BusterHaus

@amorti Are you talking about the instructions for the Hammerhead?

Those crop circles in the snow are mesmerizing. Looks like a very fun toy. The body looks awesome, too.

Hi Grum, I missed a whole bunch of updates, just got caught up. I don't remember any project of yours having some many mishaps, I hope you finish it without many others. By the way, don't be too hard on yourself for making assembly errors, they're unavoidable when you are excited to finish the build.

I'm very impressed with this, the 4 jaw chuck is my favorite feature. Does the tail stock have a live center? Does it work well?

This is a very good looking set. I think they missed an opportunity by not putting "batteries not required" on the box.

This is great, old school building. The speed of the functions is just right, quick but controllable.

I have to agree, it was very fun to see the amount of talent and fantastic results. It even got me out of my current mini dark age, I started shrinking 9398 but never got around to finishing it. Congratulations to the winners and kudos to all participants, and a big thank you to Jim and Milan for running this contest.

Excellent work Mr Jos, I really like that the solution allows controlling the "on" timing of the valves and the amount of pressure built up before the next valve is open. Would you have a picture of the horizontal travel mechanism? It looks very smooth.

That looks great. I guess the shrinking factor is dictated by the tracks (3:5)?

@aminnich Maybe it's a software solution, instead of a mechanical clutch? You can detect motor stalls using the position encoder.

Keep in mind that thicker parts would weigh more, erasing the advantage of their additional strength. They probably found a sweet spot between the strength of the parts, their weight and the size of the crane.

What are the pins you are using to attach the shocks to the frame? They don't have a split.

9: 10 3: 6 5: 4 11: 3 7: 2 2: 1 Some of the videos were incredibly well done. Good luck to all.

Impressive and funny at the same time. Very nice build.

Most sets, including the ones you mentioned, have LDR files (or similar digital format) created by the community. They are available online for free. If you are stuck, you can always open it and zoom in on the section that's of interest to get the answer for your own build. Creating instructions from these files is also possible, but I wouldn't try to replicate them 1:1. Legal reasons are one concern, but just finding the right view angles would take a while. Also, most Lego instructions have more steps than are needed by a seasoned builder, so you could also combine steps and make them shorter and a bit more challenging. The whole idea would be to make them look different from Lego's official version, while following the building sequence. But I'm not a lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt.

Very well said. YouTube has plenty of good Lego reviewers, but few go beyond that without resorting to clickbait or gimmicks ("watch Lego twist a F150 drive axle!"). The RacingBrick channel always delivers good content, and is very informative. @kbalage Congratulations on the milestone, please continue the same way and you'll be celebrating another one soon.

This crawler has fantastic performance. Most of @PunkTacoNYC's crawlers remind me of crawler/hill climbers like Bubba Bacon's. Those use solid axles with a linear actuator for steering. Good idea for making this thread, I'll be following it. Hope your surgery goes/went well.

The lever/arm mechanism is so satisfying to watch. Great work, very reminiscent of the studded Technic sets where functions were a priority over looks.

Is there a gear that works with train track part 3228? The train wheels don't seem to have teeth.

My best estimate would be 3x to 5x the original price, assuming you can keep it in mint/sealed condition that long, and that the nostalgia factor is there. By comparison, you can put $400 into the Dow Jones index and most likely have similar returns it in 20 years if you re-invest the dividends. You can play with their calculator here: https://dqydj.com/dow-jones-return-calculator/

I'm not sure about anyone else's experience, but I'm definitely remembering and using building techniques that I used 30 years ago with studded bricks. They were not forgotten, and came back easily once I picked up the bricks. The drawback is not having many studless parts in this set. Some items would definitely be easier to build without studs. Now for the update: I scrapped the whole frame and started from scratch. The new one is a keeper - all the functions work, now I can focus on the bodywork. Here's a short video:

I was blessed enough to receive a 8880 set for Christmas. Instead of jumping into the A and B models, I decided to build a C-Model motorcycle for the TC19 contest. There isn't much progress yet - The rear arm is somewhat done, the gearbox is a lightly modified version of the one from the A model, the engine will be an flat 8 cylinder beast. I worked out a rough angle for mounting it along with the gearbox, although the placement of the shifter in relation to the rider makes me laugh quite a bit. I have an idea as to how to protect the rider from being impaled, and there's a lot of other details to work out. I am loving the studded build, it brings me back to my youth, but it also makes me realize how lucky we are to have all the Technic parts that were released since this set. Here's a picture of the progress so far:

Yes.

Can't help you with PU, but the mechanical solution is a clutch gear. It will still make a noise but at least the gears will be protected.

Yes, the model I received has some discolorations. I've seen the thread on restoring colors in the past, but I'm still concerned about the long-term integrity of the plastic after such procedures. Part of the charm of such an old set is having these imperfections. By the way the parts are in excellent physical condition, one or two thin liftarms (the blue triangular ones) have a crack, but the half bushes are still whole. Previous owners took care of this baby. I use LDCad. From what I've seen Stud.io may be surpassing it now with its built-in rendering, but I don't feel like learning a new software these days. I also wasn't a fan of the original license that Stud.io had, back when it was online-only. Ok, now some progress: The engine has a much more horizontal orientation than my first digital mockup (seen below). This makes the bike look more proportional, as it was getting too tall, too long, and the wheels looked like they belonged on a scooter. However, the physical build is not the one I'll be keeping. The front fork lacks a connection point because there is no frame there, so I'll be redoing the whole frame from scratch. I'm also not a fan of the driveline from the rear wheel, it could be a lot stronger. The last concern is the connection of the engine to the gearbox. On the digital build the green shaft was the output, and it was very close to the bevel gear that starts the driveline to the the rear wheel. In the new build, the output is located much higher. I thought there would be some place to put a couple of z14 gears or u-joints to connect the gearbox to the driveline, but there is simply not enough space. The good news is that it's possible to use these wheels to build a model that looks proportional. I'm hoping to build the new frame in the next few days.