While sometimes it feels like this project has taken on a life of its own, the real purpose has been to recycle a part of my childhood LEGO collection into something I could pass onto my son, without just dumping a huge pile of bricks on the floor of his room. Breathe new life into old bricks, so to speak. (While of course enjoying a bit of AFOL life myself.) Hence I am also concerned with using as many of my old bricks as possible, rather than striving for 100% historical accuracy on the 6080 King’s Castle. Like I said in my opening words, I know I will have to cut a few corners here and there.

The difficulty for me has been deciding where is “here and there”. Where to cut corners and where to acquire more bricks. I’d like to strike a balance that I’m comfortable with. Say, a 95% accuracy. An easy answer were the minifigures, where I will be able to furnish enough of them, but I see no need to try and complete them all if I can’t do it with my existing parts. The rest of the knights went to the bar or changed pants. The second place to cut some corners might eventually be whatever is left missing at the end, if for example I’m missing one or two pieces due to miscalculation or whatever, substitutes would be understandable.

Third place where I am currently exploring the possibility of cheating a bit are situations where I don’t have exactly the right sized piece, but do have two or more that together could form a substitute. For example, the side walls of the castle are topped by grey 2×16 plates. I may not have those, but I do have grey 2×10 and 2×6 plates from the 6073 Knight’s Castle, which when placed next to each other cover the same area. I have not yet decided do I leave them in place, that depends on if I need the 2×10 and 2×6 plates elsewhere in the castle (in which case I’ll try and acquire the 2×16 plates).

So, there is a balance to be struck there somewhere. One area where I have decided against cheating is the grey question. While I could probably get some spare medium stone grey (modern, cooler version of the classic grey) pieces from my son, I will try to avoid that. I am going for the 1984 look and I’d rather use a wrong brick or two than a color from another era. Indeed, LEGO changing the color grey is one thing I hadn’t planned on when I started this project. I had thought I could perhaps get bricks from some generic sets LEGO sells in stores, but of course that is out of the question.