snowvictim

Help!!!! I'm working on the Studio model of a new build and I can't calculate the angle for the swivel plates in order for them to connect up. Is there some fancy equation for this? It's really annoying because you CAN connect this in real life, but the app is making it impossible.

Thanks for the response! That's what I did, it's just that it doesn't work. I'm trying to have 9 segments between the "arms", which gives me an angle of 10. When I angle each swivel plate at 10 degrees, the outermost swivels don't line up with the studs... So the entire circle would be 40 segments (4 "arm" pieces with 9 segments in between them). That gives 360/40 = 9. When I get each swivel at an angle of 9 degrees the final one doesn't line up with the studs...

Greetings! I have recently took upon myself the task of recreating one of my favourite buildings lost to the ravages of war: St. Alexander's Church in Warsaw, Poland. It's quite an ambitious project (over 20,000 bricks) that I intend to finish by October. Background information: The church was completed in 1825 and was built in the neoclassical style. In the 1890s, the Russians, who occupied Poland, decided to remodel the building architecturally and expand it considerably. The temple was practically intact following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and was almost completely razed to the ground as part of the planned destruction of Warsaw in late 1944 (only one of the bell towers survived). After the war, the church was rebuilt, however in its original form, not the one after the 1890 alteration (probably due to a combination of insufficient funding and the opposition to the Church by the new communist regime). My aim was to rebuild the church as it stood between 1890 and 1944. Notes on the build: Dimensions: the building itself measures 132cm x 76cm x 54cm (the build is situated on a 2x4 grid of 48x48 baseplates) Many people may be annoyed by this, but I decided not to build the interior for two reasons; one is practical, the other is technical. As for practicality, I came up with an idea to insert some LED lighting into the church so that it can be illuminated, which should combine beautifully with the trans-coloured bricks that make up the stained glass windows. Inserting a power source, wiring, lights, controlled, etc. may have been problematic with a completed interior. Regarding technicality, I conducted a lot of photographic research before designing the model in Studio. While pictures of the exterior are not difficult to come by (owing to the fact that the church was one of the architectural crown jewels of pre-war Warsaw), I had only found one of the interior, and the quality of it was insufficient to provide an appropriate representation of the interior. Although written accounts of the interior do exist, I wanted to stay true to the original. Granted, one cannot replicate everything in Lego (especially me, a mediocre builder at best), but I didn't want my imagination to taint the build. Photos of the actual church: (The church after being destroyed. Notice the one surviving bell tower. The bricks you can see in the foreground came from the church and were used to build other buildings for the returning population following their expulsion after the failure of the Warsaw Uprising). Renders: Note: the renders aren't complete, primarily because of technical limitations. I'm running an Intel i7 with a GTX 1080 and even that setup struggles sometimes. Also, the angles of the build make working in Studio annoying at times. Some elements that I wanted to put Studio considers as colliding with others (particularly when it comes to the dome), so I've decided to just do them in real life instead. These include the top of the dome, the roofing adjacent to the dome base, the statues on the roof, and some minor details here and there. The greatest challenge will be the walls of the dome; as you can see they're empty, and I may have to resort to non-Lego means. Building: More to follow! Most of the workpace is dictated by how fast the BrickLink orders arrive at my place.

Progress on the western wall. Unfortunately the seller from whom I ordered 460 tan 1x2 modified bricks with grilles has been taken ill and won't be able to ship my order until sometime next week... I'll probably start working on the rotunda and the dome as they're not connected to the facade.

