Beaver Falls man comes 90 minutes shy of world record to build Star Wars Lego

Jonathan Wagner doesn’t like to talk about his “dark period” with Legos.

“A lot of people in the Steel City Lego User Group went through it,” he said. “Usually around early adulthood, most people kind of just forget about Legos.”

In the late 1990s, Lego began releasing kits for its Ultimate Collector Series featuring “Star Wars” spaceships like the Millennium Falcon and the TIE Fighter. Wagner, 45, of Beaver Falls got pulled right back in thanks to his love for the film series.

Last weekend, Wagner came close to setting a new Guinness World Record for building a Lego Millennium Falcon kit that is 33 inches long, 23 inches wide and contains more than 7,500 pieces.

He had to accomplish the task in under 10 hours, 21 minutes and 43 seconds to set the record. Wagner finished at just over 12 hours, a little more than 90 minutes shy of the record.

The attempt was part of the Steel City Lego User Group’s annual celebration of International Lego Day, held Jan. 27-28 at Ross Park Mall in Ross Township. Wagner joined the group a little less than two years ago.

“I really enjoy interacting with people,” he said. “My wife is really big into making mosaics with Legos. There’s just so many different things you can do.”

When he’s not working as an IT specialist for First National Bank, Wagner streams and posts Lego build videos to his YouTube channel, JonnyBuildz.

“I would always time myself on the channel, and it wasn’t necessarily that I was trying to build things fast, but I began to notice that’s what was happening,” he said.

Wagner already owned the Millennium Falcon set he attempted his record on and has built it twice.

“The first time it took me 21 hours,” he said. “But I was just taking my time and enjoying the build. The second time took about 15 hours, and I still wasn’t really pushing for speed.”

This year is also the 25th anniversary of Lego releasing its first “Star Wars” sets.