SavaTheAggie

My Town Gallery I've loved the Town Plan Cinema ever since I laid eyes on it. But I never liked its overall small size, and it's "doll house" style, without the fourth wall. So I decided to upgrade my cinema to the Cafe Corner standard. Changes include: Wider, taller, added second story, expanded screen room with 15 more seats, added projection room, fourth wall, lights under the marquee. Dunno when I'll be able to order the parts to finish it. --Tony

Thanks. No, no piece count. However, I can tell you that many of the bricks were made from spare basic bricks, like 2x2 bricks. A 1x1 10x brick made with 2x2s could be expected to be built with over 175 bricks, if that gives you any sort of idea the numbers involved. Yeah, that's the ticket... It was all part of the plan... :) --Tony

I, too, am an admin on the Forbidden Cove, and I must admit I only first learned of most of the issues brought up here while reading this thread. I have been rather hands-off in the set up for the Cove, as my job was one of insight, debugging, and overall advice and experience from running Classic-Castle. I have already successfully had the Eurobricks name removed from the vulgarity filter, and I am currently requesting that all other issues in this thread be addressed. My vision for community websites is one of inclusivity and fairness, and I can assure you that these things were not done with my consent. Aaron has already said many of the things that I would have, so I will forgo repeating them, except for the hope that this will not sully the relationship between any AFOL and either site. --Tony

I was in charge of designing and building the August Window into the Community Display for the Baybrook Mall LEGO Store. Not too bad for being a last minute design. --Tony

Don't feel foolish, anyone can build a steam engine. It just takes more time and patience to get everything working right compared to diesels or electrics. I don't view them as all that difficult anymore, though I'm up to 7 now. I am actively buying parts for the Duplex, I hope to have something to show of it sometime before July (probably not finished by then, though). The Challenger has been done to death, I'm afraid. Yes, it's a famous locomotive, but if I'm going to build a huge articulated steam locomotive I'd rather do one that hasn't been built much yet. As such, I am currently toying with the idea of building a 9 or 10 wide Allegheny. While most consider the Big Boy, and to a lesser extent the Challenger, to be the most powerful locomotives ever built, in truth the Allegheny could produce more horsepower and it is debated that it was even heavier. The fact that Big Boy's boiler could fit INSIDE the Allegheny's boiler should say something. --Tony

Hehe... Thanks. Would the PRR T-1 Duplex be different enough? ;) Thanks much! BBB wheels are just about the coolest things around, they work so flawlessly. Building in odd-widths has never been my strong point, but Ben Beneke helped me quite a bit while I was working on my previous 7-wide steam engine. Thanks much, I'm glad you liked the finished product! One motor should be sufficient for 6 or 8 light weight cars, I wouldn't want to have one motor pulling this steamer and 6 Santa Fe cars. Thanks much! Thanks much! LEGO has never made true steam engine wheels, so a guy named Ben Fleskes stepped in. You can purchase large and medium sized drivers and small spoked train wheels in a myriad of colors from his website. http://www.bigbenbricks.com I don't have any plans to build rolling stock specific to this locomotive, but I do plan to have it pull the ones I have. http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/...57600864654740/ Thanks much! There's a thread here on this forum where I discussed the construction of the boiler. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17013 Thanks much! I'm not familiar with that game, but I take it there are similar looking steam engines in it? --Tony

Well, I decided to have some fun with my old camera and a technic turntable I threw together. Here are my steam engines in 3d: http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/...57605242355059/ --Tony

Flickr Gallery Here she is, finally complete in all her cheese slope-y, SNOTty, 7-wide glory. I must say I'm very please with how she turned out. She's fully track compatible and uses the split-pony truck design I've used before. The folks that run the real #425 use an auxiliary tender nearly identical to the primary one as a canteen, so I figured might as well build that one, too. A big thank you to Ben and his fabulous Blue Big Ben's Bricks Steam Engine Wheels, without which I never would have attempted to build her. --Tony

Nearly done. Next time you see her posted here, she should be fully dressed and finished. --Tony

Thanks! Yes, me and my trains (and some castle creations, too) will be at Brickworld in Chicago this year. --Tony

Yup, that one is mine. As are these: All my other (non sepia'd) train MOCs can be found HERE. --Tony

Nothing to see here, just having fun with photo editing. --Tony

Blue Mountain and Reading usually runs the #425 with an auxiliary tender acting as a canteen. The auxiliary tender they use is almost identical to the primary tender except the coal retaining walls have been removed - it's basically and ugly blue box. If I were to finish the auxiliary tender, it would have a sticker on its' side walls very similar (but not identical) to the primary tender. Built 7-wide out of spare parts, what do you think? Yay or Nay? Should I order parts to clean up the auxiliary tender, or should I just scrap it and just go with one tender? --Tony

Ok, so my wife convinced me to try replacing the white tiles with the original black and attaching white plates underneath to achieve the desired white pinstriping, forgoing the pinstripe on small section of running board (noted on the photo's flickr page). Comments and opinions are welcome. --Tony