This project is still alive, folks, although it's been in hibernation for a while now due to a plethora of reasons... Anyway, I'm trying my best to get things moving, there's been quite a breakthrough in the past month. Here are some updates (FYI some of the photos were vertical on my computer, but uploaded horizontally -- no idea how to fix it, so a bit of neck exercise for you folks!):

Apologies for the exorbitantly slow pace of this project, but it's taking some of these orders AGES to get in (took almost a month for a domestic order to come in!!! Went on a massive tirade with the seller). The vital package for the two bell towers came in today, I've managed to build one already. I'm not sure whether I have all the required parts in sufficient quantities to build the second one, might be a bit short on 2x2 tan plates. I'll give it a go, though. So I'm also missing a lot of the 1x1 reddish brown slopes that make the wooden planks, which direct the sounds of the bells downwards. I've had a few in storage so I used whatever I had. The studs beneath the wooden planks between the tile and the modified plates will be filled with the grilled tiles (which I also happen to be missing...). Hoping to get the other tower done by the end of the weekend, if I have the parts.

Update 02.08.2019: Slightly too optimistic about the postal service. I've only received 3 of the 5 orders needed to continue the build, and not the 3 with most of the important parts. Most of what is blocking the the way to progressing with construction is a deficiency of 1x2 Modified Brick with Flutes parts, which are needed for the pilasters, but also the 3x3 Corner Slopes that put a hold to further work on the bell towers (damn shame as I have all the other parts needed for it). Started constructing the main part of the church as well. Also, one of the orders that came in included the support beams I need to build the integrated scaffolding that will hold up the roof, so fingers crossed I can move onto that as soon as I find some 8x8 plates in my storage.

Thanks for the positive comments! The towers on the southern front should be completed by the end of this week, unless there's some unexpected delay in the post. As for the interior, I did leave myself some room to design it later on should I ever feel like it by putting some 2x2 corner bricks instead of regular 1x2 bricks that can serve as anchor points, but I think the sheer complexity of fitting it would overwhelm me. Besides, this thing would probably come out at over 30,000 bricks with the interior and, per studio calculations, it will already weigh around 20kg (~44lbs) without it! Keep an eye out for updates!

Hi! I'm looking to sell my Santa Fe Super Chief set. The set comes with the following: - Santa Fe Super Chief Locomotive (LE) - Santa Fe Super Chief Locomotive - Santa Fe Super Chief Mail Car - Santa Fe Super Chief Baggage Car - Santa Fe Super Chief Restaurant Car - Santa Fe Super Chief Sleeping Car - Santa Fe Super Chief Lounge Car - Spare parts from the wagon sets - Instructions for all the models in excellent condition - Certificate of authenticity for the limited edition model The model comes with the 9V motors. I also have a considerable supply of 9V tracks (both straight and curved) that I'm willing to sell below BL prices. Shipping worldwide via courier. Message me with price offers. Payment via IBAN.

Greetings all. Recently, I have decided to make the painful decision of selling my 9V collection. It hurts a bit to sell all these wonderful things, but for the last year they haven't done much except sit in a drawer. They deserve better than that. Listing: Basically, what I did was took the lowest BrickLink price for any given article and cut a bit more off. I'm not interested in making a massive profit off of these. I'll settle for an even 3,400.00 EUR, shipping costs on me. Trains would be shipped worldwide via FedEx, UPS, DHL, or any courier of your choice available in Poland or the UK (pickup also available in these two countries). Not everything on the pictures is listed, but everything in the picture (LEGO-wise) is included. Additionally, as I'm cleaning the room in which the LEGO are in (it's quite a big room, about 45-50 square meters, and it's filled with stuff so it won't take a short while), I'm more than willing to send free-of-charge anything else I can find from my collection (I'm pretty sure there were about 5 9V motors lying around somewhere). I am also including a folder with this collection. The folder contains instruction booklets in EXCELLENT condition for most of the models. All the instruction booklets for the Santa Fe sets are in there in mint condition, as well as the certificate of authenticity for the limited edition (please note that the other one is not limited edition). The folder also contains all the spare parts from the Santa Fe car sets, so conversions are possible. Feel free to email message me about any inquiries regarding this collection. If you want I can put it up for a private auction on eBay (I'd rather avoid doing so because of the fees). *Note - the Metroliner is counted as 2 sets, but one is incomplete. As you can see from the picture, what I have is the Metroliner and 2 additional cars. The cars came from 2 incomplete Metroliner sets (one contained the engine and the car, the other contained an incomplete engine and the car, only the incomplete engine survived and is seen on the picture). I've basically listed the Metroliner and 2 incomplete sets as 2 complete sets (2 engines, 3 cars). *Note - one of the cargo train locomotives is a custom. I ordered it by accident from BrickLink (didn't read the description). It's a bit shorter than the original, and it doesn't have the undercarriage mechanics, although this is easy to add. It still comes with a working 9V motor.

