chelman

The method is one of the oldest tricks in the books. Having managed a small hardware retail outlet during my college years I can tell you that it happens a lot. As to the stealing itself it often has little to do with money. Some people are compulsive thieves and do it for the thrill.

Wow. I never knew such a part existed!!! I guess that a rack and pinion mechanism using this part could be made self locking by gearing down a low torque input. The pinion will require a lot of torque to allow the portcullis to fall and will to all intents 'lock' the portcullis in the up position. The downside is that in such a case I would really need to PF the mechanism since it will require a lot of turns to move the portcullis and my four year old might not want to turn the knob 30 times. ;) The reason I was opting for a wormgear setup is that I could reverse the torque i.e. high(er) input torque and few revolutions would generate a low torque but a lot of spinning on the output. I figure that the low torque on the output should still be enough to raise the grate which isn't all that heavy. The advantage is that it will work fine with a manual setup and should I want to PF it, I just need to reverse the gearing. I hope this is kind of clear and that I'm not missing something obvious here. :DD The self-locking is an important feature to me. I don't want no ratchet-doohickeys locking the cogs for the little'un's sake and the space limitations rule out any form of a mechanical liftarm self-lock mechanism. I know I'm being picky. :DDD Anyway, thanks for the input!! I'll order some of these and will have a go at both. 1. Rack and pinion with the specialized piece 2. Wormgear on a frame as per my OP. Will keep you guys posted, should anyone actually be interested. ;)

So I'm working on a gatehouse/tower combo. The idea is that the thing will have a mechanized portcullis and drawbridge. While making a drawbridge is quite easy and there are several methods I do seem to have trouble with making the portcullis go up and down. Obviously I don't want to have a rinky dinky portcullis on a winch. That's easy and not what I'm looking for. What I want to achieve is a portcullis that has racks alongside and is winched up with a wormgear, to ensure that it goes up and down straight there will be an additional transaxle transferring the rotating motion to the other side of the cullis. This mechanism has a great benefit in that it's self locking (the wormgear ensures that). The downside is the gearing, since it requires a lot of revolutions but that's not an issue. As soon as the main mechanism is done I will transfer the operation under the landscaping into a shed or some other auxiliary building which will house a gearbox to gear it up. So what's the problem you ask? Well, while such a construction is fairly easy to build using technic exclusively it's a bit harder to mount in System. The problem I face is that it's immensely hard to lock the portcullis in the vertical plane. The groove is either to narrow for the cullis + rack to fit in or it is to wide which means that it slips the gear. Has anyone ever tried doing this? I've searched a lot of fora and websites on mechanizing castle features but I have to say that this is one topic that is quite poorly covered everywhere. Any help or ideas are most welcome. P.S. While writing this I came up with the idea to mount the portcullis on axles going through one of these little fellas: Actually that sounds like neat idea, I'll get right to it. :DD Any input is still highly welcome though!!! Thanx in advance!

Way to go! One of the few remaining drivers' cars on the market! I'm counting down the days till next month when I'll trade in my trusty E60 for an F10. I'm eyeing a 1980s 635 as well but since the F10 will put a bit of a dent in the family finances it'll have to wait. ;)

Legoinig doesn't really work in English. In Dutch it's fine, though I wouldn't use it myself. There are more examples of turning nouns into verbs in Dutch, mind you, you have those in English as well but not quite as common and not quite as acceptable for neologisms. Saying: "I'm going beering with my friends." sounds stupid in English. Saying: "Ik ga pilsen met mijn maten." sounds OK in Cloggie. ;-)

Hmmm...the picture on Brickset clearly shows that piece but in orange. Then again this video review doesn't include the piece... Unfortunately the 10226 pics where the original poster found the piece do not display that piece. Brickset entry for 10226.

Me likey! Very much! I doubt you will convince Lego though. I have better odds at going on a wild binge with Pussy Galore tonight than Lego releasing a Bond-themed set. ;) -What's Bond doing? -I think he's attempting re-entry, sir! ;-) Double entendres FTW!

Thanks!!!

Well, I for one think that it's not a toy company's responsibility to push a social or political agenda. And much the same as they don't include religious or politicized military themes, they shouldn't include gay themes. Regardless of where one may stand on the issue the simple fact remains that it is a controversial one and potentially offensive to some, just as a religious theme may be offensive to some. Personally I wouldn't be offended by either a religious set or a gay set in essence but I certainly would NOT want a toy company molding the mind of my kids to become an adherent of Den Danske Folkekirke or of same sex couples. Should I wish my child to become an adherent of those....then it's MY role and not Lego's. The cool thing about Lego is that you can do whatever you want with it. If you want, the Guarded Inn maiden can be the knight's sister, wife or lover. If you want you can have the knight boinking the Black Falcon archer. It's up to you as a parent and not Lego. And on a final note I don't believe that sexuality is really a theme that should be explored by toys aimed at Lego's key demographic. But again, if you want to....there's absolutely nothing stopping you. This is the beauty of the system, it doesn't NEED to push any agenda, whether it be right or wrong, it lets YOU decide.

