DuckTales: The Money Bin

Only 79 Supporters left while I'm writing this update, with 128 days left. Superstition aside, I'd say it's pretty safe to say that WE DID IT.

Once at 10k I won't be able to make updates anymore, so while I still can, I'd like to take a moment to thank you all, truly, from the bottom of my heart ❤️.

My thank you gift is at the bottom of the post, but if you have some time to spare, I'd like to share some thoughts with you first.

Maybe sounds silly to you, but this project means really a lot to me. Sure, I'm very fond of the character, but there is more: I'd say it helped me discovering new aspects of me that I didn't know I had in me. Good aspects.

I'm not usually perseverant: I quit university twice, longest job I kept is two years and a half... but in this thing, this one specific project, I really poured so much love in it and I wanted to succeed.

A month after I uploaded the project, the Money Bin had only 443 supporters.

Way less than what I expected. Some even called it a "dead project".

I looked at that number and said "Ok, it's bad, but if I keep going at this speed I'm still gonna be able to make it in two years time. I will just need to work hard to make sure people see it".

And so I did.

Promoting on social media became a full time job: day after day, looking for places and groups where I could find someone interested in my model, replying to comments, engaging with fans and listening to their feedback, creating new contents to not repeat myself too much.

I wrote posts in Italian, English, French, Polish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Danish...

I kept track on Excel sheets of how the supporters were going: slow but steady? Good, as long is steady.

In all this, Scrooge McDuck was my polar star, my role model: did he became rich easily and fast?

No, it took him 20 years of hard work, with some ups and lots of downs, learning life lessons the hard way, being betrayed, robbed, or sometimes just struck by bad luck. BUT HE PERSEVERED!

Whenever he fell down, he always raised with an even bigger motivation.

But as I said, WE DID IT, not I.

I started this journey without knowing absolutely no-one in the AFOL community, and along the way I met some extraordinary people. Some I even met in person and started a beautiful friendship.

Wish I could mention each one of you, but there wouldn't be enough space... but you know who you are!

You people patiently waited, cheered and encouraged me, and you never made me feel alone in this long journey.

Thank you for dreaming with me!

Yours, gratefully,

Matteo Sperati, aka sxavalentine

Last time I said that it would have been my second-last update before the final one to thank you all.

Well, I changed my mind.

Now that we are very close to 10k (9726, OMG) I started preparing all the documentation to send to LEGO for the review phase and I realized I could still improve my build.

So, without further ado...

BAM! You asked for it, and you got it! I totally agree with you guys, she is a must include. The problem was (still is) that there is no wig able to fit the duck head. LEGO, please, make a new mold for a duck-wig, so we can have our Magica.

IMPROVEMENT NUMBER TWO: THE TELESCOPE!

Useful not only to check for enemy approaching to the the Money Bin, but also to read newspapers for free when pointed at a news stand.

I'm keeping my eyes on you.

Before, the back wall was fully removable, and the back of the money pool was hinged, with transparent panels all the way up.

But I didn't like how you had to first remove the back wall and then open the money pool: too many steps, too many pieces, a little bit too fragile.

So now here we go: we open the back wall and we are straight inside the money pool.

We can still admire our money from the transparent panels (they also serves the purpose of not making the money fall once opened), but we are ready to jump into action...plus I saved A LOT of pieces, now the count is 2780.

That hopefully will make the Money Bin more affordable.

That's it for now, see you (this time FOR REAL) for the final update. Bye guys, love you all ❤️❤️❤️

Hi guys. I'm here to thank you (with a bit of delay) for helping me reach 9000 supporters (WOOOOOW! Thank you ❤️❤️❤️) and to show you some small improvements I did to the build.

The first improvement is the painting/secret passage in the first floor. The current structure is way more solid than the previous one you can see in the images, plus, the swivel panel 40249 is a 5x5 studs flat surface, meaning that the painting of Scrooge McDuck can be bigger. 

