Splat

There are some really nice little ideas in there.

That was probably the hardest part, and took about 50% of the whole build time. Through the outer bag, I held onto one side of the smaller inner bag with the alien head in it, then using my other hand I tried to push/squeeze the alien head to the other side of the small bag, until it ripped through the inner bag. Another thing that made this difficult is that the inner bag is made of that stretchy plastic, so it didn't just tear open, I had to spend a lot of time to get it to stretch open. As hard as that was, it still pales in comparison to actually applying stickers to a bag build.

To me, this looks like the Technic, Liftarm 1 x 3 with 2 Axle Holes and Pin / Crank (in black) I gave this challenge a go too, but ran out of time, and there was just too much I couldn't work out, so I was taking too many 'guesses'.

Well, I wasn't planning on spending any more on Lego this year, but I just ordered the 10212 UCS Imperial Shuttle from Amazon.it too. And because Amazon.it seems to have the cheapest price on the 8043 Motorised Excavator at the moment (EUR 130.14), I bought another one of them too. And two 8081 Extreme Cruisers (EUR 42.23 each). I need the treads, PF stuff, and black panels for a MOC I'm planning - I have to justify it somehow don't I? Total cost EUR 373.21 = about AU$490, plus another 3% credit card fees. And to think that I only just paid off the credit card from last months Amazon.fr orders

This looks great. Very smoooooth

Hi David, I motorised my (reverse engineered) copy of the 8081, and while I didn't have to completely rebuild it, some modifications to the frame did have to be made. You can check out some pics in my BrickShelf gallery. I did find that there was quite a bit of movement in the gears and steering links though, so the steering was a bit vague, and there is no return to centre. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are after, but hopefully it helps a bit.

Hi AussieJimbo, I'm glad you like my AC bag build It is now December, so I have started to send each days 7958 Star Wars Advent Calendar 2011 pieces to my brother, one day at a time (I live in Melbourne, but my brother is in Sydney). As Australia Post doesn't work on weekends, I won't have enough days before Christmas to send all the little bags of pieces, so I will send everything except the minifigures (which I will give to him on Christmas Day), and I have changed the order around a little bit to accommodate this. I set him the challenge as follows (remembering that I'm not sending him the instructions with the pieces): If you build something easily recognisable using 90% of the pieces, you get 10 points. You can get bonus points if you: Use 100% of the pieces: +1 point Match the official Lego model (without cheating): +2 points Build the model without opening the bag: +3 points Build the model while blind-folded: +4 points Build the model one handed: +5 points A maximum of 25 points are available each day. The instructions for the official Lego model will be sent to you tomorrow. As you can see, I've thrown in a few twists to the classic bag building technique My brother isn't an AFOL, but we grew up playing with Lego together, and I know he still likes to play with it when he can. I'm not sure if he is going to send me updates, but when I see him at Christmas I'll see what he has come up with. Hopefully he will have a bit of fun with this. The only problem is that the packaging and stamps are costing just as much as the Lego set did

Perhaps the information on Philo's site might help you: http://www.philohome.com/pf/pf.htm (look about 2/3 down that page) It looks like the two outside wires provide the +9V and 0V (ground) lines.

Click the pic to enlarge. Some possible titles: Darth Vader was begining to regret inviting the family over for Christmas dinner Will Han shoot first? Even the mice can feel the tension at the dinner table this Christmas Sorry Pandora, I know this scene is similar to yours, but I hope it is different enough

I used this coupon last night at the Northland (Vic) TRU and can confirm it does work. I picked up eight smaller sets as Christmas presents for some friend's kids and the Berry Street Kids Charity Christmas Appeal. Edit: I used a printout. The girl at the cash register had no problem scanning it, and no questions asked, just 30% off.

While on a business trip back in October, I stopped in at the NYC Lego store. Some unique things that they had were some t-shirts (most seemed kids sized, but they might have had adult ones too - I didn't really look too hard), a keyring with a New York branded minifig, a fridge magnet with a New York branded minifig (the minifig is glued to the magnet), a small poly bag set of Brickley (40019), and a larger Brickley set (3300001). FYI, Brickley is the big dragon/serpent/Loch Ness Monster type thing that is snaking it's way around the roof of the NYC store. I didn't have too much time to look around, so I didn't notice if there was anything else. Hopefully others that had a bit more time there can help out too...

For anyone after the 'Hard to Find' 10155 Maersk Container Ship, it looks like Lego S@H has it on sale. Original price AU$169.99, sale price AU$118.99. That's a saving of $51, or 30%. The only thing is that it is out of stock, wtih the expected ship date of 17 Dec 2011, and you would have to pay the Lego shipping costs (for this set, it would be AU$35 for standard shipping, AU$80 for express). Link

Nice work on your 31st 8271 Alternate. I love how his head looks left and right as he rides, and the colour combination is great - yellow for the trike, grey for the rider.

