Set Review ➟ LEGO® 40502 The Brick Moulding Machine
It was the first time I was going to participate in an event of this kind. Honestly, I was nervous and asked myself questions: What will it be like? Will they ask questions to the participants? Will we ask questions? In short, the typical nerves when doing something unfamiliar. As sometimes happens in this kind of events - Murphy's law knows - and in spite of having prepared several days in advance and on different occasions, something went wrong with my Linux distribution and the event that was being held via Microsoft Teams didn't go as I expected. However, it was possible to follow the event by making a phone call and this is how I attended my first presentation of this kind. The presentation took place with a lot of expectation from the attendees, as usual. We were not kept waiting and the set was shown which pleased some people a lot and others not so much. Curious comments were heard and read. Someone even asked "What is this beast? From conception as an idea to completion, the set took about 3 months to process. Stuart Harris and Markus Rollbuehler indicated that they wanted to make the model as spectacular as possible, hence why the model is not minifigure scale but 1/12th scale. They also wanted the mould to show the red bricks and not just the mould itself.
After the presentation, which lasted just 35 minutes, LEGO provided us with a press kit prior to the set's arrival, so that we could familiarise ourselves with it and preview it before it arrived and announce it after the embargo period. In addition to images, the package also provides some interesting videos and a couple of texts. We wanted to share these videos with the community.
To sum up, these videos show us a bit of history by Jette Orduna, who tells us the story of how, when the lego factory where the wooden toys were made burned down, Ole Kirk attended a demonstration of a moulding machine together with other manufacturers and finally decided to use this system because wood was also very scarce. Remember that we are talking about the period just after the end of the Second World War.
In the second video Stuart Harris - master builder - introduces us to the development of the set as well as the workings of the actual moulding machine in the LEGO House.
In the third of the videos we can see Markus Rollbuehler talking about the design of the set, the importance they have given to the gameplay, showing how the doors can be opened, you can "mould" by opening and closing the mould of the 6 bricks. And of course... you can take your polybag with your 6 bricks as a 2x2 printed tile!
Finally, the last of the videos shows the machine at work making the 6 red 2 x 4 bricks of the famous polybag that each visitor to the LEGO House takes away with them.
LEGO already released a set dealing with the Moulding Machine back in 2011. For example on BrickLink you will find the Set 4000001-1 Inside Tour (LIT) Exclusive 2011 Edition - Moulding Machines. 40502 The Brick Moulding Machine set is the second Limited Edition set after 40501, The Wooden Duck which was released last year. The aim of this set is to follow an obvious celebration of the history of the LEGO group, when the first injection moulding machine arrived in Billund in 1947. It is clearly aligned with 40501, LEGO's historic wooden toy that was built before the arrival of the injection moulding machine and which you know was made of wood.
The model consists of 1,205 pieces and recreates the lime green moulding machine that is currently located inside the Lego House and measures approximately 19cm high, 15cm deep and 29cm wide. At first glance you can already see that it is not minifigure size but larger as mentioned above.
In those days it took four people to operate a single machine. Today, a single employee can operate up to 32 machines. Today the company has approximately 1,000 moulding machines around the world.
The machine actually installed in the LEGO House is identical to those found in factories in Denmark, Mexico, Hungary and China, with one big difference that of course makes it special: it has a single special mould, designed to produce six standard red bricks, the coveted polybag 624210.
Each visitor is presented with a polybag along with a unique instruction card showing one of the 915,103,765 unique combinations in which the 6 bricks can be assembled.
To that end, 40502 The Brick Moulding Machine also includes three printed tiles that recreate that polybag. And here comes a novelty. These 2x2 tiles are brown in colour and not transparent as you might expect, simply because the LEGO group plans to gradually replace the sealed plastic bags with paper bags, which will be much more sustainable and cleaner! In fact, this will not happen immediately, as they foresee that this movement will last until approximately 2025 for all production. However, it looks like the polybag set 624210 will soon be available in this paper packaging.
The 40502 set will be available exclusively at the LEGO House from when it opened to the public on Thursday 4 March this year, and is priced at DKK 599.
We start to build the set which comes separated into 8 bags. There are two bags numbered 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 and one numbered 1 and 3. In addition a single sticker is provided which appears to be the interface of the moulding machine. The construction is divided into 8 blocks, each one for each bag number.
As we go deeper into the construction we see that it is a very simple construction despite the fact that the box says 10+. There are no complex steps, difficult to understand, but perhaps the reason why it is this age is because there are small pieces to assemble and they are steps that can obviously frustrate the youngest children as they have not yet developed their manual dexterity completely. In step 11 of the manual I see that the real tile does not correspond to the tile that appears printed on paper, I am surprised although it is of course a lesser evil.
You start with a base and build on it the lower part of the machine, where the belt that receives the bricks once they come out of the mould will be located, as well as the hopper that holds the ABS and the internal framework that makes the mould move in the real machine.
In bag number 2 in step 58 I discover to my surprise that the references are wrong. Instead of a 2x2 slope in LBG and a 2x2 inverted slope in LBG, they are both inverted! I don't think I've had something this weird happen to me since 2006 with a Star Wars set, I think I remember 6211. Thank goodness our stock of parts like AFOLS can cope with this mistake and get on with the build properly :)
In this section we can place the frames and the doors, which will be the first to be manufactured in lime colour. Also behind the doors we will be able to see the electronics of the machine with simple but very attractive construction techniques.
The part I am most interested in is the mould part, which starts with bag 4. It is built with a width of 3 studs and its mechanism is very simple and effective.
Finally, once the block of the first half of the mould has been assembled, we can sense that we are at the meridian of the construction.
The next step is to continue building the windows and the outside of the machine. In addition, two more doors will be fitted to access the hopper, perhaps for cleaning and repair. The window part is playable, and it is much stronger than it looks at first glance.
The lower part that holds the other half of the mould, as well as the hopper and the internal injection mechanism, are built with bags 6 and 7. In addition, the remaining part of the mould will be built and with that we can mould bricks. Here I have come across a step in instruction 238 in which it is not clear where to place the lower part of the hopper. It is easy to deduce, but you can't see it.
Basically the base of the machine is built in bag number 8. With this bag we will have a construction worthy of display.
We have finally reached the end of the construction and we always look at how many extra pieces the set comes with.
The construction of the set is enjoyable and very entertaining. It is missing the upper tubes where the ABS comes in. I was also surprised that they didn't implement the mould with the bricks in vertical position. Also this part of the real machine is chrome plated, maybe making these references with silver injection would have enhanced it even more.
However as an AFOL and as a child :) I have to say that the set is playable, very sturdy, has no easily breakable areas or even the stands in the base and is of course an absolutely iconic set. Without a doubt it is an important part of the change of paradigm of the LEGO brand, leaving aside the wood to mould our beloved brick. It is a totally recommendable set. If you have the chance to visit the LEGO House, don't miss the opportunity to get your hands on one without hesitation.
We thank LEGO for providing the set for review. Of course the opinions expressed in this article are ours alone and are not shared or endorsed by LEGO.
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