After all, a multi-pluri-trillionaire deserves a properly sized portrait.

The second improvement, is a change of the motto in the central frame of the second floor. The previous one said "There is no such thing as talent: only inspiration and ambition", that is a quote from Don Rosa's masterpiece "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" (chapter: The cowboy captain of the Cutty Sark).

While it was surely a great motto, showing how determination plays a key role in the climb towards success, I decided to change it to "The only limits to adventure are the limits of your imagination", that Scrooge says in his great speech from the final chapter of Don Rosa's saga.

Why? Because it's equally inspiring, but it fits the whole LEGO concept way better: that's why we love these colorful bricks so much...we can build literally everything with enough creativity.

Also, i'm so glad TLG introduced the new 4x4 tile, so we can finally have good size flat surface without having to split text or images into two 2x4 tiles.

The third update is the one I'm most happy with, and the one that took the longest to achieve. May not seem fancy, but let me explain a little bit better:

in order to accomodate the inner structure of the trapdoor mechanism, the 3rd floor used to be 5 plate thick.

1st plate: floor basement,

2nd plate: layer of tiles on top of which the lever would slide

3rd plate: first layer of the lever, that was L shaped

4th plate: second layer of the lever, covered with tiles both to be able to slide, and to joint the elements of the lever in the 3rd layer.

5 plate: floor top, covering all the other layers and the empty "tunnel" in which the lever slided.

Both to reduce the number of parts (now almost 100 less) and for the peace of my OCD senses (I wanted all floors have the same height), I finally found a way to reduce it to only 3 plates: in order to achieve that, i had to invert the opening verse of the trapdoor, so that the lever doesn't need anymore to be L shaped, it can simply be a tile, sliding on top of another tile, pulling up and down the hatch of the trapdoor. I don't know if it's clear enough (or interesting ).

Let's put it this way: now to open the trapdoor you just have to pull Scrooge's chair backward, and forward to close it again. So now, the lever on the right of Scrooge's desk is purely for aesthetical purpose.

Finally, I did change a little the back of the build: before there were two bricks protruding to facilitate the removal of the back wall in order to access the giant money pool.

Now instead they are indented, so i reduced the total depth of the build by a stud. Tiny detail as I said, but for someone whit limited space perhaps can make a difference.

I believe this will my second last update guys. Now that i'm getting so close to a goal I chased for almost two years, it's easy getting a little emotional... but I'm gonna save my thoughts for a little bit more.

See you soon, and thank you so much once again ❤️❤️❤️

Hi guys. I'm here to thank you (with a bit of delay) for helping me reach 9000 supporters (WOOOOOW! Thank you ❤️❤️❤️) and to show you some small improvements I did to the build.

The first improvement is the painting/secret passage in the first floor. The current structure is way more solid than the previous one you can see in the images, plus, the swivel panel 40249 is a 5x5 studs flat surface, meaning that the painting of Scrooge McDuck can be bigger.

After all, a multi-pluri-trillionaire deserves a properly sized portrait.

The second improvement, is a change of the motto in the central frame of the second floor. The previous one said "There is no such thing as talent: only inspiration and ambition", that is a quote from Don Rosa's masterpiece "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" (chapter: The cowboy captain of the Cutty Sark).

While it was surely a great motto, showing how much determination plays a key role in the climb of success, I decided to change it to "The only limits to adventure are the limits of your imagination", that Scrooge says in his great speech from the final chapter of Don Rosa's saga.

Why? Because it's equally inspiring, but it fits the whole LEGO concept way better: that's why we love these colorful bricks so much.

Also, i'm so glad TLG introduced the new 4x4 tile, so we can finally have good size flat surface without having to split text or images into two 2x4 tiles.

The third update is the one I'm most happy with, and the one that took the longest to achieve. May not seem fancy, but let me explain a little bit better:

in order to accomodate the inner structure of the trapdoor mechanism, the 3rd floor used to be 5 plate thick.

