ecmo47

If you had fun making your modifications and enjoy the new features it doesn't really matter what we think. Also, it's a little hard to take you seriously when your signature says what it says. You most certainly do not deserve abuse. Why kids people think this an acceptable way to get attention is beyond me.

^ I'm sure any Lego produced GR-75 or Neb-B be found very wanting compared to your excellent models!! Which reminds to get back to work on the Frigate.

A video would go a long way to sell this track. While certainly less expensive then real Lego track (average about $25.00 per piece) it's still pretty expensive for the "average" consumer.

We talked about this back on page 1. Part #4424 comes in LBG or grey but doesn't have the axle hole.. Part #64951 does have the axle hole but doesn't come in the right color. (LBG). So one needs to be drilled (#4424) and the other painted (#64951). Your choice of which is easier for you.

Vin: I used the first method in the tutorial which is copying the BBcode at 800x600 size and pasting it into the "reply" box. The only thing different from the tutorial is that the image doesn't show up until you hit "post". Easy day! ...and how is that Imperial Guard going to get that cookie in his mouth?

Obi Swing by Vincent ST, on Flickr Hard at work by Vincent ST, on Flickr What Guards do when not working by Vincent ST, on Flic Sentimental by Vincent ST, on Flickr Do not get crushed by Vincent ST, on Flickr RUN!! by Vincent ST, on Flickr

Progress has been severally slowed by the Olympics but I've been concentrating on the back end to answer the question if the thin lift arms can be replaced by full sized ones. Preliminary observations indicate that full sized ones will work and will not impede the proper angle of the two bottom hull panels. That being said, the next step is to try some out which is next. Here is a couple tips for future builders: 1. 1x2 hinges plates do NOT snap together very smoothly. After pretty much destroying a couple panels while attempting to install them, I decided that snapping the hinges together first and then pressing the panel into the hinge studs was much easier. 2. The back engine panel has an amazing amount of greeble and some of it is pretty fragile. As a result, a lot of it fell off while attempting to install the back panel as pictured below! Recommend that the large plates be installed and the greeble added in place. 3. I was confused on the two lower engines that have the 2x4x4 1/2 cylinders attached to them. One has the studs reversed from the other. This leads to a very weak connection with the 4x4 cone attached to the end of one of them. I just switched the weak one and made it like the other. DSC01652 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

Have you seen the pictures of the new Rogue One AT-ST? Lego borrowed a lot of your design ideas.

I just ran past the picture of last years Christmas train give-away and it looks like a miniature version of this new offering.

Well, that's it for 2016. Time to start the "2017 Lego trains" thread!

I suppose that it will be a nice addition for the avid WV collectors but I was hoping for a (psydo) realistic EN/Maersk type submission. Pass.

Looking good there Sethra. Thanks for the notes. I'm up to page 230 so am still working on the back-bone. I've got some notes that I will post later when I have a little more time. Back to the lift arm issue on the rear section, is there any reason that we must use the thin lift arms? Is there a clearance issue caused by the rear panels that form the "V" shape of the hull? If not, I'm going to beef that area up with regular lift arms that will overlap with the 1x9 LA's coming down from the Technic square brick.

I got to the step where the tops of the 1x11 lift arms go into square piece. I don't like to force pieces into place so I made the following modification. Replace the 1x11 with 1x9 lift arms and replace the 1x3 thin LA's with 1x5's. DSC01644 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

Just got started today and ran into a snag. Pictured below is step 15 which is building the bottom frame of the rear engine section. The 1x11 DBG Lift arms do not seat properly between the studs of the black 1x10/1x4 Technic bricks. I can get them on the pins as shown but they are not vertical due to interference with the studs. The LDD picture shows the same as the instructions. DSC01642 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

Thanks for the LDD Tutorial. I'll play around with it more and try to advance my skills. As promised here are some mods that I did to the engines. This one is to replace the clip that holds on the outer top engine. Basically, it replaces the 1x1 with clip (part # 2555) with part # 11458 (modified 1x2 plate with Pin hole).This part comes in 5 colors: Black, DBG, Red, Reddish-Brown, and White. I didn't have any white ones on hand but will mod the two white whales when those parts come in. In this picture the 2x4 plate and 1x8 plate have been removed. The 2x4 area is filled in around the 1x1 tile which will be under the tail of Part 11458. DSC01595 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Next add a 1x6 plate, the pin hole plate, and the 1x2 slope 45 assemble. DSC01596 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Next layer is two 1x2 slopes, two 1x2 plates with slide rail, and a 1x2 tile. Also pictured is my slightly modified section that goes behind the inner engine. DSC01598 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Modified inner engine with 5.5 rod in the middle DSC01600 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Modified outer engine. DSC01601 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Finished. It might be possible to do the same technique on the inner engine but the tail of the plate will interfer with sloping hull on both sides so would not be an easy mod. DSC01603 by Scott Roys, on Flickr Mod to the bottom engines. It's not necessary to use a donut hole 1x1 round plate but if you use a regular plate, the 1x1 barrel will not seat against the 2x2 plate as seen on the assembled engine. DSC01606 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

Bob: I made seperate LDD files because that is what I know how to do to make things work. I'm not very good at either the "group" function or the show/hide function. I understand the principle of the group function for building but how does it manifest itself during the "build" phase? Will it build that entire group before jumping (at random, it seems) to a different area? Also, how would you group something as complicated as the greeble area? For me, it took only 15 minutes (or less) to open the file, delete off the sections that I didnt want, Save As a new file, and then build that area.

