NASA Apollo Saturn V

Build Log - March 2018

For our birthday, we got the Apollo Saturn V, which is another huge Lego set that we've been wanting to get and build. It's a great set for a blog post, too!

With 1969 pieces (1969 was the year of the moon landing), and looks like some intricate parts, this one might take a while, so we've had to hold onto the box for a few weeks until we knew the dining room table would be free for a while.

Information from Lego's listing of it:

Display and role-play with this majestic meter-high LEGO® brick model of the NASA Apollo Saturn V. Packed with authentic details, it features 3 removable rocket stages, including the S-IVB third stage with the lunar lander and lunar orbiter. The set also includes 3 stands to display the model horizontally, 3 new-for-June-2017 astronaut microfigures for role-play recreations of the Moon landings, plus a booklet about the manned Apollo missions and the fan designers of this educational and inspirational LEGO Ideas set.

• Features a meter-high (approximately 1:110 scale) model of the NASA Apollo Saturn V with a removable S-IC first rocket stage with main rocket engine details, removable S-II second rocket stage with rocket engine details, removable S-IVB third rocket stage with the Apollo spacecraft and rescue rocket at top of the whole spacecraft, plus 3 stands to display the model horizontally.
• The Apollo spacecraft features the lunar lander and the lunar orbiter.
• Also includes 3 new-for-June-2017 astronaut microfigures.
• Great for display and role-playing the manned Apollo Moon missions.
• Includes a booklet about the manned Apollo Moon missions and the fan designers of this set.
• This set includes over 1,900 pieces.
• Measures over 39" (100cm) high and 6” (17cm) in diameter.

We've been excited about this one ever since we watched this video:

So with the table free, now it's time to start the build! Here's everything on opening. There's twelve large numbered bags of pieces, plus the build manual.

The manual itself is almost 200 pages. It has a kind of blueprint look on the cover, a bit of a departure from Lego's usual manuals. It's a nice touch. The first section is a history of the Apollo program with some pictures, details about the Saturn V rocket and how it separates, and a timeline of a launch to the moon. Throughout, pictures of the real rocket and process are pretty neat to see. There's also a page about the designers of this build.

Here's the first bag built and the pieces for Bag Two spread out and separated. It was fun having a couple of people helping me put these parts together.

Bag Two added four long covers (with USA on them - each letter on an individual brick) around the three round sections from Section One. It was pretty delicate because it connects in at least five places to hold the bottom and middle sections together. And of course, in trying to get the first cover to attach, I dropped off the top two sections and then had to make them all fit back together again.

Here's some detail of the little turret above the first section - those little gold pieces sticking out also attach to the covers. And of course, what's really incredible about the detail in this space is that I think it's all covered up in the final product and not visible anyway.

Bag Three extended the covers to go all the way up. This added a lot of stability to what's been built so far. Unfortunately, in putting these on, I realized that what I had had before was one pip too low - so I got to ever-so-carefully remove one cover at a time and move it up one. That made me a bit nervous, but I got them all on there successfully.

The top of the build so far is just above eye-level when I'm sitting, so when we start going higher, I may have to stand while doing the build.

So this is a round build. Most Lego pieces are squared off, of course, which makes building a round object really complicated! Almost all of the parts I'm building are built two, four, or eight at a time, so that they can repeat around the build. But that means having to be super careful that you have the model facing the same way as the pictures in the instructions, so that you put the next piece on just right. This is a really challenging build, and I'm really enjoying it.

Working on Bags Four and Five, more building around what's already been done, filling in the gaps to complete it. A really neat detail is this string of round pieces going down the side. There are two of these, one on each side, and they are anchored in three placed. The top two-thirds nestled into clip just at the top of that open space, and the other end clipped into a claw piece up there in the black. Then another smaller string anchors in the bottom end of that same clip and then attached below in that black section.

Then we started filling in that gap area. There are eight pieces built, four of one kind and four of another, that kind of plug in to that turret-bit. After those eight pieces get in, there were just two 1x6 gaps, which were filled by small parts.

Here's the gap completely covered. You can see that the different types of sections don't match all up to one another really neatly in trying to make a round build. Definitely not space-worthy closure, here. But a great approximation to make out of squared-off parts.