1st plate: (structure),

2nd plate: layer of tiles on top of which the lever would slide

3rd plate: first layer of the lever, that was L shaped

4th plate: second layer of the lever, covered with tiles both to be able to slide, and to joint the elements of the lever in the 3rd layer.

5 plate: floor, covering all the other layers and the empty tunnel in which the lever slided.

Both to reduce the number of parts (now almost 100 less) and for the peace of my OCD senses (I wanted all floors have the same height), I finally found a way to reduce it to only 3 plates: in order to achieve that, i had to invert the opening verse of the trapdoor, so that the lever doesn't need anymore to be L shaped, it can simply be a tile, sliding on top of another tile, pulling up and down the hatch of the trapdoor. I don't know if it's clear enough (or interesting ).

Let's put it this way: now to open the trapdoor you just have to pull Scrooge's chair backward, and forward to close it again. So now, the lever on the right of Scrooge's desk is purely for aesthetical purpose.

Finally, I did change a little the back of the build: before there were two bricks protruding to facilitate the removal of the back wall in order to access the giant money pool.

Now instead they are indented, so i reduced the total depth of the build by a stud. Tiny detail as I said, but for someone who little space perhaps can make a difference.

I believe this will my second last update guys. Now that i'm getting so close to a goal I chased for almost two years, it's easy getting a little emotional... but I'm gonna save my thoughts for a little bit more.

See you soon, and thank you so much once again.

Yesterday we hit the 8000 supporters lanndmark. We are getting so close 🤩.

And it funny that we reached it around this time, because our beloved $crooge made his very first appearance on a Disney comic during Xmas'eve of 75 years ago, in the story

Christmas on Bear Mountain by Carl Barks.

Well, the story was released one or two weeks earlier, but it took place on the 24th.

Since then the character is evolved a lot, and he's not so much against holidays anymore, as you can see from my amazing $crooge Xmas Sweater 😍.

And with that I wish you all...

Merry Christmas and happy new year 🎅🎄❤️😊🎉

Last week was really something 😊.

1) My Money Bin finally reached the 7000 supporters landmark (thank you 🤗❤️)

2) it was my 34th birthday, so I treated myself with the long awaited Lion Knights Castle 🏰🤤, but most of all, my family surprised me gifting me the Great Pyramid of Giza 🤩.

That was really unexpected considering that they are constantly telling me "Stop buying LEGO, you have more than enough" 🤣🤣

So yes, I was very happy and I thought sharing it with you guys.

%What a nice number! Thank you all for all your support, nice comments and encouragement ❤️🙏.

We are now in the top 40 most supported projects, with almost 11 months left to reach 10k: all we need is 10.07 votes per day... And cross our fingers 🤞🤞.

Actually a staff pick would be nice too, ahah 😁

See you at 7000 guys 😉

Woo-ooh! We reached the 6000 landmark.

Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie Brickheadz would like to thank you all ❤️.

The sixth thousand is the one that took the longest (111 days) , also because since I've hit the 5000 milestone I stopped promoting on social media.

Guess I wanted to feel the waters and see if being in the 3% of most supported project was enough to get visibility... Turns out, it's not.

We still have a lot of work to do.

As always... SLOWLY BUT SURELY

😉💪💪💪

See you soon guys

Today it's one year since I've published the Money Bin here on Lego Ideas.

What a journey!

We are now in the top 75 most supported projects, but there is still a lot of work to do.

Wish the Money Bin happy birthday and best of luck in reach 10k supporters in a comment, and enjoy the two modified panels I prepared for the occasion 😁

The two panels are taken from Don Rosa's masterpiece "The Life and Times of $crooge's McDuck".

Here are the originals (and once again: do yourself a favor and read this masterpiece)

If you landed on this page, you just got April fooled 😁😁😁.

Don't worry, the Money Bin is still on Ideas, didn't get archived, and is still waiting for your support 🤣🤣.

Ahah, sorry if you got worried. You are the best my beloved supporters ❤️❤️❤️