bonox

are you high? Or just lonely?

wow - you can really see where the work goes; excellent result. I bought a second copy of this one for the white wheels to put in Jennifer's crane, but i'm clearly going to have to build the B models with the other bits

My dark ages ended only a couple of years ago, but began 25 years ago. I missed the 8480, 8880, 8479, the shift to studless and everything up to 42009 that ended the dark ages (after a 42004 at the airport while visiting Denmark for the first time rekindled the love). I have been thinking about this question much since 'returning' and have been lucky enough to find very nearly everything i'd like. It's also funny to me that after chasing a few things at great expense, 8455, 8480, 8485, I have since come across many thing at realistic prices that i've used more as parts fillers than wanting a second (or third) copy. Being old and retentive, i've got logs, receipts and spreadsheets of everything I own, so it now comes as a bit of a surprise when I find out I own four 8043's, 2x 8285, 2x 8258, 3x 8480 and four 8880 (I only ended up with some because I saw them for sale with the box and I really wanted the box more than the parts). 'Haunted' sets can be with you for a long time, then all of a sudden they almost fall into your lap without you even trying!

interesting first post - perhaps you'd like to make a suggestion of a part you need?

if you read further up you'll find the designers comment on why that axle type was chosen

ooh - now there's an offer you can't refuse saber I see TLG+volvo+MB only better

you'd want to be someone pretty well known already to generate enough sales on that front and I recall when *cough* someone *cough* here made a suggestion about crowkillers having done that, the concept was beaten down and disproven quite comprehensively by the MOC master himself. It's possible you could do it as a business model. but you'd have to make sure you could meet some demand first or you could find yourself and your model boycotted fairly quickly if users could not find parts or weren't willing to use your store to get them.

my scales don't really measure that low very well, but it certainly has more heft to it than the original lego version. I will say that it's on the cusp of being heavy enough to drop freely when using two of the hole centre pulleys you also produce for it. If you used two ordinary axle centred pulleys, it's not really heavy enough to get enough slip of the string to make the thing fall under its own weight. I'd roughly estimate it at about 50 grammes. I got the bronze version too, not the steel.

Regarding not publishing requirements for odd/rare parts, you may also run into the scenario where a part may not be in limited supply/expensive when you create your instructions, but if you're successful and make something a lot of people want, then you artificially create a price bubble for some parts.

hi Efferman It balances very nicely at about 30-60 degree boom elevation with counterweight installed without batteries or a lifted load and no boom extension. It's very sensitive to boom extension and load, less so to elevation unless you're around zero or 70 degrees. Although not shown, I have your twin reel metal hook on it and it fits the scale very nicely. I'm very happy with your upper design, so thankyou very much again for publishing it. The counterweight is 650grammes without batteries, about a kilogramme with all twelve.

have you tried here? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=92099 (edit for start of that thread rather than end)

a better question would be "what is that design trying to achieve"? Since the answer is probably "nothing functional", one would question the utility of painting yourself into a corner. There are plenty of other ways of making your parts useless, including giving them away to someone who'll actually use them On a different note, a prize to anyone who can get a 2L (or better 3L) axle between the pins edit: prize not price

yes - and I have 200 piles, but because i've got a lot more of each part than I need for the particular build in question, they all go in the drawers, stacker bins, paper cups etc and you pull them out as needed. You can collapse them adequately though - putting long length with short length in one pile makes them easy to distinguish and all pins and axles in one pile isn't too much of a headache. I guess as I get older (i'm definately in the last half of my life now) and the constructions get really big and complex, i'm less inclined to spend hours looking for the one kind of part over and over again.

usual process is to sort everything into the individual parts bins and then start building. For second hand sets, tip them into a bucket, wash and dry, sort into parts, then build. I sort all parts by type. I don't understand the sort by colour thing - much easier to find a colour in a bucket of 9L beams than to find a 9L beam in a bucket of dozens of red beams. Mind you, i'm mostly building MOC plans with three to four thousand parts, of which 200 types are unique.

does anyone else have a wish that these kind of programs would accept not being able to find all parts? ie instead of just cancelling, printing a best list for available parts and a supplementary list of parts it couldn't find. As an example, if I have a list of 3000 parts i'm after and 4 of them are unique and not found either anywhere or in a restricted country search, then I really don't want to not have an answer, or have to keep re-editing the source files to remove the 'no stock available' parts and then re-run? Perhaps i'm just unusual or looking for odd parts?

yes, yes and yes. But it is a model with practically no spare space in a large cube, a great deal of clever (but sometimes over the top) reinforcing and this is by no means the best example of "difficult to disassemble" that the model contains. As noted in sheo's original thread for the MOC, it could be modified all sorts of ways, but then it wouldn't be his MOC any more. it's this one, for those interested http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=91329&hl= and it's an absolute cracker of a model there are also not many MOC's where you get questions like "how do I do 'x' on page 2289 of the instructions"

that 9398 definately has mad max written all over it. Keen to see how you work this one Doc

and yet there are 54 on BL, including 11 in one store for US$4. Everything you want, one seller, not that expensive, way better feedback than any likely ebay seller. Your avoidance of the most popular parts bazaar is quite amusing. http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=525&colorID=5

by request - superstructure option #4 with third party actuator and 100t counterweight

#11 is the best. Habing tried it, a paperclip up the pin pushes the axle out. Everything else is just wanton destruction of good parts.

it's lego - use the parts where ever they'll fit. I grew up putting 4.5V train motors into aircraft, so why not!

i'm in the middle of assembly of this model, but just reading the thread title I knew it had to be the same one :) I still think sheo has the best response about "sure you can disassemble it - with a hammer"

the 42008 pretty much fits that bill as well. You don't have to squint too hard before it becomes a MB cabover

my pictures above are of #4 upper on #1 lower (including the full sized 100tonne counterweight - standard is about 30tonne), but without the actuator installed. The pictures were taken before the actuator arrived. I'll get it out of the box and take a picture or two with the actuator installed if you wish. Personally, I think it looks the best, given that the original has only a single hydraulic luffing ram. Its scale size isn't too dissimmilar either. For working performance if you want to actually lift stuff with it and show off, the lighter and smoother #3 is probably the pick. (Note that I haven't built it to compare, but am comparing based on JC's AC50 using the same actuator.

an extraordinary creation - very impressive!