Yes? No? I'm planning on making the carriages double 24 plates as they're way too short now. But this is the initial concept. I'm more of a Cargo fan though, so I'm not sure if this will be converted into a genuine brick build. But I think it looks nice, maybe I could use some colour rework. My original intention was to have the windows as the 2x2 Transblack Panels, but LDD does not have Transblack as a colour (lol...). Might also change the undercarriage to a dark grey, haven't decided yet. I didn't do the interior since, as I've mentioned, I'll be extending the cars so there's no point at this moment. Tell me what you think. :) Long Carriage Version: I think it looks much better, although the cars are 50 studs long.

Meh, Florida... but amazing train show anyway! Loved the skyscrapers.

Hi everyone! I'd like to show you today the first components of my Winter Village. I myself am a train collector, but I found that the Winter Village sets match the Emerald Night (my favourite Lego set) so well that I have to start a Winter Village dedicated for my 10194. I currently have the Toy Shop, the Post Office, and the Winter Carousel along with a lot of thematic minifigs and one MOC (the Frozen Lake, I bought a beautiful ice-skater minifig and I just had to build an appropriate setting for her). I have the Winter Village Cottage in the post, probably somewhere in Germany by now so that'll be ready in a few days. I'm quite eager to get it since then I'll have enough buildings to being designing a proper layout. I also made a custom train station that I will be assembling in the coming days (2 batches of parts are still being shipped). So here are some photos: I've been messing around with the layout for a while, having had some interesting arrangements of the components I've still reached the conclusion that without the Cottage it won't look nearly as good. Dracula, from the Monster Fighters set I believe, saving his wife. View on Main Street. I think this is my favourite scene from the whole diorama. The girl is so creepy! This is the Frozen Lake MOC. It's nothing amazing, but I wanted to give the Ice Skater a nice setting. That's the train station - still missing a few bits and bobs so I can't start building it yet. Tell me what you think! :)

I'd say buy the old ones first. They get more expensive day by day. It also gives you the possibility of getting your money back - they'll be easier to sell and for more than the currently available ones (fair enough, they cost more). Of course you'll need tracks and other gear for the set up, but I think it's worth it. Buying the new CITY models as an intro to trains is just burning money in my opinion. Of course, people have different opinions.

I power my Emerald Nights via the tender. One is a modified 9V tender that accomodates 2x 9V motors, the other is a PF train motor on the tender. I'd say it's the only way to go, the original powering of the Emerald Night was dreadful... all that torque loss from the gears...

Thanks! I'm building a winter village train station dedicated for the Emerald Night. I'll make a separate topic for that once it's done (parts ordered, over 2000 in total!).

