Vee

I am assembling my Haunted House, almost done. I am very pleased with the set, beautiful, and with my special 32x32 base that I have developed for it, it looks even better. But, this thread is not about the HH itself but about what happened while building it. When my daughter opened the box, sealed and bought from Lego itself (S@H), one of the plastic bags, a #3 one, was ripped, the pieces scattered inside the box. The box was pristine, so I thought: this should be no problem. Upon assembling the set, we, that had the ripped #3 bag always apart from the rest, just in case, found a missing piece, a 2x4 black plate (used on top of the windows in the set) that was supposed to be in that bag. First time ever I find a missing piece in a new Lego set. Well, I go to the Lego website, Bricks and Pieces, and I want to order the missing piece. Fortunately, I had one, just one, from my loose parts, and I was able to proceed with the build. But I wanted my piece from Lego anyway! Guess what? The piece is SOLD OUT! I was like, WHAT? A simple black 2x4 plate is sold out!!!??? Makes no sense (again... Lego never makes sense...). Well, I added it to the list and ordered it. They have to have it! Then I go to Pick a Brick and look for the same part, same code, 302026, and guess what? you guessed right, it is there, available, ready to sell! Then, some many hours later, I get an email from Lego Customer Support: Please, tell me that Lego is NOT trying to drive me crazy! :laugh:

^^^^^^^^^^^ 200% Agreed! :laugh:

As an always half-empty glass Lego fan I would say that they (TLG) wait until they have like 7 or 8 sets left and then they make the sale, just to tease those that paid a lot more...

I don't think so. If you are a programmer you should know that a flag (true/false) in a database for an item would be enough to define if that item has to be show or not and an application would do it, no human interaction needed except for setting the flag (again, a true of false would suffice). It is actually pretty simple programmatically speaking. These days, you program a web page, you don't write it manually.

It doesn't matter in which side you drive, what matters is that EVERYONE must choose the same side to drive.

Sorry if I ask too many questions but there are so many things regarding Lego that puzzles me that I can't help but ask for others' opinions to try to make sense out of them. My next Lego puzzle is: why Lego online shop keep showing in its website sets that are "sold out" and I'd say with a 99.99% probability of ever coming back? The above is just a sample from the site, there are lots more. I know that a few "sold out" items may make a come back but do you really believe that the ones above will ever come back? They are not supposed to, right?, so why keep showing them? And also I believe there is some bug in Lego S@H website because it has been showing some "Sale prices" for the sold out items that I believe never really happened, like the 10230 set @ $40, did it really sell at this price at some point? (there are more of these very low suspicious sold out sale prices in the website).

Thanks for all your thoughts. It ended up selling for almost 300.

I also had never heard of Farnsworth, Robie House and Fallingwater before Lego. And I did buy Farnsworth. And I _had_ heard and seen the Marina Bay Sands before Lego. Well, I am not American, was not raised here, so that may explain my ignorance on these "landmarks".

I am not, as a principle of life, until something gives me reason to be, then, for this something, I will mostly ever be. I collect them because I like them and as I said, I accept Lego as it is, for now, despite having strong reserves against their business model and all that is bad that comes with it. In other words, I don't trust Lego, but I like their toys enough to let it go.

Maybe the solution is simple. Have our Lego pieces, parts and sets stored, built, played and displayed only in an eternally controlled temperature and humidity room with air purification and no windows to avoid direct sunlight? Don't forget to wash your hands with neutral soap before handling them... This is a very upset problem. I had convinced my wife to let me buy Legos (she _is_ the boss here! ) by selling the idea that we were buying our future grandchildren their toys...

I respectfully do not agree with the "not well known" argument. For me, it is all about being a beautiful set or not, it does not matter what it represents. For instance, Parisian Restaurant, it doesn't matter that it is not a famous French restaurant, it is a set, it is beautiful, it is part of the theme, it fits well the theme, people (that agrees with me, that it is beautiful) will want it. I saw an Architecture set, some Korean or Asian thing that I had never heard of before, instantly I got hooked to its beauty, read Wikipedia about the landmark and it would be in my wish list (but it is retired and I don't even know if it was available in the US). How many times have you discovered some new beautiful place in this big Earth that upon seeing it the first time you already want to visit it (if you had the resources $$$)? It is the same with Lego. Agreed. With Lego, it is better never to try to explain. Accept it or leave it.

I already have 1/33 million parts... :laugh:

Indeed. If sent to Brazil, it is only 60% of import taxes calculated over the whole value (shipping included) plus 18% VAT.

I have 2/3 of my HH built and I saw an unforeseen issue, as we were building it. The weight! I then have just now placed the 2/3-ready HH on top of my base to test it. It fit perfectly but my worry is that when the HH is on top of the base, when you swing the back half to open the house, all that weight could tip the house, since it sits on flat tiles with just four studs holding/positioning it in place. The good news is that it doesn't but then I saw another issue: when the back half is opened, its weight is supported basically only by the hinges in the chimney. When laying in a flat floor as designed, the weight would be distributed on the floor and the hinges are not under burden, but with the whole house suspended, the hinges have to hold a lot of extra weight and some strong "contortionist forces" (dunno how to say it better in English, sorry). I don't think they are designed for that. Right now, with 2/3 of the house ready, the hinges seem to hold it ok, but I can see the back half gets a little tilted due to its weight, when opened. I cannot figure out a good solution. Have thought of some but none is practical; the presence of the base plate complicates the matter due to its odd thickness. But I did find a solution! The little piece below: It is a support with hopefully the same height of the base + baseplate. When you open the house, you just insert it manually at any good position between the back half floor of the house and the surface below. Just one of it, in the right place, is good enough. I have tested it. And it can be stored inside the house itself, pretending to be something that I have not yet figured... By the way, my base does not allow the house to open 180 degrees. This is by design, since the room that I have between the HH and the neighboring building would not allow it anyway. To allow the 180 turn, you just need to remove a few 1x1 slopes. I will post a picture of the whole thing once the HH is completed.