Astrodiddy (on the Whirlpool forums), the guy that created the ShipsToAustralia website, has also created another site just for Lego that is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.fr: www.brickguru.com.au I guess that this makes my little spreadsheet look a bit superfluous, but I'm ok with that

I haven't confirmed if all of these sets can be shipped to Australia. To confirm that they can be shipped you'd have to add them to your cart and go part way through the check out process. All of these sets are sold by Amazon though, not third party sellers, which seems to increase the chances that they can be shipped to Australia. I have updated my post above accordingly.

I was just doing some research on the prices of some Lego sets on Amazon.fr and Amazon.co.uk compared to the Australian prices, and I thought that I would share my results for anyone that is interested: Click the image to enlarge. Some things to note: I can't guarantee that I didn't make any mistakes These are just a handful of the Lego sets available (the ones I am interested in), displayed in Set Number order These are the prices as displayed on the Amazon websites today. Taxes will be removed from these prices during the checkout process; about 19.6% for France, 20% for UK All of these sets are being sold by Amazon, not third party sellers, which increases the chance that they can be shipped to Australia No shipping costs have been included, and I haven't confirmed that all sets can be shipped to Australia or not Currency conversions fluctuate and may change, and the AUD price doesn't include credit card fees, etc. Anyway, hopefully someone finds this info useful.

I just got a shipment from an Ebay seller (Buy It Now from a US seller, but with free shipping to Australia). 2 x 2855028 Exclusive Spaceman Magnet (one for the fridge, one to keep MISB) 6 x 30141 Alien Conquest Jetpack (to add to my slowly growing Alien Conquest army)

DLuders, thanks for posting my videos (slfroden is my alias on YouTube, BrickShelf, Flickr, etc). You already posted one of these videos before, but I guess it is hard for you to remember every single thing you post... You are correct. It all comes down to resistance. The rubber belt adds resistance to one side of the differential, but in the video that I made, the rubber belt didn't provide enough resistance. It is easy to fix by either using a smaller belt, or adding a twist into the rubber belt (like in the second video). You want to be careful not to add too much resistance though, otherwise you might strain the motor or break the 12T bevel gears in the differential while trying to overcome this resistance. It was just a proof of concept, and I haven't actually used this technique in a MOC yet.

In addition to the fantastic gearbox, engine and motor placement, and overall styling of this Mini, I like that the steering wheel is on the right, and that it has Ackermann steering. Nice work

Hi Lone Ranger, welcome to the forums

For any information on Sariel's creations, I suggest you visit his website sariel.pl. He documents most of his work, and has lots of details, photos, and usually a video too. For his Chainsaw, he states the following: The blade is basically a 1 stud thick layer of bricks. On the tip of it, there is a 40t gear with no apparent means of support. Between it and the blade, there are two freely rotating 8t gears that let the 40t gear roll on them. The 40t gear is pushed against the 8t gears by the chain – so basically the whole blade is kept together by the tightness of the chain.

My 10188 Star Wars Death Star and 10193 Medieval Market Village got delivered to my workplace yesterday. I took the Death Star home, and built half of it last night. It's been a while since I've built with System bricks (I normally collect Technic), but I'm enjoying the build so far. I'll take the Medieval Market Village home with me tonight, and finish building them both over the weekend if I have time.

I wasn't 100% sure about this when I wrote it as don't have a PO Box myself, but this is good to know. My latest shipment from Amazon.fr just arrived It came in two separate boxes, but both were delivered at the same time: Ordered @6pm on the 30th of October, arrived @4pm on the 3rd of November via UPS, less than 4 days later (express shipping option). As you can see in the pics above, the outer boxes hardly had a scratch on them, which meant that the inner Lego boxes are as good as they were when Amazon.fr put them in. There is one slight scratch across the front of the Death Star box, but I suppose this would be considered normal shelf wear. Most likely it was like that when Amazon packed it, and not UPS's fault, and it's not a big deal to me. Definitely a LOT better than some others have received from other overseas suppliers (link). I can't really fault either Amazon.fr or UPS in this case. But now I have the same dilemma as last time, how do I get these boxes from work to home on public transport

Okay, here's the situation: Amazon.fr does ship to Australia, as does Amazon.co.uk, but... they won't ship everything. When ordering on the Amazon sites, there are items that are sold by Amazon themselves, and then there are items sold by other 3rd party shops that happen to list their items on the Amazon sites. I'm not sure if this is 100% true, but I have found that if the item is being sold by Amazon (not a 3rd party shop), then you have a better chance of it being able to be shipped to Australia. On the left had side of the Amazon page, after you have done a search (eg. 'lego technic'), you can select the brand as 'Lego', and then the seller as 'Amazon', and you might have better luck. See screenshot here. The only way to be 100% sure is to add items to your cart, go to the checkout, enter your shipping address, and at that point Amazon will warn you if the items can be shipped to that address or not (this is before the payment screen). I've also heard reports that they may not ship to Australian PO Box addresses, so use your home or work address instead. Some of the 3rd party stores will also ship to Australia, but usually at a much higher cost, and without the express shipping option. I'm not sure what this situation is for NZ, but I assume it is similar. Hopefully the next time someone asks this same question I can just point them back to this post.

Ah, yes, you could be right about the MMV price. My bad. Anyway, still some good deals to be had on the Amazon.fr website.