Today’s release of LEGO’s new iconic Concorde set got me all excited about model airplanes in LEGO sets, so I went down into the archives to look at what’s come before. Just like in my previous article about model ships, I won't cover minifig sets with airplanes (there are a LOT of them!). Instead, I will focus on models of real-life airplanes. I'll also limit myself to airplanes with wings, leaving helicopters for another day. So, how far do we need to go back in time to find the first airplane set? The answer may surprise you... The Early Days Basic airplane designs in set 311 from 1962 - Image from Peeron As far back as 1950, a set with just 2x4 bricks shows an image that vaguely resembles an airplane. This is in the days before tubes and clutch power! You can’t call this a model of an airplane, though....

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published September 9, 2022. Identifying individual LEGO parts from bulk second-hand purchases can be challenging. Some people want to know if a part is a genuine LEGO piece or they might want to know what sets they may have in a bulk lot or they may wish to identify or put their minifigures back together. It is worth noting that, including colour variations, there are over 70,000 different LEGO elements and some of those parts have not been available in a very long time. With this consideration, your everyday LEGO fan may struggle to identify and recognise some LEGO parts. How to Identify a LEGO Part When trying to identify LEGO parts, a great place to start is to check if the part has the LEGO logo. Most modern LEGO parts feature the logo in some capacity. However, despite the adamant claims of some LEGO...

We don’t talk about new LEGO sets much at BrickNerd—there are a plethora of other great sites that do that. However to help us keep the quality up and ads down, we need your help. If you are going to purchase any new LEGO sets and want to help out BrickNerd simultaneously, we ask that you use our affiliate link for LEGO.com. It is a great way to support community-focused journalism without costing you more than you already spend on LEGO. You can support BrickNerd at the same time you complete your Diagon Alley, get a Concorde, or celebrate Disney’s 100th. It even counts on Braille Bricks, Advents, BrickHeadz and more. Even if you just get a keychain using our link, we appreciate the help. See all the new sets at LEGO using the following links: US | CAN | UK | AU. (For all other countries, you can use the...

For each issue of BrickJournal Magazine, the BrickNerd team creates instructions for a LEGO mini-model to go with the theme of the cover story. For their recent issue all exploring LEGO City, we decided to make our own yellow convertible car. A Car You Can Collect Recently, I completed the design of a narrow modular building with a working garage door, and something important was missing--a car for the garage! I suppose I knew I would need a car all along, but I waited until the end because, honestly, I had never designed a car MOC before. To get started, I did what I figured anyone else might do and looked at sets to give me a good base model. In this case, I chose Tony Stark’s convertible from set 76216 Iron Man Armory. It had the general look I was going for and included the specific mudguards I hoped to...

Summer’s in full swing and August is already over – time to relax in the evening sun and enjoy this month’s smorgasbord of great features, insightful articles and deep dives from all across the LEGO community! We are lucky to have this many outlets and channels that keep creating incredible content, and these are the best of the month. Here at BrickNerd, we delved into the stuff of dreams and nightmares with the new LEGO Dreamzzz sets and covered San Diego Comic-Con from an AFOL perspective. We visited Korea Brick Party and an incredible LEGO Train Event in Germany, moved a LEGO collection, and covered disability representation in LEGO, autistic AFOLs and highlighted the highs and lows of neurodivergent builders. We talked Bio-Cup 2023 finals and LEGO animal NPU, LEGO waterfall techniques and LEGO Rock Raiders. We even published instructions for a LEGO chess set and chronicled the illustrious career of...