anothergol

yes, version 1 is still on Rebrickable, and there are tools available to extract lists from LXF files

Except that small sets are designed to be impulse buys in stores, whereas you don't buy from BrickLink or even Ebay the same way, & even just the added shipping is a problem. And as for modulars, I think that it makes sense to buy everything back until the Parisian restaurant, because older modulars didn't look as great & detailed & may not fully fit, while the few ones since the restaurant are great & I can imagine the future ones will remain in the same style for a long time. Were you talking about dino sets from 2012 btw? I thought you were talking about The Lost World. Well dinos make sense as well, not only they're timeless, but Jurassic Park keeps them alive constantly. But, for ex, small Chima kits.. that would be the worst to invest in. Because some themes are strictly for kids, and kids grow up, and you'd have to wait 20 years until some adults will wanna buy the sets of their childhood. They will certainly be ready to pay a lot, but during those 20 years, no one will want them. I've myself bought a Legoland Space set, it makes even more sense for them to be overexpensive, new or used.

Here's the key, first pose the legs alone (no weight problem, that's easy). Then place the head, hold it with one hand, and place 2 fingers of the other hand on each foot, right next to the ball joints. Now, pivot the whole thing back & forth until you align with the center of gravity (you will feel it when it won't wanna fall forwards or backwards), and let it go.

yeah, but how many will you have to sell to match just 1 large set? I think that, as long as Lego keeps making modulars, there will be newcomers (like, myself, going back to Lego after 20 years) who will want older sets to complete the town. They all connect together, so it's a big incentive for collecting. It's also still realistic to wanna have a full collection, whereas collecting every Lego SW is hopeless. Sure Star Wars is a popular franchise, but if you're after an AT-AT or Millenium Falcon, there's a new one all the time, which is generally better than the previous ones (which is why UCS sets are a better choice), so there must be less people looking for old sets, except for those who wanna collect everything, there aren't that many.

I'd agree that Lego probably isn't the investment it used to be, since everyone jumped on it, however -it's still a solid investment because Lego is timeless and even if someone doesn't earn anything, he's most likely not gonna -lose- anything (especially with modulars). And considering that these days money in a bank account gives you pretty much nothing, well.. -star wars toys are crap, but no one would sanely invest in entry-prices Lego boxes either, it's the big & limited stuff that's always interesting. Just like resin statues generally don't lose value. And I agree with everyone (ah, apparently not), Ghostbosters is a fad (I can't imagine this reboot keeping the franchise alive for long), no one is gonna want it in a few years. And even for the parts, modulars are a better investment.

But again, take this part. It's a great example, because you'll find it for 1 cents (& this is why BL is also great, the prices have nothing to do with the manufacturing costs, only with rarity, so parts like this are very cheap). But in black, prices start at 2eur (up to 10eur, haha). That's a 20000% increase. Yet, imagine that BL sellers were considering it no different because it's black, and it only costed a little more, like 5 cents (that would be reasonable). The result would be that if you really needed one of these in black today, you wouldn't find any anywhere, instead of being asked 2eur for it. Personally, I'll never buy one of these for 2eur, because I don't wanna encourage prices like this, but I understand the reason, that it's not entirely a bad thing and that it's ultimately Lego that's guilty for not producing more of these, instead of another random Chima minifig accessory.

But it's simple to make everyone happy, the ones who buy 1000 parts like the ones who buy 2, Lego just has to produce more. Of course there are 2 problems with that, one which I won't buy ("Lego can't produce enough", it's not something a company can claim for years), & the other being that those who buy 1000 parts to resell them, after they realize that there is still plenty for everyone, won't buy as much anymore.

looking cool Since the torso & the taps exist in white, you could easily build Asimo here

But can't you cut it rough and then cut around it, after it's applied? Anyway the reason I said it was less important for waterslide decals, is that the edges are much less visible. A classic sticker raises so much that a round sticker would better be cut perfectly round around the print (which Lego often fails to do properly, btw). And the reason I thought it'd be easier to find sources for decal printing, is that there is (still?) a big market for plastic kits (military, vehicles..)

