6, I'm rather nervous they'll dismantle it, loose the pieces and never be able to put it back together, I know they would have lots of fun playing with the set itself.
Husband has said I can't spend that much if he can't glue it together whilst he's building the sets with them!
Would we be unreasonable to glue together the actual structure, they can move around the other bits and build other things to go with? Anyone else do this?

Just plan for storage. Really useful boxes with trays are good to separate the different bricks so you can find them again. Honestly we have loads of different sets here (Star Wars, Harry Potter, City, creator 3 in 1) but we try to manage the bricks by keeping the same pieces together (not colour-coded) so it isn't so much of a pain when you want to rebuild a particular set. Lego is a fantastic toy and is about being creative rather than just building a set.

My husband has glued some of the bits of the playmobile (the hats on the characters and things like that) because they kept getting pulled apart and lost. I'm not sure I could do it to Lego though, that stuff is meant to come apart!

Even if you do lose the odd bit it's cheap as chips to replace odd pieces via the Lego website. We just did this to replace a few bricks before we sold some sets. Your husband is a nutter.

That would quite literally suck all the educational value out of the Lego's. Your husband need to read a bit more...why would a £40 set sitting on a shelf that gets ignored because it can't be modified and eventually goes in landfill because some plonker glued it together be more 'valuable'? Sort out your Lego storage and keep the instructions. Young kids generally like to sort by colour but move on to sorting by piece type. Glue it together! Pah!

Would we be unreasonable to glue together the actual structure, they can move around the other bits and build other things to go with

@covidcloser
I'm quite traumatised reading this

Same

OP, you are so far past the line of reasonableness, the line is a dot to you.

YABSooooooooooooooooooooU

DH used to get quite upset with the Dc for dismantling and remaking their lego sets. It used to do my head in! He leaves them to it now. One dc likes to keep Lego in themes, so all the police stuff together, all the fire stuff together, the Harry Potter all together etc, he is more of a builder and does tend to stick more to the instructions than building his own creations. the other dc has a massive box of all the Lego and builds whatever she wants to play her games with.

Do NOT let him glue the Lego though. I can’t see any fun in glued together Lego.

@PerciphonePuma

I've contemplated this! My girl has 4 Lego friends sets and you only have to look at them and they fall apart! I had to put them together for her as she couldn't read well enough at that time. She now won't play with them because they fall apart so easily

Oh no! One of the sets I am looking at is in the friends range..! If you do glue, I'd appreciate a comment on the thread letting me know if it increased play value for your little one. :)

I have the Simpsons house and the Kwik E Mart, neither are glued, neither are for playing.

Thank you everyone, the general consensus is we are being unreasonable.

I think I will likely just get them each a smaller set this year and perhaps purchase a more expensive one next! I am not precious about their toys at all, but I do know they will get frustrated when it is too difficult to build it back together as they will loveee the sets. So maybe something a bit easier to put together would be best.

I also love the idea of putting boxes and instructions in the attics and having them re-build for younger ones or perhaps their own children when they are older. I purchased some secondhand lego sets for their birthdays, I thought it was amazing they still had the box and managed to keep the set as a set - this must be what they did!

Le-glue on Amazon, awesome stuff

My oldest two love Lego but I think a lot of the enjoyment is like a jigsaw puzzle in seeing it come together. If they’re really more into role play you can probably buy a similar model to the Lego friends range.

This thread confirms why I hate Lego.

No more is Lego just about using your imagination, we end up buying these fancy sets for huge Amounts of money and then face this dilemma (not meant as a criticism to OP at all!).

Everyone seems to think the sun shines out of Lego but I feel utterly ripped off by them.

Lego the toy is a wonderful product. You need only look at its longevity and widespread appeal.

As a company? it's another matter. Over priced. That doesn't detract from it being a great product.

@Lol27

Le-glue on Amazon, awesome stuff

@Lol27

I've already suggested it but got ignored🤷‍♀️
sometimes I wonder why I bother to try & help

Do people really not do small world play with lego?! I thought the fun was you get to play with it after building, it was for me!

No, because it's too fragile, it falls apart too easily.

If you want small world play value OP why are you so intent upon getting lego? There are much better options for small world/role play

Isn't that the point of Lego?

Ps if it's too difficult for them to build back together, it's not the right age for them.

DS is rising 5 and builds the 4+ or 5+ models himself from the instructions. Don't be tempted to buy an older age range model than they can manage to build themselves.

No more is Lego just about using your imagination, we end up buying these fancy sets for huge Amounts of money and then face this dilemma (not meant as a criticism to OP at all!).

I see this a lot and I don’t get it at all. Of course you can use your imagination. Nothing stopping you. Lego classic sets are all widely available. Other sets can be used however you want.

It’s expensive yes. But it’s a quality toy.

Small world play? Buckets of assorted bricks & a handful of whichever series is current at the time.

Older kids (as in pretty much the rest of the world) add in sets (never glue) and treat it like a 3d jigsaw.

But no kraggle, monsters.

Also keep all the instruction booklets. If all the pieces go in a big box, get the DCs to sort them into smaller boxes (by Colour)

You can download instructions for pretty much every Lego set ever on their website (or one of the geeky sites that has instructions for everything ever manufactured)

Also: my Lego Shakespeare has lost his writing quill. Does anyone know where I might find a replacement?

There’s a website called rebrickable that will show you what else you can build from your Lego collection.
You can create a database of your collection on the website brickset and import it to rebrickable.

Perhaps this might help redirect your dh’s evil kraggle impulses.

It’s very easy to find instructions online so don’t worry too much about holding onto to those.

You can buy individual pieces from Lego or second hand (try bricklink)

To those who asked...I don’t have a link. It was quite a few years ago iirc. I expect it’s in Classics, though.

We have a big box of Lego. It’s useless despite having kept the instructions for all the sets. It’s impossible to piece back together and my DC have trashed every set.

It's impossible for it to be useless. They don't have to build anything "meaningful" they just have to do whatever they want and have fun. A 4 year old can build lego, you just click bricks together and away you go.

My girl has 4 Lego friends sets and you only have to look at them and they fall apart! I had to put them together for her as she couldn't read well enough at that time. She now won't play with them because they fall apart so easily

You dont need to be able to read to do lego instructions? You just look at the picture to see where the pieces go, its step by step and theres literally no writing. If she couldn't build them herself and wanted small world models to play with, lego wasn't really what she wanted.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Ps if it's too difficult for them to build back together, it's not the right age for them.

DS is rising 5 and builds the 4+ or 5+ models himself from the instructions. Don't be tempted to buy an older age range model than they can manage to build themselves.

This! It’s a pretty good idea to stick to the age ratings (unless you have a child who is v confident at building and instructions) as their collapsibility / fiddleiness corresponds pretty well to the age suggestions. Sets for 4-6 years olds are generally more sturdy than sets for 12+.