Hi guys! I believe some of you have seen my topic on the 9V modded Emerald Night. Well, this is an update, but since practically the whole thing has changed I decided to dedicate a separate topic to this almost (99.9%) complete model. Well, this is it: I've substituted the 1x1 2/3 slopes and 1x4 tiles on the port where the IR receiver sits in the Power Functions modification for the standard dark green 2x4 curved slopes that come with the locomotive. I've also added a small, barely noticeable 1x2 dark green slope roof next to the headlight. The tender was rebuilt completely to accomodate 2x 9V motors. It is now longer and taller. I've also added the handles, I think they're aesthetically pleasing and fit the model. The coal chunks conceal 2 lead figures that I've put inside the tender to get the appropriate weight down on the motors. There's also a small 1x1 tile with a gauge to indicate loading capacity - just being creative! The train is running three carriages. Two of them are original carriages from the 10194 set (I have two), the last one is a custom built carriage that I will slowly be bringing up to look like the original (at a speed of exactly 2x 4x3 tan windows a week due to their extremely unreasonable price...). It's currently running the standard 4x3 creator windows. I was thinking of getting a custom print on the windows (curtains or a glass pattern), but I've decided not to give up on making it look like the original. As you can see the undercarriage also differs, it's brown. I've already ordered the necessary replacement 2x4 black brick modified (no studs) to get it looking correct. And a small bonus. The reason I'm updating the Emerald Night is because I have decided to build a Winter Village. This small shack was a little experiment to see how the Emerald Night matches with the whole winter theme... ... and, in my opinion, it looks wonderful! Any questions are welcome. Of course leave feedback!

Now power it up! :D

9V. Let's you get more stuff in the interior of the engines. Looks more realistic, rails definitely look much better than the fully plastic ones.

Picture with the locomotive for scale. I've also got this reader on the water container. Don't know what it's for, but it looks good so I put it there!

Definitely works better visually. Technically it works better with 9V, less so in the case of PF as it adds more bricks to pull for the motor. If I were running this PF I'd still make the tender longer. The original just looks like it's been cut in half.

I don't think they have a "fund". Best bet is to inform Moneybookers. If the person hasn't cashed out the payment there's a possibility they can return it. Had a situation like this with one purchase on eBay (not for 200 EUR though). Waited 3 weeks, decided to contact PayPal. They contacted eBay. eBay contacted me. They said that the seller isn't responding so they asked PayPal to give me the money back (it was only around 25 Euro though). Your parcel could also be stuck at customs. I don't know what's the threshold for New Zealand, but if it's below 200 Euro then you might have to go to clearance, pay the tax and get it. But they usually inform you it's there... Could also be the holiday you mentioned. It's only 2 weeks in really and Christmas time is a nightmare for shipping. Alternatively, stuff gets screwed up sometimes. My sister ordered some clothes (women...) from the States, she waited 5 weeks for delivery.

Hi, folks! I recently changed my Emerald Night to 9V. The reason being that I mostly use the 9V system (most of my trains are 9V), and I also don't have any PF/RC track set up. I think it runs better on 9V, although I only had it powered with an M-motor as I don't have an XL motor... Here are the pics! Waiting for passengers at the train station. So majestic... In my opinion this is the most beautiful Lego set released. I was stupid enough to throw it away and I had a lot of problems rebuilding it (as you can see with the "chimney" and lantern). I added the "coal" to the tender to hide the pieces of lead that I use as weights. Obviously the tender is very light and without any additional balast it wouldn't provide the necessary thrust to power this badboy. 9V motor on the tender with an additional train wheel assembly. It looked quite bare without it so I added the extra wheels. I'm expanding the tender anyway so that it will support 2x 9V Motor for additional power. I'm happy with the speed it's going now, it can outrun my Super Chief on a straight track segment, but I don't want to strain the motor. This is my custom "cargo" car. I wanted something similar to the 10173 Holiday Train so I ended up with this. It's a shame I didn't have any 2x4 Light Bluish Gray Curved Slope 2/3 for the roof - got these ordered yesterday, but with Christmas and the holidays I'll probably get them next week earliest... So the black slopes will have to do for now. The undercarriage is the same as on the stock car, but I made it in reddish brown to match the barriers. Back view. I got another car ordered but it's parted. The prices for original set ones were ridiculous - especially the tan windows. 10 Tan Windows cost 54 Euros!!! I'll just use the non-train ones. Also, I don't have the counterparts (reddish brown bricks with "LRTS" and "First" on them), but I don't think that's much of a problem. Mind you, the parted car costs a quarter of the original one. Scam... Hope you liked it!

Replaced the roof (missing 1 light bluish grey slope): Added a "lamp post":

Orient Express *crosses fingers*