That still makes no sense. That only makes sense if someone buys all the parts -from the others-, and then becomes the only source available, then he does whatever he wants with the prices. But no, we're talking about someone adding 300 parts to BL, while the other sellers are still there. If the guy with 300 parts really wants to sell them, he's gonna make them cheaper than the other sellers (who will then have to adjust, etc). So if that guy hadn't owned large quantities of that orange plate, the others would have been cheaper? Why? And remember that since (because BrickLink) the rarity of a part on the market equals the rarity of a part in Lego sets, the ultimate reason for a part's rarity is Lego. Thus if you have to blame someone for inflated prices, it's Lego who chose not to produce enough for the demand (maybe a low demand that they don't care for, that is, adults). The best example are technic parts in sober colors. Lego produces them in dumb color to help kids. So who's responsible for a 2.5eur black pin/axle, while its blue counterpart is 2 cents? Lego, not sellers. IF sellers were offering those parts for 2 cents because they're generous, instead of having a few hundreds of those parts at 2.5eur on the market, there would be absolutely none left. Again, because Lego does not produce them anymore, and doesn't wanna aknowledge that blue pin/axles make things ugly. I would say all of the blame. And let me explain why Lego actually likes those who sell an old SW set for 10x its original price: Unlike other companies, it wouldn't be a problem at all for Lego to produce new boxes of the UCS Millenium Falcon. Afterall, it's only a matter of printing boxes, all of the parts are recent & are still produced. And they still own the license. But imagine Lego really did that, a re-release of the UCS MF, without changing anything. That would piss off ALL collectors out there, and not just the owners of UCS MF who'd now see the value of their box plummet, but ALL collectors would now not trust Lego anymore and think that their stock might not keep its value anymore. Suddenly Lego wouldn't be the good investment it is now. And this is what happens in the high-price collectible market, which I come from (I never sold anything but I own many statues that costed the price of the Ghostbusters HQ set). Many people collect & resell SideShow statues, and are pretty pissed off when SideShow produces more than what they originally claimed (as variants or whatever), because they don't care about the statue itself, only its value. They're normally safer here because a resin mold wears off more quickly & those statues are produced in very limited quantities. But still, countless times I've seen statue collectors being pissed when they realize that what they bought wasn't as limited as they thought.

Cutting isn't a requirement, if it's waterslide decals it's ok to cut manually. I was more looking for people who do this at home, with their ALPS printer. I had actually found a resource page for that, but it's just that most of them aren't doing it anymore. http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/decals.htm#custom This one looks interesting, but they're in australia, and I found no hint of their pricings http://www.wessextransfers.com/html/decal_printing.html

mmh no, some are trying to sell stuff at inflated prices, it doesn't mean anyone is buying it. Sure there are several BL sellers who stock stuff at 50x the price, they don't intend to sell anything right now, only if the part ever gets sold out everywhere else. in any case, having a part available in more quantities just can't inflate prices, that would make no sense, in any economy system

There is a method that may sound very weird, but trust me, it works. You follow the instructions and you assemble it. In theory, that's when you realize that a part is missing. (Brickset/Bricker do list the extra parts btw, I believe)

Just wondering, why would Lego have a problem with resellers being ready to buy 100x 1.5eur torsos that cost 2 cents to produce? I know I'd unroll the red carpet for them. (& why wouldn't Lego place a limit on such parts? It's pretty easy to do) As a consummer, I find it a good thing that someone managed to buy 300 of the same rare part, so that it lowers the BrickLink prices a little. Proper resellers sell boxes, to kids, it's not their market to sell parts, I can't imagine this being a problem for them. I find this situation a bit weird, either this section of Bricks&Pieces is there to sell parts, just like PaB, OR it's only there to help those who have lost parts of their old sets. But everyone seems to say that "it's a LITTLE there to sell, and shouldn't be abused". And I agree that how Bricks&Pieces is presented doesn't make it very clear.

