Building large scale MOCs?

[mouseketeer]

Hey everyone, I'm planning on doing quite a large scale MOC (though how big I'm not sure yet), and I've read before how people keep them modular etc. so that they can transport them to shows. I was just wondering if there were any resources, articles and things like that which people have written before I start planning it. I'm thinking things like reinforcing the base, deciding on the area and heights of the modular sections, things like that. If I can learn a bit now that saves a preventable headache later on down the road it would be really helpful!

Edited June 5, 2018 by mouseketeer

[knotian]

I am doing the same thing right now - a blast furnace. Transportation is a problem but here are a few things I am doing to help.

I made several 64x64 platforms out of 'foam-board'. 2 layers of 3/16" fastened to each other. This allows a 4 baseplate module which works well. I use joiner plates to make sure they stay together.

I found cardboard boxes that were 20" on a side. I lay them on the side and slide the modules in, making sure to mark several up arrows. I use those pillows from Lego shipments and bubble-wrap to fill in the voids in the boxes.

Several of my models are very tall and have cylindrical stacks, ovens, bins etc. I  build these in several sections with just a shorter base segment on the base. These are internally braced very well and transported wrapped in 'bubble-wrap'.

Connections between modules are either pipes, conveyor belts etc., which are easy to disconnect and rebuild at setup.

I'm hoping to make these to fit into a collaborative build and in that case I will have to slide them off on to a table, else I will leave them on the foam-board if displayed as MOCS.

[ShaydDeGrai]

When I first started going to shows, I tried just boxing up things I'd built only to find packing was a real problem.  My pieces were too big, oddly shaped and fragile meaning that a) I needed really big boxes, b) I was boxing up a lot of empty space and couldn't fit as much in the car as I wanted to bring, and c) things shifted in transit, meaning I spent the better part of my first day repairing things.

So, I started making custom boxes that were tighter fits to the size of the MOCs and tweaked my MOCs slightly to remove protruding or excessively delicate sections.  For example, the statue shown in my icon has a removable head and extended arm comes apart at the elbow.  This makes the rest of the sculpture a solid rectangular block that packs and travels well.  The head and hand are more delicate, but can be boxed separately and won't be sheared off or crushed by the mass of the torso if the weight were to shift suddenly in transit.  This practice helped, but creating boxes to make a snug fit around an oddly shaped MOC was a pain.

These days, I actually think about the box(es) a MOC will travel in as part of the base design and scale/modularize things accordingly for an optimum fit.  I've found that a really snug fit in rigid cardboard box tends to minimized damage in transit.  Too much room in the box and a pot-hole or sudden stop will cause the MOC to bounce off the sidewalls of the box.  I don't glue MOCs and I've found that cardboard boxes do a better job of damping vibration that might otherwise loosen bricks on long car rides (compared to plastic bins which tend to transfer the vibration).  Adding custom foam-core cutouts to bridge the gap between the box sidewall and an odd shaped MOC is sometimes useful to minimized swaying and tipping.  

I tend to err on the side of developing a modular design that will travel in multiple, smaller boxes rather than just making sure the MOC fits in the biggest box I have.  I do a lot of sculptural MOCs and, given the odd shapes, I'd hate to waste space (even if transit damage weren't a concern).  When I pack a MOC (or section of a MOC) into a box I want at least 75% of the volume of the box taken up by the MOC, preferably touching the sides of the box at multiple points.   I design my MOCs in sections to fill standard boxes (and to be easy to reassemble afterwards).  Often re-assembly is something as simple as popping in a few technic pins and butting connection planes together, but on very large pieces, I'll resort to brick-build mortise and tenons, rabbits, and dados.  Once I even used sliding dovetail joinery to put sections of a mountain landscape together where pins kept pulling apart.

As with any design, breaking a MOC up into modules is a trade-off.  It ups the part count, imposes constraints on your design, and raises structural issues you might otherwise be able to ignore.  What it buys you (when done well) is ease of packing, minimizing the likelihood of damage and more compact storage.  Knowing whether a given design should break down into a dozen shoeboxes, three small moving boxes or just be delicately packed into a custom crate made from the carton your refrigerator came in is really something that needs to be sussed out on a case by case basis.  

[dr_spock]

I made custom cardboard boxes by cutting and gluing cardboard pieces.

Be sure you can get it out your door if you plan to bring it to events.  Someone learned the hard way.  

 

[davidwilsonwong]

use acrylic to make the display box