And now I've finished off Bag Six, which makes Stage One of the rocket complete. This section was all about the engines at the bottom of the rocket. They have to be stable enough to hold up the entire model, but still look great. Five sticks stuck into holes at the bottom serve to connect the engines to the rest of the unit, and they're pretty complex. Fins on the 'corners' of the rocket, and finished covering up all the exposed studs.

Here's the detail of the engine - not only are there the five 'baskets', but they have several complicated pieces attached to each of them also. And the light gray shield pieces around where they connect are actually hinged on there - very cleverly done.

Bag Seven starts off Stage Two of the rocket much the same as the first stage started - with the large curved pieces as a base for creating that round shape. Again, two runs of them, but gray-white-gray-white this time instead of black-white-black-white. Very solidly connected to one another and a round base which was the last part built from this bag.

The top of what we have so far, though, has a some really weird configurations, built two at a time. I'm sure they'll make more sense as we get further on, kinda like the turret-bit before. Here's a detail of one of the little pieces. These connected with the red claw bits pointed up, kinda north and south, with another strange shape on east and west sides.

And amid the weird stuff, there was also this interesting connection. Four pieces, one on each edge, but they aren't actually connected to the center part. The only connection is those red pieces at the end, they stab down onto a green piece sticking up. You can kinda see the little green sticks in the bigger picture with the red pieces connected. There's round black pieces blocking them in place, but none of that's actually connected. What's above and below it, though, are connected to each other with that brown square in the center, and I'm sure there'll be stuff on the sides that eventually connect it all, just like with the first stage.

For Bag Eight, we make the panels on the four 'corners'. But these aren't all the same. Going clockwise, there are two the same, then one that's like those except for some black dots, then the last one has a 'tube' on it and is quite different from the others. I like that they are very different, and it was refreshing not to make four of the same thing and put them all on the same.

Bags Nine and Ten, however, were all about making four of the same thing. Or five of the same thing. Four side panels, all the same. Four bits to plug in the holes on the top right. Four bits to plug in the holes on the top left. Four bits to cover that square of khaki left. Four white panels that angle in at the top. Four bits built in black to angle in at the top - those are pretty clever. I like the way the top comes together.

Five engines, much smaller and simpler than the engines for Stage One of the rocket. But they don't need to be a large and complicated; they have less payload to move.

And it looks like that completes Stage Two of the Saturn V. Here are the first two stages, both done, next to each other. The engine section of Stage Two fits neatly into the open space at the top of Stage One. Those weird little bits made during Bag Seven left little red claws sticking up around the edges of the top of Stage One. And at the corners of the engine section for Stage Two, there are gray bars for those claws to grab onto. So the two stages can be put together and hold securely, but can also be separated.

Bag Eleven was the entire Stage Three of the rocket (leaving ALL the non-rocket parts for Bag Twelve). This piece did not use any of the curves wall kind of pieces. Instead it built up a core tube, then surrounded it with panels. These three pieces were each built four times and put in each quadrant of that core.

Stage Three just has one tiny little engine, but it's also both thinner and shorter than the other two stages.

And with the very last bag of parts we built ton of things. Everything that remained, in fact. One piece was the lunar module. This is the little piece that actually lands, and it comes with four tiny microfigure astronauts and a tiny flag tile.

 There was also the actual Apollo spacecraft and instrument unit - the pointy bit on top of Stage Three. There's a wonderful piece on the spire that has four columns of three 'spigot' pieces all turned to make this very pleasant open piece. I enjoyed that.

And the instrument unit has space inside for the lunar module to fit up inside. It's a very tight fit, but the two angled sides are not attached to one another, so they can open out.

There's also a landing capsule. The decorations are printed on the brick (I like printed bricks so much better than stickers). It has the smooth 'water' piece, and the inflatable ring is made of several hinge pieces hooked together in a circle and just set over it. Here's a picture of the real landing capsule.

And here's the completed rocket! In two pieces, Stage One next to the rest of it, and fully assembled, standing 39 inches tall on my table! It's a very impressive size for a Lego build.







There were also three stands for displaying the rocket, as long as you want to show it off horizontally, which would be the safest way. One is taller, to go under the third stage. Pretty neat, but I plan to display my rocket vertically, so they'll get disassembled pretty quickly.

But here it is assembled and displayed horizontally. That's a great build!

 I did pick a few pictures up while writing this blog I'd like to share. Here's some details about the different pieces.








And here's pictures of all the different launches that used Saturn V, including Skylab 1.

And one more for the neat-freak in me... someone else's prep for this build...