It includes shipping but only if delivery is to the US. He sends to other countries but then it is not free. I am curious to see the final price, shouldn't go too much higher than what it already is.

Is it bad to have good smelling things around Lego parts? I like good smells so my "office" has some special soaps around and they are always smelling good. Is this bad for Lego? Someone wrote here that scents may contribute to this cracking problem.

I saw the set yesterday, plenty, available in the Lego store near here (Tysons Corner, VA). $200 + tax. It is also available for VIP's at S@H. Tempting...

Summing it all up, it is a "bug" and Lego should be able to fix it, considering how much they charge us.

Damn it! You people just showed me the dead pixels in my monitor that I was not aware of, now my eyes will always see them... Ok, this is just a parallel. The point is that I didn't know that Lego pieces (can) crack by itself, with no good reason. All I read is that Lego is expensive because it is super high quality, super high precision, super durable and, again, super high price, and this is the first time I read about the bricks cracking. I am now worried. I am new as an AFOL so that explains why I never found a cracked piece. It helps that, unaware of the problem, I never even thought about looking for cracks; maybe I have some pieces, some don't connect too well anymore, but I just thought it was normal, now I will look for the cracks and as the old book says, "seek and you shall find"! What worries me is that I used to collect Swarovski crystals, my wife and I used to love them, and, as it happens with Lego, they are expensive. We thought that they would last forever, being crystal, but one day I find that a piece of one of our Fabulous Creatures had fallen out, it just fell out. I visited a store and complained. I was told that excessive dry season could make the glue that holds the crystals parts together to fail with time but Swarovski, for the lifetime of any of their product, would fix them for free. And they did, they fixed it. Anyway, this event changed our vision of Swarovski and we never bought any more Swarovski ever since, it is been now more than 10 years. And we now see them in display, they are beautiful but it lacks something now and we don't feel the need to buy them anymore. The End. I am afraid that if I start finding cracked pieces in my expensive well-taken-care-of Legos, this will be also The End for me. Well, I always look at the bright side, money will be saved, and this is good!

Whoa, that's a nice big part! I didn't even know it existed. The HH looks cool on top of it. You could make a dungeon in that lower center, I guess... I am not a good builder too, it is tough to have creativity! I consider myself an "aggregator": I look for ideas on the internet and then I "aggregate" them into what I am doing...

Thank you all for the kind words. This house, with its extended area of 48x40, is the "last house at the end of the street" in my layout. The "street" is an area equivalent to 16 studs in front of all the modular buildings (that are a single row) where I can place some vehicles, etc, (but no baseplates are used, just like in front of the HH). The 8-stud wide extra area to the side of the HH exists because I just had this little bit of space left and it fit well with the idea of placing the HH on top of a small "hill". Here is a pic of my layout. I still have not added the Parisian Restaurant to its designated space. This is all the space I have, there is nothing left to expand. An another: Oh, and also I needed to have the HH a little to the right to allow for the swinging (opening it), although this is only theoretical since I don't play and will not open it.

I have a masterplan for my modular buildings and it uses the haunted house (HH) along with the modular buildings (MB). But the HH does not have a baseplate so it does not fit well. Also, it opens by swinging, differently from the MB - the HH is not modular!. So my solution was to place it on a corner (my layout is a mere row of the buildings, I don't have the space for something else) with a little gap between it and the next building and ... a baseplate that would allow the swinging! Being kind of a purist, I don't like to change a set, so what I did was to add stuff. The HH itself will be exactly as it is supposed to be, no modification except for the fence that was expanded. The HH will sit atop this base that I created (with a little help from my daughter). It was all created in LDD then later made into real bricks. I have two pictures only to show and the HH is not yet assembled. And please understand that I am an unexperienced mod'er/moc'er. I started creating with Lego two months ago. From the back From the front Question: how do I put a thumbnail of a picture here so that when I click it it will open the full picture in another tab or window? The tree and the car are from the Werewolf set. I am/was too lazy/beginner to design a nice tree. And Major Quinton actually is the owner of the house, He needs to take better care of it... This is how it will look like when with the house on top: Screen 1 Screen 2

On top of my bricklinked Ole Kirk's House that already has some landscape around. It is a "replacement" for the original sticker that I will never have.

I have a whole thread already discussing what I am trying to do (mostly with one other person...) but ultimately I am trying to add a light brick to an Ole Kirk's House. The tan bricks you see in the LXF file stand for the light brick. I believe what I have is ok but I don't understand why there is a thin 2M liftarm (lever) with two crosses and no thin 2M liftarm with two circular holes. There is only the thick 2M liftarm (beam) with two circular holes, makes no sense to me but since I am a rookie regarding Technic, I figured that I may be going the wrong route.

With real parts...