Amiko

Hi. Thought I'd shove up my very first MOC / MOD. It's heavily influenced by the Daily Bugle and I did it as an exercise to see if I was capable of performing the strange mathematics / engineering / voodoo necessary to wrangle a modular out of an existing set. I chose to do a news building first as I have a (hardly updated) blog that mirrors the 'LEGO NEWS' 2x2 tile in terms of design, so making the office in which the blog is written added to the fun. Inside is a bit sparse to be frank - the bottom floor is supposed to be a chilled, corporate looking, swish lobby in which members of the public can grab a coffee and be interviewed for the paper. A flight of stairs leads to the white walled workhouse, in which the poorly paid staff slave away. Overlooking this is a mezzanine level, where the editor in chief gets to bark at his staff from above. A ladder leads from there onto the split level roof, just in case the place bursts into flames or whatnot! (the place is, after all, a hotbed of activity). I did have a better picture of the front of the building but the windows were filthy... lol I'll find some better photos if there's any interest in the project. Overall, it was great fun to do and I'm now hooked on making modulars. PS - hope I've got the posting of images correct in terms of netiquette here... Lego News Building - Front by Nova_Amiko, on Flickr Lego News Building - Rear by Nova_Amiko, on Flickr

Excellent! A lot neater than my idea. DrSpock, I tried using the second channel previously but I didn't like the dimming. Am I missing an obvious way to switch on and off without dimming ?

Thank you so much for the solution! I so need this! I have a town layout surrounded by a railway line and the only way I can join the cargo train hard to the main town is across a curve. I spotted this thread while browsing and it could help to make my town look a little more realistic. Huge thanks!

I've been grabbing quite a few Lego train sets over the last couple of years (although my time has been spent on other themes, so I'm no expert.) My experience of the flexitrack is that it's useful to 'cheat' corners, adjust lengths and generally manage to connect awkward tracks that have been fudged to fit around this, that and the other. Used as tools, they're invaluable, but they're no replacement for curved track - they're a different tool altogether. I've found that, over a couple of years of grabbing bigger train sets cheap, I've gathered enough curves to create complex track layouts without having to resort to bricklink, and without having to overuse flexis in their place. As for flexis being noisy, I find it kind of cool but that's just me enjoying a bit of 'clicketty clack' at certain points in the circuit.

Fantastic. This has given me a few ideas for my own station layout. Thanks.

Thanks for the inspiration DrSpock... I decided to go for it myself and install lights thanks to your work here. I ended up placing them in the same place, then taking the wiring around and into the side of the train at the first opportunity (replacing the 1x3 blue bricks at the side with 1x2 bricks and a couple of 1x1 blue plates just to neaten things off where the wiring went in). The rest of the wire ran through easily under the driver's seating and into the main body of the engine. Because I wanted the lights permanently on whenever the engine is switched on, I had to place the relevant power connection on top of the one that's already plugged in on the battery pack. This meant that, in order to keep the roof flush, I had to reduce the platform upon which the battery pack sits. I did that by replacing the technic bricks and modified white 4x4 tiles with 1x10 (or 1x12- sorry... Can't remember off hand) plates, stacked two high. The wires juuust squeeze underneath if you're careful and neat. I then had to add two extra white 2x2 plates to the underside of the switch mechanism, in order for it to still work. All in all, I'm very happy. It's a bit more complicated than lighting the red high speed train but satisfactory enough for me. Will try to lost some pics to show what I did, although I have no idea how you achieved it, DrSpock. Your wiring looks more streamlined..'

Hi. I've recently given up resisting and have started buying modular buildings, which has led to a small town's worth of buildings that is already too big for my current furniture. It looks like I've been sucked into the project and am now looking for suitable ways to display the town. I have a fair bit of room but little idea of what other town planners use to put their streets on. I'm hoping to make more room for tables by storing my Lego underneath in the plastic tubs / drawers that currently line one wall of my room. What does everyone else use in the way of tables ? Where's a good place to start looking ? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I'm looking forward to showing everyone pics of the town as and when I can display it.

Thanks again for more ideas. I've been looking into IKEA solutions as they're cheap, relatively near to me and global enough to have some online ideas floating around concerning Lego. Lack tables used to be exactly 2 32x32 baseplates wide / deep and could therefore be used in a modular fashion to design, then expand a town. The trouble is, IKEA appear to have changed the dimensions. Has anyone had experience of the smaller Lack tables recently ? They're only five pounds each, so if they're still the right size then I think they would at least get me going for under fifty quid.

Wow! Your town centre square with the grassy area is brilliant and caught my eye while I was browsing for layout inspiration. Terrific work!

This is a brilliant and informative start everyone. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll have a search and a think using your ideas as a starting point. If I find anything interesting or useful, I'll post back here. It sounds like I might have to look into making my own ... scary, as wood doesn't quite fit together as easily as LEGO... lol. Thanks again.

I missed out on the original but picked up the new one this time around, as it is my only current opportunity to own a barge. I haven't built it yet so this review has been great fun to read - I now realise that this set isn't the disaster that I first thought. There seem to be quite a few nice touches and the figures are certainly better in the new version. Thanks for the review!

I'm predicting that we'll get Casey and Karaii at least... I'm also hoping that we'll get a decent TCRI set, as this hasn't really been exploited by LEGO so far. As for 'proper' turtles, I'd love to get a set of originals with all red bandanas - I could always paint up some spares from the Nick range I guess... I'm also keeping my eye out in the Chima range, in the hope that they'll come up with a suitable Triceraton head. ;)

I'm loving these sets. Having started with the "Kraang / Lair / Shredder Bike" combo to get all the turtles, I crumbled really easily and have committed to getting the lot. Furthermore, it spurred me on to grab the original comic books, the 80s cartoon, the IDW graphic novel reboots etc etc. Oh... and DVDs from the series that the LEGO is based on... lol I'm really hoping that the success of the series encourages LEGO to keep bringing sets out - a Casey Jones is an absolute MUST HAVE and I could easily see a set with him and Raph (with new face perhaps). Spoilers are beginning to ooze out (see what I did there... heheheheh) on new season 2 characters and there's a lot to go on as long as wave one of the LEGO is a success. Having been doing a lot of recent merchandise buying across the whole of 'Turtledom', I can say that there appears to be a lot of stuff, a lot of interest and a lot of momentum when it comes to TMNT at the moment, which is surely a good thing for the LEGO line. I'm crossing my fingers.

Lovely bridge and a great video.

I absolutely love the DK Lego books so this is a must for me! I love flicking through with my kids and enjoying the artwork. It does mean that I'll pine for all the minifigs that I've missed though - I've only just started to grab a few for my town.

Wow Tedbeard... those tents in your big pic are absolutely brilliant... are they from a set that I've not heard of or are they home designed ? I'm loving everyone's backgrounds... really good stuff.

Hi, I'm trying to set up a postal system within my family city for a bit of Christmas fun and I was wondering what the cheapest way to get stickers would be - particularly for the mail boxes... There don't appear to be any mail based sets on the horizon and everything else seems to have been discontinued. Are LEGO fairly amenable to requests for spare sticker sheets and, if so, how would I go about begging 'em for one ? Does anyone know what the most recent mail based set was that came with stickers for mail boxes ? Massive thanks for any help you can give me... my town needs your genius or we can't send letters to minifig santa! lol