3D Printed Part on Official Lego Photo?

[DrJB]

I was looking at the photo below, and one can easily notice that the truck drums appear to have been 3D printed. Did they need to make the official picture BEFORE the actual part (from a mold) was available?

[weavil]

It looks like it could be 3D printed... or it was from a test mold and wanted to see how the final product/pictures would turn out.

A designer said (in a recent article) that they sometims use 3D printed parts to help decide if a new mold is worth the investment.

[dr_spock]

Your photo is on Bricklink. I don't think it would have been uploaded by LEGO. Someone got it from somewhere. It could be one of those confidential early product test or planning pics. Cement truck is 2007 set, not sure if they watermarked confidential back then.

[DrJB]

Your photo is on Bricklink. I don't think it would have been uploaded by LEGO. Someone got it from somewhere. It could be one of those confidential early product test or planning pics. Cement truck is 2007 set, not sure if they watermarked confidential back then.

Yes, the picture is from bricklink (as you can easily find out since it was hot- linked). I guess what you're saying is that it is not necessarily 'official'.

[Faefrost]

It looks like a prototype photo. The drum is not just 3d printed it also looks painted to my eye. And of course Lego uses 3d printing for prototyping. There are documentaries showing them doing it. It's probably an early photo of the set using some temped up prototype parts to generate early marketing and reference materials, when the final production parts were not yet available. The picture got mixed in with the general public marketing materials and Bricklink used it. This sort of thing happens all the time.

[jonty14]

Hi. Where can I find these documentaries? Would be interesting to see.

[Faefrost]

Hi. Where can I find these documentaries? Would be interesting to see.

I think the one I am thinking of is available on Netflix. It shows the development and production of the new German Shepard design. There were also some online videos showing the development of the Minifigs for The Hobbit. All of them talked a bit about 3d prototyping. We've even seen these types of pictures before. Look at any of the pictures that leak out of the early year Toy fairs. The sets and box art Lego shows are often product prototypes and clearly marked as such. When put side by side with the finished products we can see that they are generally just early mock ups using things like existing minifig torso's, occasionally painted parts, swapped out placeholder parts such as headpieces and hair etc. That is likely where this picture came from. It's a very good mocked up photo of the set. Good enough that somebody probably mistook it for the finished production set and released it in a block of public photos.

[Saberwing40k]

This picture looks much too good to be a prototype photo. I'm not discounting the possibility, but I think the grainy texture of the drum is caused by how the photo was taken.

[JakePley]

not sure if they are 3d printing these parts but its quite a cool concept

check out this kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1012641476/carbon-fiber-tiles-the-ultimate-lego-finishing-tou

[DrJB]

not sure if they are 3d printing these parts but its quite a cool concept

check out this kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1012641476/carbon-fiber-tiles-the-ultimate-lego-finishing-tou

apparently now u can kickstart anything ... not my cup of tea.