Generally licensed themes should IMHO be aimed at the older Lego demographic say 9+. First off I think that licensed sets for the youngest kids shouldn't be licensed at all. Kids get enough mass media brainwashing as it is, let them develop their own imaginations first, before being constrained by mass media output. Kids that are 9-10 and older can already make their own choices as to what they like and I guess that's where I would put the borderline. So I would definitely stay clear of 'kiddie' licenses in both the Duplo and Sytem lines. Additionally I would hope that if and when they license that Lego would use its tremendous market(ing) power to promote themes other than the mainstream Disneyfied stuff and show kids that things that may have only appeared in book form can also be fun and that things don't have to be new and trendy to be cool. It's a challenge but one that does fit with their corporate mission so I would like to see a move in that direction. Our kids are dumbed down by plummeting educational standards...why couldn't the kids' most favourite toy try and offest the dumbing down a little? That's really my biggest quip with the Ninjago theme. I saw a couple of episodes of the show with my little'un and found them to be very disappointing. A lot of eyecandy and little substance. The whole theme is based around being 'cool'. I understand that Lego can't forgego such themes alltogether, after all they're in the business of peddling little pieces of ABS...it would be nice to see a counterbalance there, however. That's why a Verne theme or a mythology and/or ancient history theme might be great. That's why it would be cool to see a theme revolving around age old and wise fairytales. All of these can be made appealing to today's kids, while also bearing some added value beyond the toy aspect. Damn, Vertigo's Fables are one their bestselling titles.... Additional benefit: even though these are 'licensed' themes in that they base on earlier works, they are in fact mostly PD. ;-)

Good stuff! I would have added an additional picture of the dude kicking the mugger's face in. ....but that would require breaking a minifig head. ;-)

I bought a big tub of used Lego and found this thingie there: Anybody have an idea??

I don't know if this is a quality issue or just my memory playing tricks on me. I have a couple of treads from 7248 : Digger (Town). In my memory they were smooth to the touch. I just unpacked them from storage and they seem to be rough and 'dried out'. Now rubber tends to deteriorate over time but in this case I'm not sure whether it's my memory playing tricks on me or whether the treads did indeed deteriorate. There are no discernible cracks and the treads can be fitted properly.... Anyone have any ideas as to how the new treads looked and felt?

I would contend that saying Legos does indeed sound strange and there are probably even sound linguistic reasons why this may be so. On the other hand I wouldn't get to histerical about it. It's a brand name and as such not everybody can be expected to know exactly what rules govern its declination. This same phenomenon occurs in relation to other brands. For example if you go out and buy two cars from BMW...did you just buy two BMWs? Did you buy two cars manufactured by the BMW company? This also depends on the language. In Polish for that matter there is no standard way of pluralizing BMW but you can speak of two Toyotas. In case of Lego it is common to say bricks or Lego bricks because that's the way the language works. I'm sure there are several such intricacies in other languages as well. If you realize that the internet Lego community is pretty international, it shouldn't come as a surprise that some people will use Legos. I wouldn't really make a fuss out of it. Also bear in mind that I'm sure that there are several niche hobbies and areas of expertise which also have their own particular jargon and vocabulary. I'm sure EB AFOLs would not really care to be called ignorant just because they don't know the correct naming convention related to bookbinding or carpentry. ;-) As to the trademark and the appeal to not generically apply the term Lego to all of them...that's outright absurd. No, hang on...it's not absurd that Lego makes such an appeal. It's an action that they NEED to take, should they ever need to document the fact that they did attempt to protect a trademark. It's similar to Coca Cola employing people whose job it is to travel around the country to order Coke in bars and restuarants and verify whether they get Coca Cola and not Pepsi or another brand. It is absurd, however, to expect that consumers will undertake to protect a trademark. They have absolutely no responsibility in the matter. That lies solely with the company. And since my last name is not Kristiansen and I haven't heard IPO rumours I for one don't intend to undertake actions to protect their trademark. And so I will play with my Lego and not my Lego bricks. ;-) In reality since the brand is evidently active and Lego does indeed undertake actions to protect the trademark, no court will ever rule against them and state that it has become a generic word that can be used by anyone. Compare this to the famous case of Xerox where they did NOT undertake action to protect the trademark. I wouldn't worry about it. The last things is the patents. I for one am glad that all of the patents ran out and that they lost against MegaBloks when they wanted to protect the studded appearance as a trademark. The main reason is that patents (and all other IP related rights) in their *current* form simply thwart innovation and competition (i'm talking more general here, not only referring to Lego). That's a long discussion and this probably is not its place but it's something that becomes ever more evident. The second, specifically Lego-related reason is that competition from MegaBloks, Cobi et al. means that Lego has to do their best. They have to be even more cautious of the quality of the pieces and the designs and have to undertake ever more action to strengthen their brand. In the end this is always beneficial to the consumer who buys the stuff. Additional competition never hurt anyone. In my view Lego still succeeds in this, I do believe that the quality of the material and the designs is still superior to any product on the market. The day that Cobi or MB will surpass them in these areas is the day I will switch brands....

While waiting for my storage bins and boxes to arrive I started doing a rough sort of some of my old stuff. In doing so I reused my old 722 and 733 boxes as bins for small pieces. ;-)