My granddaughter Isla and I are building VW Camper Buses

Frank Pellow

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Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Usually, the majority of presents that I receive at Christmas are woodworking related. This year, I only received one such gift, but a good one, and that is a new Leigh R9 Plus Joinery Jig.

The gift that I was most surprised and happy to receive was a Lego VW bus kit. I really really wanted a VW camper bus in the 1960s but never did get one.

To make things even better, my granddaughter Isla (almost 12) was given the same kit.

Today we started to make our busses together. Since the project is likely to take a few days, we started by building a couple of wooden trays. There are alot of parts that one has to be searching through all the time, so the trays have some sorting bins. We also utilized some of the plastic trays that came with one of my Tanos systainers.

These photos show our working environment as well as our progress after about 90 minutes:

Trays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW busses -1 -small.JPG Trays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW busses -2 -Frank's progress after about 90 minutes.JPGTrays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW busses -3 -Isla's progress after about 90 minutes .JPG

Isla is much quicker at finding the required parts than I am, hence she is quite a bit ahead of me.Here is a photo of Isla "at work": Isla working on Lego VW bus -small.JPG

And here is a picture of me at work: Frank working on Lego VW Bus -small.JPG

The trays that we made are a big help and we both highly recommend such trays for any large Lego project.
 
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Frank,
this was the first year I didn't give my kids Lego (nobody seemed all that interested so I didn't bother), but didn't the kit come with 'logical' sub-assemblies in bags? ie all of the parts for the chassis in one bag, etc?

neat looking kit,While I was rummaging around over on Amazon.com I wound up finding at least two kits I'd like to build someday:
I'm a Frank Lloyd wright fan, so Fallingwater is on my list, and the Robie House as well.

oh great, did a little more searching... now I have to choose between a Robust and this: Ultimate Millenium Falcon it has over 5000 pieces and current street price is about $2600!
 
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Frank,
this was the first year I didn't give my kids Lego (nobody seemed all that interested so I didn't bother),

Ned, that's hard for me to imagine. I will stop being interested in Lego when I am dead.

but didn't the kit come with 'logical' sub-assemblies in bags? ie all of the parts for the chassis in one bag, etc?

That's the way I expected the kit to be organaized and, certainly, the way that I would have organized things if I were in control of this kit at Lego. But there were 15 (unlabelled) bags and, as far as we could determine, there was no logical organization of the parts within the bags. :( :pullhair:
[/QUOTE]

neat looking kit,While I was rummaging around over on Amazon.com I wound up finding at least two kits I'd like to build someday:
I'm a Frank Lloyd wright fan, so Fallingwater is on my list, and the Robie House as well.

I have seen both those buildings and would love to build the Lego versions of both. :)

oh great, did a little more searching... now I have to choose between a Robust and this: Ultimate Millenium Falcon it has over 5000 pieces and current street price is about $2600!

The (30 year old) son of a good friend of mine has recently purchased that exactly that kit and is currently building it. When he is finished, I have agreed to help him build a glass-topped table in order to dsiplay it. :D
 
I had a 1972 VW camper with a pop top, stove shelf on the side (outside the camper), sink that would actually pump water, bed in the back, whole nine yards.... we got it because I thought my wife (at the time)(and who introduced me to camping) liked to camp and it would be good to take the kids....but she decided that the baby was too small.. he was 6 months and it would be too hard to camp with an infant... later I discovered her idea of roughing it was a motel that only had black and white tv... I drove it a couple of years, until I was on the way to work one day, a gust of wind hit me broad side at Coyote Point on Highway 101... without even moving the steering, was knocked into the second lane, sounded like the top blew off and rattled my nerves... I traded it the next week or so for something a little heavier and less bulky.
 
I had a 1972 VW camper with a pop top, stove shelf on the side (outside the camper), sink that would actually pump water, bed in the back, whole nine yards.... we got it because I thought my wife (at the time)(and who introduced me to camping) liked to camp and it would be good to take the kids....but she decided that the baby was too small.. he was 6 months and it would be too hard to camp with an infant... later I discovered her idea of roughing it was a motel that only had black and white tv... I drove it a couple of years, until I was on the way to work one day, a gust of wind hit me broad side at Coyote Point on Highway 101... without even moving the steering, was knocked into the second lane, sounded like the top blew off and rattled my nerves... I traded it the next week or so for something a little heavier and less bulky.

Maybe it's just as well that I was never able to purchase a VW camper. :huh:


I love your comment about roughing it and will, no doubt, quote you on it in the future.
 
Progress Report:

Isla is pulling even further ahead of me. After we have each spent about about 10 hours building, Isla is on step 101 of and I am on step 81. There are 115 steps.

Trays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW buses -4 -Frank's Progress after about 10 hours (s.JPG Trays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW buses -5 -Isla's Progress after about 10 hours (st.jpg

Also, I am attaching a blow-up of one of the posters that is on the wall of each bus:

Make Lego Models, Not War.jpg
 
Update:

Isla finished building her camper yesterday morning after a couple more hours work (for a total build time of about 12 hours). At that point, I was on step 102 of 115 and had at least 2 more hours before completion.

Trays being used to build Frank and Isla's VW buses -6 -Isla's VW finished after about 12 hours .jpg

I suggest that competative Lego building should be made a competive sport. :) And, based on my exerience, a kid would probably emerge as the champion.
 
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