As for the stability, v1 had the issue that the head would fall too easily. So at first I moved the head's joint up (not just for stability, it makes more sense), and I added a high-friction extender. Turns out that it worked a bit too well, it was very hard to turn the head, and worse, as the extender was taking the room for solidity parts, there was more chance to disassemble the thing when trying to rotate it. So I removed the extender, and apparently moving the joint up was enough to keep it stable. However the head weights more, because of the addition of more solidity parts (which are optional), so it's more stress on the legs. But now the only risk is the whole thing falling forward or backwards, on the feet's joints, if it hasn't been centered properly. Just like the previous one, it's never gonna fall over time, even if you have traffic vibrations. But if you knock it or shake the table hard, yeah it's gonna fall.

thanks well it's just here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=120770

I don't care for the movie/car, BUT am I really seeing a 2x2 wedge plate there? That's the part that Lego should have been producing since the 80's!

Yeah, but I also keep in mind that it won't matter for most people. It only has to look like what people remember of it, afterall. I still don't know/understand the reason for the differences between the blueprint & the actual models, though. Apparently the above blueprint shows the body of the Endor version, & the legs would be the ones of the Hoth version. It's possible that the legs ended up being a problem as they started making tests, and they shortened them, but later they reused the longer legs which had already been made? Funny thing, in a BL order I got this cool bike helmet in LBG, and I was wondering where I could use this on the AT-ST. Would have been nice on the sides of the legs, but it's a little too deep. Then on the above pic, with the crew, I noticed the AT-ST actually has a part that looks just like this, bottom row, in the middle. But I wasn't seeing it anywhere. So I inspected the Bandai model, and it's there, underneath the body, all hidden. Would be a waste of time to try to fit this where it can't be seen, but it's funny how sometimes the right part exists in Lego. Same behind the legs, there's a part that looks just like this, & yet it didn't look right when I tried to fit it.

Can you confirm that you really used "buy bricks" & didn't abuse "missing/broken bricks"? That's like the detail that changes everything. If you really used "buy bricks", then it's pretty serious, and I don't see where Lego says that "buy bricks" can't be used like PaB. If on the other hand you did abuse "missing bricks" (even if you wanna pay), well you deserve it. So you didn't claim some parts were missing & then told Lego you wanted to pay for them, did you?

thanks If you mean at the back, it's because I (on purpose) angled the head back. The distance between body & head however is only a matter of picking another axle length, but I tried to guess the best one from the blueprint & movie, even though the head does seem to stand higher on Bandai's kit. I did try +0.5 axle length and it's still ok, but +1 looks too much. Here the head sits rather low too. & actually I see many parts that don't look like Bandai's kit. Also if you take a look at the legs of the blueprint, the ones on the model with the crew, the ones in the battle of Hoth, I think it becomes clear that there are several versions of it. The lowest segment of the leg on the last pic clearly doesn't match the blueprint. Oh and I've already made 3 photoshoots of this thing, I keep forgetting to make one with an egg.

thanks everyone I'm not making a proper Rebrickable entry right now (because it takes time to explain & not every part is in the LXF), but LXF here: http://www.fiastarta.com/Lego/AT-ST/AT-ST_v2.lxf

hi, It's strictly for private use, so not many at all, like less than 5. (which pretty much forbids any of the part-printing services out there) However, I'm assuming that the preparation/overhead for printing decal sheets isn't the same as the one to print parts, & that it would be ok to ask a service to print 10 *different* decal sheets, am I wrong?

For me B&P is quite cheap, though. It's not even 2eur, which would be the shipping price from my own country, I wouldn't find cheaper on BrickLink. In fact, PaB from my own country costs 5eur shipping, that makes no sense. It's normally shipped from Denmark so I don't know how they do it. Well, I've BLed something in Finland the other day and it was under 2eur as well, but it had to be under 50g for that.

"Sometimes bricks cannot be donated." I'd like to know why. If there is no charity close enough to fetch them, there's certainly a BL seller to sell them to for cheap, which would certainly be better than recycling something that's still perfectly usable (unless the parts are all broken of course, but I can't see how that would happen), which has a cost too, & won't replace the energy that was spent to produce the parts in the first place. But hey, large shops trash tons of good stuff every day, pretty sure many Lego sets have been "compacted" not by Lego directly :( It's also a Lego-specific thing that parts can be recycled by reusing them for MOCs, you can't say the same about a normal toy having a broken part.

Update: Version 4.5 of the one that started in this thread http://www.eurobrick...pic=112171&st=0