Thanks for all the kind words! Here's a shot of what it looks like now, it's as far as I can get till I order more parts. See the flickr page of this photo and the two other pictures in my photostream for details and detailed notes. --Tony

The #425 is a Pacific class locomotive, and though I was excited about building it, I've already done a Pacific class, as well as a very similarly designed Hudson, so it wasn't going to be a very exciting build unless I changed something. So I decided to challenge myself and build it 7-wide with a SNOT boiler, going for as round a look as possible. Using ideas from Tim Gould and Benn Coifman, I was able to come up with a ~5-wide SNOT boiler I'm pleased with. So far I think it's coming along well. And here's a quick look at the design I used (click on the pictures to see details and notes): Any comments and criticism is welcome. --Tony

I've usually foregone building all the myriad of valves and switches when building pistons, opting to capture the much more simpler action of the main piston. The other valves and switches are there to allow the locomotive to run well in both forward and reverse and to allow the piston to push with both in and out motions. This wikipedia page has a great animation of how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walschaerts_valve_gear I recently updated the pistons on two of my locomotives and took some close-up pictures of them. Maybe they'll give you some ideas on how to resolve any issues you have. http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/2333549800/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/2333549596/ --Tony

Thanks much! I worked really hard to try and get a random look to the rock face. Not easy when you're using nothing but 2x2s. Thanks much! Thanks much! I'd like to think this was my best entry, though the battle itself didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I'm proud of the terrain, but that's only a small part of what makes a battle scene. Thanks! Actually those forestmen are my elves, specifically Wild Elves (as opposed to High Elves). You'll notice I've swapped out their heads for the 'painted' faces of the LEGO Indian/Native American figs. Thanks much! I can't take very much credit for my Ogre, he's based off Micah Berger's "Brute Ork". As I said, I can't take much credit for it. I built Steve, my Ogre: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=130800 Entirely off of the pictures of Micah Berger's Brute Ork: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=275175 Perhaps between the two galleries you'll be able to reverse engineer it as I was. I don't consider them pirates, I consider them a labor workforce. Peasants are in short supply in my collection, so I use what I have. As for dobby, he makes an excellent Orc. --Tony

Well done, a fine looking kettle. I've been thinking about doing a European/German style steamer for a while, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. My only nitpick is your pistons are far too high. 99.99% of all steam locomotives (where the pistons pushed the drive wheels directly) had their pistons level with the drive wheels' axles. The reason for this is to balance the performance of the locomotive as well as to reduce wear on the rails. If the pistons were off center or angled and were attached directly to drivers the pushing stroke could 'hit' the rails, causing undue stress and friction. This is sometimes hard to do in LEGO, and while I've only been able to accomplish it on a few of my locomotives, if I have to put them off center I always try to have my pistons at most a plate-height off. --Tony

Siege of Castle Rock Gallery Somewhere along the western trade route in Ikros, at the foot of the Castle Rock landmark, Prince Garadaine and his comrades defend a trade caravan from a rampaging horde of Orcs and their Ogre friend. --Tony

Thanks everyone! This was actually a very spur of the moment entry, but I'm glad it's been received so well. I have to give my boss credit (also an AFOL) for giving me the idea for making a micro-contest entry. I, of course, took it one step further. --Tony

Well, to be honest there are a few robot-armed skeletons in there, all in the center as to allow for the posing of weapons. But, obviously they don't stand out too much so I was able to mix them in well. Thanks! Thanks, I'm honored! I've always enjoyed playing around with lighting, it's something I think everyone should do from time to time, just to change things up a bit. --Tony

Steppin' on the Little Guy Gallery Adding to my recent accidental trend of horribly one-sided battles... All credit for the micro catapult goes to Bruce Hietbrink. --Tony

Thanks! I went crazy many years ago buy skellies back when Ikros had a necromancer as a main villain. There are over 100 skeletons in that scene. The tea-light candles aren't a bad idea, except as current I don't have much room on my build table and I'd be afraid I'd be at risk of setting my curtains on fire! Thanks! Well, there are three fallen vikings in the scene, but I was trying to go for the most desperate and one-sided looking battle as possible, and I was afraid too many viking figs would crowd the inner circle too much. Wow, thanks a lot! I really love playing with lighting, I've used this flashlight technique many times in the past. Thanks a lot! As I said above, I just went crazy for a while. Troy's Surplus LEGO (or whatever he's calling his store now) had a really good price on them, and he gave me a further discount cause I offered to buy him out (at the time). Thanks! Thanks! Revenge of the Durids! Hehe... I have to admit that Nelson Yrizarry gave me the idea for an battle scene with skeletons at stonehenge, but the idea of a Viking raiding party stumbling upon them just tickled me. Thanks! --Tony

Excellent work. I had always wanted to try masking a part like that, but I was always afraid the acetone would melt the tape to the brick. I've never had problems with the dye rubbing off, but I never tried vinyl dying bricks, just minifig accessories. The color of the parts looks like it came somewhere between LEGO tan and LEGO dark tan, not a bad color I must say. --Tony