SavaTheAggie

First he was the Emporer... Then Bat-boy... Now my son is an anime character! He's a goofball, that's what he is. --Tony

I've had these built for some time, but I never got around to photographing them. I built these mainly for TexLUG events to amuse the kiddies. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. Heavy Duty Depressed Center Flatcar with John Deere Tractor A heavy duty depressed center flatcar with a small John Deere tractor load. The flatcar design is a slightly modified version of someone elses design, the original builder's name is unknown to me (I stole it from Tim Gould). The John Deere tractor is also a stolen design, which I only modified to accept the wide tires. Why a John Deere tractor on such a big flatcar? Cause its amusing (to me). Ant Farm Car A depressed center flatcar with an ant farm load. The flatcar is a slightly modified version of the flatcar Ben Beneke designed for the Hobby Train set. You may recognize the ant farm from some weeks ago, it is my own design. Why put a giant ant farm on a train car? Cause I can. --Tony

I have no sympathy for TRU, every single one near me charges $1-$2 a set more than anyone else. Me? I like Target - normal prices and huge LEGO selection, compared to my Wal Marts, anyway. --Tony

I'm afraid I must agree, and I too, apologize to you, Kevin, if it's really you. However the fact that Eurobricks is the only website to get this announcement, and no mention of it was made on Lugnet, makes this user suspect in my eyes. As much as the admins of Eurobricks would like it to be the center of the LEGO universe ;), Kevin has a much longer history with Lugnet and, I think, would have posted there first, or have someone like Jennifer Boger do it for him. --Tony

I hate Classic Town. I loathe it. My very first LEGO set was Fire House I, followed soon by a passenger jet. Naturally I had a lot of fun imagining plane crashes... especially since those were my only LEGO sets for a very long time. I was interested in town, but none of the other town sets interested me. This is what brought me into LEGO Castle - the sets looked more 'complete', finished, the designs had four walls, for the most part, and lots of great detail. Fire House I lacked a fourth wall, but at least it had beefy walls, it looked 'complete' to me. This new Cafe Corner, or 'downTown' style as I like to call it, is MUCH better. Four walls, lots of detail, lots of bricks. It's actually strking a chord with me that might actually get me to expand my collection from Castle and Trains to Castle and Town/Train layouts. But that's just me. --Tony

I apologize for digging up an old thread, but I didn't see it mentioned. I bought the viking chess set on sale this month, and noticed that the horns in the helmets were glued. Were they glued for yours as well? I personally don't have a problem with the glued figs as they are. I would have a problem if the figs were glued more, but as it is they are perfect, as this is a Chess set after all. This isn't a fig-pack, army builder, or anything else. Anyway, I was just curious to see if LEGO had changed something, or if the glued horns were simply omitted from the review. --Tony

Here's the father's day gift I gave my Dad yesterday: The story behind it: My grandfather owned 40 acres of land in the outskirts of Texarkana, Arkansas, 15 of which was cleared (the rest is dense forest). My grandfather didn't do much farming, but he did do a little, and he kept the field nice and trim with his old 1959 John Deere liquid propane fired row-crop farm tractor pulling a brush hog (big lawn mower attachment). When my grandfather passed away he left the tractor and half his land to my father, the half with the field, and the other half to my aunt. My father has spent many years fixing up that old tractor (my grandfather didn't know the meaning of the word 'maintenance'), and he's got it running real nice. However the tractor and bush hog are too large and ungainly to mow the small fenced yard around the house, so a few years ago my father bought a John Deere riding mower, which he is very proud of. My father has always been a John Deere man; every one of his push-mowers for our house where I grew up were John Deeres, and my father owns several John Deere t-shirts, ballcaps and other paraphernalia. So for my gift to him this year I gave him a pair of custom minifigs of him and his father, and LEGO versions of his mower and tractor. The mower is an unchanged design of one I found on Brickshelf, so I cannot take any credit for that. As for the figs, I commissioned Jared "Kaminoan" Burks to design and create them for me, including my father's John Deere "Suburban Legend" T-Shirt and my grandfather's trademark light blue windbreaker and day-glo orange hunter's ball cap. Here's a pic of my dad and a pic of a painting my mother did of my Grandaddy (the only 'pic' I have of him that's digital). Close ups of the figs and WiP pics of the tractors can be found in my Flickr Gallery. My father really liked his present, btw. --Tony

As my geology professor taught me in college, at current gasoline consumption levels, there is enough natural gas and other gasses like propane to last the world's population for 10,000 years. That's right, 10,000. And converting a gasoline engine to propane takes less than a day. And propane burns cleaner than gasoline, producing nothing but heat, water, and carbon dioxide. Not to mention that the United States is sitting on more coal than the middle east is sitting on oil, and there is such a thing as clean burning coal powered electrical plants. My good friend Paul works at one. Look it up. --Tony

Something that I have not seen in this conversation yet, which I think is important, is that, for automobiles, 6-wide is realistic. And so is 4-wide. The simple fact of the matter is that we all base our scales to a minifig, but a minifig, like everything else LEGO, is disproportionate to itself. If you were to take a minfiig and blow him up to the size of a real person, he'd be twice as wide with a mellon the size of a hibachi grill. Because of that, you have to options: You can either decide that a minifig is 5.5 to 6 feet tall, making it 'average height' for a human being. With that, 4-wide is incredibly accurate. Yes, while you can't sit two minfiigs together, if a minfiig were the correct height vs. width, you could. After all, most cars are about 4 to 5 feet wide (more or less), depending on make and model, and that jives with an 'average height' fig. But at the same time if you decide that a minifig is the width of a normal person, 6-wide is accurate. However, while you can sit two figs together (if you design it right so you can), the figs now look like children or a population of height-challenged individuals. After all, I'm 5'10", and I've NEVER been able to lay down in the back seat of any car and lay flat without having to bend or twist in some fashion. So the real question that needs to be asked is not what width of car is best, but what is the height of a minfig? Is a minfig a super-wide, average heighted person? Or is a minifig a normal-wide, short person? And the answer, of course, is up to you. --Tony

