bonox

speaking of hard water, the bricks that keep washing ashore from lost/sunken transport containers seem to be in pretty good condition, even after decades in the water. And there-in lies the for the environmentalists....

It does have make an offer. Be interesting to know if 50 grand is considered lowballing

If you search bricklink for parts containing the word "weapon" you get over 350 parts, plus another 10 sets. By all accounts, TLG have no problem with warfare! The concept seems to be anything related to what appears on television as far as modern conflict. which is why they've got no problem with lances and swords. Do TLG themselves refer to these parts as weapons? Or is it a bricklink term? I can see older differences where the designers may have referred to a part as a camera, but BL/users etc refer to it as a gun. The other question I have is, 'is the no warfare stuff from TLG directed only at City type themes?' They've got no trouble with Knights, Bionicle, blasters and kinetic weapons on Spacecraft/ starwars etc. indiana Jones has an automatic pistol. Heck, they've even got a mace! I'd rather my kids didn't get an idea about flinging a spiked metal ball at other things!

I'm loving these out of the box designs. I'm turning this one into a screensaver :D

two little points: 1. If you can't squeeze air out of the bags, then they're air-tight 2. The plastic is impervious to moisture, so keeping them air-tight is unimportant. The bags the instructions come in are just folded ends, so not air-tight, but you're not storing them in the same place as the plastic so that doesn't matter either.

My, what big bones you have Grandma. It will certainly be big and exciting when it's finished! I look forward to seeing more progress.

well that's novel. I had to build it myself just to have a play :)

Happens even to the real hydraulic ones as well. You'll note that when cranes are displayed at trade shows with the boom and other parts at elevated angles, they will all have locking collars around the cylinder shafts to stop them retracting

Indeed it's as exciting as Barman's version. I'm counting the number of liftarms i'd need to make a vehicle big enough to house it :)

holy moly - well done. I have to purloin a few of your ideas I think :) I really like the ladder rungs. On a related note - who wants to put this to Jim as a definition of Model Team?

I mentioned the check valve in the pump in my previous. If you take off the pump from the block and suck through it with the switch in the position corresponding to the suction port on the block, will it retract then? If it does, then you need an old style pump. If not, your block may be broken.

that's what he said at the top of the post. Photo incoming in 3....2....1.....

I bought a bigger house, specifically to get lego/hobby space.

Congratulations - a fantastic pair of trophies for a talented builder.

i've only taken apart the 2/3 stud height version. I imagine the 1/3 model is more tricky but no different in concept. I've also modded a few of mine and chosen to solder the new wire to the insides rather than try to reuse the old knife edge insulation penetrators. Doing so gives me a much wider choice of modern wire.

there seems to be a mix wire insulation; some are rubber and some are plastic. They both have the plasticisers and 'liquids' evapourate out of them over time and they become brittle and just fall apart. The rubber version in my experience is much worse than the plastic version. You might be able to improve their life by storing them in a strange high chemical humidity environment to stop the insulation drying out, or you might be able to apply rubber protector over time, but you're probably better off just getting some practice in replacing the wire. It's not that hard to get the clips apart without breaking them, and you have the added advantage of being able to make the replacement any length you like.

I would contend that continuous running at a show doesn't constitute a valid use case for LEGO. There's a reason that bearings and lubricants exist; LEGO uses neither for simplicity and the target audience. That you can't slide one part on another for days on end doesn't make the product of poor durability.

very clever - but who will control the controller?

Cool outfit. Is it called a Model 101 by any chance?

Stunning result and obviously some clever technique and a lot of time on your part. I too look forward to reading about your construction methods

I love the mans bald spot :) Nice touch!

stunningly different to trucks and aeroplanes. The presentation stand is an excellent touch.

For older stuff, the only satisfactory way i've found of getting lots of cylinders is to find cheap 8455 or similar sets, and part out the rest to recover costs. It can take a bit of work, but there's a reason they're pricey - supply is limited. If you're talking about the newer long cylinders, I get the impression that TLG are pretty much producing enough to put into new sets with maybe a few in hand for warranty returns and that's it. The BL price is just the usual supply/demand routine, so you're unlikely to find cheap ones because all the sellers know the state of play. For older cylinders though, the square bottom units are more plentiful than the newer rounded bottom ones, although it's always interesting to compare the BL price guides when competitions like TC10 are released.

I get 4mm OD 1mm wall silicon food grade hose from ebay for about EUR0.20 per metre from China, including delivery. Lots of colour choices and tends to be available in 10m rolls as well, which was fabulous when I put together Andrea Grazi's tow truck recently. (speaking of pneumatic competitions .... ) Can't remember the exact choice of search terms, but let me know if you want me to dig up my old purchase for keywords. The stuff works well and it's great to get availability of yellow hose, since it hides in old models very well. Also brick layers string is a fabulous substitute for TLG string, but if you want something other than hi-vis you'll have to dye it. That said, I like the bright red stuff for crane rigging now that you really can get inch and a quarter red synthetic rope for your 12 inch to the foot scale crane.

As a point of interest, might be worth checking whether you need an old style pump to make it work. The old one does not have a check valve, so when you pull it out (or the spring does it for you), it should create a vacuum that gets transferred to the left port. The newer style pumps do have check valves, meaning that they will only generate a positive gauge pressure. You may want to check if you need to buy an old pump as well as the distribution block. Perhaps, but there's more to it than just the second port. The original design requires only one seal and the cylinder is entirely made of plastic from the same injection molding processes as all their other bricks. The top port requires a second (shaft) seal and they introduced metal for this, which was a step outside their expertise. I think I can see why they would have taken the approach they did. If you have a collection of designers on staff, costs to come up with new parts isn't really significant over a large production run. Indeed for most manufactured plastics, it's the raw material which makes up over 3/4 and often closer to 90% of the total product cost once you get production scale wound up. (the rest is design, tooling, packaging etc). But to introduce new materials and production requirements, perhaps even outsourcing them and then having to deal with the incorporation of outside supplier parts into your own production chain may have pushed them in the direction that they did But what do I know! ;)