LEGO fan nabs tasty world record as he turns 65,000 bricks into gigantic sausage

A LEGO-mad dad has transformed 65,000 bricks into a record-breaking creation that looks good enough to eat – although it may hurt your teeth.

Tommy Schmidt (Germany) has been obsessed with the colourful building bricks since he was a kid and really relished the challenge when meat and sausage producer Die Thüringer came to him with a very unusual request.

The dad-of-two went on to build the world’s largest LEGO® brick sausage that measures a tasty 2 m (6 ft 6.7 in) long.

The 45-year-old, who works in IT, said: “I have always enjoyed taking on unusual challenges. When the meat and sausage producer Die Thüringer from my region approached me with the idea of building something out of LEGO, we started developing the concept together. It quickly became clear to us that it had to be something big.

“In my home region of Thuringia in Germany, the Bratwurst (sausage) is a local specialty that has since become known around the world. Together with the meat and sausage producer Die Thüringer (where the model can be visited) we wanted to create a tribute to the famous Bratwurst and to our region.”

It took Tommy six months to build the sausage from 65,000 large LEGO bricks, but the whole process actually took closer to a year.

He said that the model was originally going to be much smaller but he ended up making it bigger to ensure that wow factor.

“During the entire building process, the model stood in our living room and eventually, even my wife got used to it,” Tommy laughed.

“Transporting it, however, was a major challenge. Because of its size and weight, we needed many helpers to move everything safely. From the very beginning, I had to plan the model in such a way that it would fit through our large patio door.”

The giant sausage is in a bun and has a squiggle of mustard all along the top.

Read about more cool records like this in our Hobbies and Skills section.

Tommy does enjoy building official LEGO sets from time to time, but finds nothing more rewarding than designing and building something from his own imagination.

As a child, he’d watch with fascination as his dad would build and fix things round the house.

“That always inspired me,” he said. “When he gave me my first LEGO set and I realized that I could now create new things quite easily myself, my love for the colourful bricks was born.

“For me, there is nothing more rewarding than bringing my own ideas to life. Sometimes I plan my models on the computer before building them, and sometimes I simply start building and see where the process takes me.”

Tommy has built many other unique LEGO models before, although they were much smaller. He’s made things like Tony Stark’s workshop from Iron Man, a fully functional droid factory inspired by Star Wars, and a huge indoor swimming pool.

He’s currently planning a large model that will pay tribute to retro gaming. Perhaps there’s another record on the horizon! 

But for now, he said: “I would like to thank my wife and my children for their patience and moral support throughout the project. I am also very grateful to my friends, who were understanding whenever I didn’t have much time because I had to keep building.

“A special thank you goes to the company Die Thüringer, who made this project possible in the first place. Together, through many discussions, we refined the design until it was ready for me to bring it to life with LEGO bricks.”