I finished up 2 more GR-75's this weekend while still waiting for all the parts for the Neb-B. I had a lot of fun tweaking and personalizing Mortesv's great design. I made one in Light Blue Grey and am happy with the look. In the end, I made three separate LDD files which really smoothed out the construction process. The first file was the five hull sections. Second was the frame minus the greeble and the third was greeble only. This method reduced the "floating parts" syndrome to almost nil. I made many internal changes to strengthen various points as needed. I also came up with 2 major engine modifications that was was very pleased with. I will detail those in a separate post. I forget to add the Falcon to the photo shoot but the 3 transports hold their own very well! DSC01624 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01621 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01616 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01614 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

To generate a parts list with LDD, Use the following steps: 1. Open the GR-75 file in LDD. It will open up into the "building" mode. 2. Go to "file" in the upper left hand corner of the screen and click. 3. Scroll down to "Export BOM" and click. It's the last option above "exit" 4. Save to someplace where you can find it again. 5. Go to that saved place and open the Excel file created. It's actually pretty nice as it provides a thumbnail picture of the parts along with the part numbers. Parts notes: 1. Change 42446 (minifg backplate with stud) to Light Blue Grey. You really only need 1. 2. Add 2x14719 (2x2 corner tile) to the list to cover up a hole near the back on the dorsal ridge. (Right below the cockpit) 3. Dont get stuck on the specific colors. For the Cargo boxes and bows, you can use Olive, Dark Orange, Dark Blue grey, Dark Green, Dark red, Dark Tan, Dark Blue and Metallic silver. All blend in very well. (Dont make extra bricklink orders just to get that one Dark Green tile!) 4. The Plate Hinges (4275/4276) can be any color. They are all hidden. 5. Drop #59230. I could not make it fit where LDD said it was to go. 6. Order a few more 52107's I'm building one in LBG so I ordered LBG parts for everything that is white. Should be done by the weekend and we will see how it looks. Mortesv: It can be easily argued that there were more transports. Yes there are only 2 in the opening Neb-B scene but you see them twice more as Luke and company look out the window. So either the ones seen early circled back around for another pass by the Neb or there were more which I believe is more logical. Fighters circle the fleet while protecting the cargo and capital ships not the trash haulers! So I believe that there were at least 4 that escaped Hoth (or joined up later). (Wow, didn't think I was a Star Wars nerd!)

This one, built by member Dranac, is swooshable. Still has a pretty high piece count though. Rebel Capital ships a pretty boring compared to the good old star destroyer. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=130986&hl=

As explained above, the 4x10 plate w/slopes attached prevented my top hull piece from fitting correctly so I had to remove it and let the side hull pieces angle down a fraction more. Weird that it works on your build but not mine. More pieces arrived today to build a couple more!

Flipping the entire model in ldd is the same as grabbing a single brick. Just select the whole thing, grab it and move it - then the flip options appears and you can flip it using the arrow keys. Quick question - where is that 2x8 gap you mention? Very nice touch with the mirror, it looks excellent! :) It took waaaaay to long to figure out how to flip the model. I kept trying to use the hinge tool and that didn't work at all! Here some screen shots of beefing up the frame a little. GR-75 plate replacment by Scott Roys, on Flickr GR-75 1x2 placement by Scott Roys, on Flickr GR-75 Plate layout. by Scott Roys, on Flickr

It's a beauty! Here's some builders notes that you may find useful. 1. It's a solid model ONCE it's built. Until then, it will try your patience. The biggest issue is that you will knock off some of the finely place greebeling while trying to attach other parts and then you cannot figure out where it came from! 2. I made a third LDD file that just has the bottom greeble and the plates that they attach to. As usual, LDD "floats" a bunch of those parts and it's a real pain to try to figure out where they go. Also, greeble placement is scatter through out the entire instructions so you have to keep coming back to it. Build the ship, then add the detail 3. I didn't have all of the proper colors listed on the parts list but in the end, it didn't matter. LBG. DBG, dark orange, dark blue, dark red, dark green and olive all look just fine on hull and as containers. 4. I beefed up several areas that were weak. One area that I modified quite a bit was the "sandwich" where the top and bottom hulls come together and the studs are reversed. A. I could not get my top part of the hull to fit properly between the two side hull pieces until I replaced the 4x10 plate with a 4x8 and removed the two 1x2 slope pieces. This mod allowed the side hull pieces to hinge down enough so that the top hull could fit in between properly. B. While replacing the 4x10 plate, I filled in the 2x8 gap. In the end that 8x18 area was covered by a 8x8, 8x6 and an 8x4 plate. C. I added a lot more 1x2 bricks with studs on both sides to the "sandwich" area. I made sure there was a brick at each plate joint and I place several in the middle to prevent the plates from bowing while your trying to press on other parts. This bowing problem caused me a lot of grief until I tore the almost finished model apart and rebuilt it. 5. I added two 2x3 angles plates to front of the ship to give it a pointed nose like the real one. And now some pictures: DSC01568 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01569 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01579 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01574 by Scott Roys, on Flickr How did you accomplish this? I could not figure it out. I had to look thought the "grid" to view the bottom and it was distracting.

Congratulations! Hope mom and Mortesv junior are doing well.We expect you to NOT post for at least a week! Selfishly, I'm kind of glad that the latest LDD is on hold. I'm struggling to one transport complete! Still waiting for one order to invoice on the Neb.

Very close! The quote actually came from this book. It was one of my Christmas presents for 1977 and still has a place of honor on my bookshelf. I assume the trading card description was lifted from that. DSC01565 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01566 by Scott Roys, on Flickr DSC01567 by Scott Roys, on Flickr

Got started this evening and skipped to the part that builds the frame and bottom greebling. Tip #1. Delete the stand off the LDD file and save it under a second file. This will greatly assist you when rotating and zeroing in on details.