5-Wide Car Tips?

[Still Raindrop]

Hello, everyone.

Recently, I've been trying to make some 1930's-esque cars, and I would like to try the five-stud wide scale. However, I seem to be running up against a lot of walls; are there any basic tips or hints for building in this scale?

Thanks!

[Guss]

I just made my first "5 wide vehicle" some times ago, for the "café" I presented here, As it's my first 5-wide vehicle I don't have a lot of "tips" to show, but I can show you how I did it, here are some pics, I used a lot of jumpers :

as example, I used it to attach the wheels :

and the back of it :

as you can see, the cabin is only 4 studs wide :

some other pictures are here if you want to : http://guss.teammu.com/modules/extgallery/...album.php?id=80

I just took those pictures to help you, so I hope it helped^^ I think the " secret" is the use of jumpers^^

[prateek]

as Guss said, you need a lot of jumper pieces and you need the same wheel base axle piece he has in the pics or else it wont work

[Ricecracker]

you need the same wheel base axle piece he has in the pics or else it wont work

That's not true. You could use most of them, but these are the most commonly used for 5-wide cars. Jumper plates are what you are going to need, lot's of them. Another thing to remember it that the cab/windshield almost always has to be 4-wide. If there's anything more specific, post here, or shoot me a PM

[Ralph_S]

I've been building 5-wide cars for about two years now, and I have to agree with the people who commented that you'll need lots of jumper plates. Most of my cars are loosely based on fairly recent cars. The only one that I've done that comes anywhere near an old-timer is a London black cab.

I haven't got any instructions and the model is actually on the other side of the English channel at the moment, but I have made detail pictures of the construction of some of my other cars. Since there are rather a lot of them, I'll simply give you the link to the photoset that contains them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/...57605248635277/

I hope that some of my ideas and solutions can be of use to you.

Cheers,

Ralph

[MetroiD]

Ralph, I've been studying your 5- and 7-wide vehicles lately (such as these ones) and they've most definitely got me hooked on building my future cars, buses and trucks using uneven numbers. Unfortunately, right now I don't really have enough parts (or time) to get started with that. In any case - thanks a lot to you and all the other guys who build those innovative designs and then share their tips & tricks with us (off the top of my hat, Carbohydrates also falls in that list :) ). Cheers!

P.S.: Sorry I can't help you with any particular piece of advice, Mariko, but I'm an absolute beginner in terms of 5-wide building :/

Edited April 25, 2009 by TheOtters

[Ralph_S]

Ralph, I've been studying your 5- and 7-wide vehicles lately (such as these ones) and they've most definitely got me hooked on building my future cars, buses and trucks using uneven numbers. Unfortunately, right now I don't really have enough parts (or time) to get started with that. In any case - thanks a lot to you and all the other guys who build those innovative designs and then share their tips & tricks with us (off the top of my hat, Carbohydrates also falls in that list :) ). Cheers!

P.S.: Sorry I can't help you with any particular piece of advice, Mariko, but I'm an absolute beginner in terms of 5-wide building :/

Thanks Man. I appreciate it. You raise an important point in that besides jumper plates these things tend to eat up a lot of parts : small plate and tile mostly. Building anything an odd number of studs wide takes some getting used to and on an old-timer car in particular there'll probably be quite a few half-stud offsets. That takes some getting used to as well.

I've recently been discussing a new project with a LEGO-building friend of mine and it would involve minifig scale 'thirties cars and I actually preferred building them six wide. That leaves enough width to have a body that is four studs wide with running boards and mudguards that stick out by one stud one each side. That's probably a lot easier than having running boards and mudguards sticking out just half a stud.

Cheers,

Ralph