Given 575 pieces and a MOC in mind, I could build it in minutes, less than ten. However, given a set with 575 and a set of instructions, it'll take me much longer. It took me an hour or so to assemble the BNSF locomotive. --Tony

What a fantastic MOC! I love all the details, especially the station and the freight cars. I'd certainly buy this one, though I have to admit I'd probably swap out the locomotive for another. X-D I had always hoped LEGO would created a wild west themed train while the theme was active. A great opportunity lost for them, but it probably wouldn't have been nearly as nice as this. --Tony

Just remember that wooden sleepers are more often than not heavily treated, often with creosote, and look black (when new) and almost never brown. Black is cheaper than brown anyway. :) --Tony

Here's my latest steam engine I've been working on. It's lacking stickers, but someday I'll find a printer that can print decent stickers from home. Till then I'll have to wait till I can find the time to borrow the use of my father's printer. Post Mod Gallery (image is a link, deeplinks are numbered 01-03) It is a fully track compatible Hudson Class (4-6-4) steamer with Henry Dreyfuss inspired streamlining. I say inspired because these locomotives, designed exclusively for the New York Central lines for their 20th Century Limited, never came in yellow. But not all the parts I needed came in grey, and I didn't have a yellow locomotive yet. I think it turned out pretty nifty. The locomotive will be numbered '7244', and will carry the 'Sava Railways' livery on the tender. It's name, the 'Tequila Sunrise', comes from the fact that it's blindingly yellow and my locomotive will be paired with Santa Fe Super Chief Pullman cars, at least till I can afford to make matching passenger cars. Plus I like the play on meaning (a Tequila Sunrise is an orange juice based alcoholic beverage). I'll take more pictures when I have the stickers made and I have more energy. Please let me know what you think! --Tony

It's amazing how much the wheels make the train. http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/500202583/ --Tony

Well the train is nearly finished. All that's left is to wait for my BBB wheels to arrive (it's taking a long time, I pray nothing has happened to them). In the mean time I've done a lot of work, finishing the tender, adding some details here and there. One of the biggest additions is a handrail/pipe down the side of the boiler. I'm not entirely sold on it yet, though, but I don't like the boiler without it either, it looks like its missing something. http://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/498955458/ Feel free to reply and tell me what you think. --Tony

I may actually buy this one after all. Don't know what I'll do with the plastic rails though. I'll probably use them to display locomotives on my shelf, and save the 9v track for actual play value. --Tony

I had to do this when I wanted a second sleeper car. However, if you already have 2 copies of the baggage/mail car set, and 3 copies of the other, you only need about 10 pieces to convert a baggage/mail car set into a sleeper using all the parts left over from the original 5 sets. Even less, I imagine, to create either of the other two (dining or observation). --Tony

I decided to see just how my new loco might look pulling some Super Chief cars, so I set up a little photoshoot tonight. The cars lack a little something, some yellow trim perhaps, but otherwise I think they're a good compliment. Maybe someday, a long time from now, I'll be able to afford to build a few passenger wagons for this loco. Right after I build the passenger wagons I'd like to build for a few of my other locos. --Tony

Thank you for your replies. I've hit a financial snag as of late, but at least I know about how much money it'll take to finish this sucker. I had been asked in another forum if I was going to make matching passenger cars for my loco - no, I will not. Along with the extra cost.. how gawdy would mostly yellow cars look? However, I have thought that the Santa Fe cars would look very slick being pulled behind my loco, so I'll have to do some test shots. Of course if I go that route, I'll most certainly have to put a second motor on my locomotive, given the weight of the Santa Fes. --Tony

Ben Beneke was kind and gracious enough to do some of that voodoo that he do on my locomotive. He certainly puts my novice effort to shame. --Tony

I have no idea when I'll be able to buy the necessary parts to finish my latest steam engine, but feel free to view what I've done so far. Henry Drefuss designed a very striking and iconic cowling for New York Central's Empire State Express and 20th Century Limited trains back in the late 30's, and I've always wanted to build one. Click HERE for some pics of the real things (scroll down). This is my MOC of a Henry Dreyfuss inspired streamlined Hudson (4-6-4) steam engine. I say inspired because this locomotive was never seen in the color scheme I built it in, but LEGO doesn't make all the right parts in light grey, plus I think it looks cool the way I've done it. Please refer to the Flickr notes in the pictures to see what I have left to do. Comments and criticism welcome. --Tony

I don't build locomotives that can't run well on tracks. Why bother building a steam engine if you can't run it around a layout? If you remember earlier posts on this forum where I posted pictures of the real locomotive, I had shots of it on a curve. --Tony

I started recreating my Polar Express locomotive in Ldraw, here are the results: What I find fascinating is that because I used Ldraw, I can know the number of parts involved in my locomotive, and I was shocked to find out how few parts there really are - less than 768. I say less than because LDraw counts all the sub-assemblies as parts, and I used a few cheats here and there which affected the part count (namely the flex-tubing). This means that if LEGO were to turn my MOC into a set, ignoring the two 9v motors, the custom wheels, and using their standard $0.10 a brick pricing, they could sell my locomotive for less than $80 USD. --Tony