Rebuilding Lego sets

How to Rebuild Lego Sets

Almost every Lego fan has an incomplete or dismantled set lying around. Many of you probably want to rebuild those sets. Here's how to go about it:

1. Sort Your Bricks by Color

If you have dismantled sets, you surely have some loose bricks. Sorting them by color will make the process much easier.

2. Check Your Custom Builds

There’s a good chance some of the needed bricks are in your own creations. They might also be in boxes or attached to other sets. When rebuilding, consider taking apart these builds to recover pieces.

3. Find the Instructions Online

Search online for your set’s name plus “LEGO.” One of the first links should be the official Lego website.

• Click it and go to the set’s page.
• Look on the right-hand side (you might need to scroll) for “Building Instructions.”
• Click it and download the most recent PDF version.
• Scroll to the end of the PDF to find the parts list.
• Print those last pages.
  If you can’t print, you’ll need to check off pieces directly in the instructions using a pencil.

4. Check Off Found Parts

Go through the list and tick off parts you already have.

• Use a separate box to store the “checked” parts so they don’t mix with the rest.
• Sorting by color will help.
• If you couldn’t print the list, you can mark pieces lightly in the manual.

An example of a printed instruction page for rebuilding a LEGO set.

5. Missing Pieces?

It’s totally normal to be missing a few (or a dozen) parts.

• Keep looking through your bricks.
• If you can’t find them, you can buy the missing pieces on:
  • BrickLink
  • Lego’s Pick a Brick service
  • Other online stores offering individual bricks

6. Substitutions or Skipping

While waiting for parts or if you don’t want to order them:

• Look for substitute pieces
• Or just skip them if they’re not essential
  You can now assemble your set!

This method takes time, but it’s faster than other approaches—especially if you're rebuilding multiple sets. Sorting by color significantly speeds things up.
Of course, you could build step-by-step following the manual and search for each piece as needed, but that method is much more time-consuming.

Have a dream set that's old and expensive? You can try to rebuild it this way too:

• Find what you can at home
• Buy the rest online or from local stores that sell Lego by weight

Using this method, I saved about 50 USD when rebuilding a set (though I didn’t have the minifigures).

🔗 Additional Tips from the Community

If you're dealing with a really large pile of unsorted LEGO and want to identify which sets are in there before rebuilding, I highly recommend this excellent Reddit guide on using BrickLink for set identification.

It dives deep into:

• Using BrickLink’s multi-part search to identify sets based on a few unique pieces
• Linking with Brickset to track your collection
• Using minifigs and decorated parts for faster identification
• Creating BrickLink wanted lists as checklists for rebuilding

I still personally prefer starting with sorting by color and working from the manuals (physical or PDF), but their approach works great if you have no idea what’s in your collection or are missing instructions.

The two methods can complement each other really well — especially if you want to rebuild multiple sets with minimal buying. I might update this guide in the future to combine both workflows.