Captain Dee

Very nice gunboat. It's a creative design, well thought out and built, and certainly well-armed. Your vessels are never really lacking for hull or rigging designs, and this one absolutely fulfills the purposes of the free-build challenge. And I appreciate the effort you put into the guns, especially the big one. Approved

Very nice. I like the architecture and color scheme; the tan and grey with white columns go very well together. I particularly like the work you've done around the windows and that elaborate fence is neat. But I can't quite make out the design of the roof railing. This makes for a very nice university build; pity we can't see the interior. Approved for GoC.

Ah, the days of ridin' the ol' Cheese Wagon! Let's see, there was No. 78, and then 102... Richard Smith and "The Beast" as drivers. Oh yeah. The good ol' days! Looks like a great start. Keep it up.

This is either madness or brilliant. And I'm envious you got to run it. But will it dig? I assume it would, although you might need a camera to see what you're doing. Oh, and it will always be an "R Ninety-eight hundred" to me! (Kinda like New Holland insisting that my T8.390 tractor is a "T 8 dot 390.")

Aha. Understood! 20 or 30 years... hmm... we started in '92... The bin still looks decent. And I still hate flex augers.

@Maxim I Looks great. @LM71Blackbird Ah, blue, my favorite color. I must confess I never particularly liked the Sunfire, but you have this one looking nice. But those doors... I can feel my scalp hitting those doors just looking at the pics! What's in the background? Still functional?

The Pirate Bay looks fabulous, and hopefully will remain so as a set. I think a (MOCed / MODed) version would be great for the Sea Rats, yes. And any other poor unfortunate (shipwrecked?) souls. But... I'm disappointed. I was hoping we'd get "Ye Olde BoBS Drinking Hole..."

"I weren't a-feared o' him alive, and I ain't a-feared o' him dead, by thunder!"

People actually call each other downright crazy on this forum? That's absolutely ridiculous. They must be out of their minds. Hmm, "MTTFGA" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue... but it might make a good license plate!

Hmm, 3 options, 3 letters in "WTC." Choices, choices. I like the sounds of 2 best, for the reasons outlined above. I think you should go with whichever includes the greatest use of explosives.

I used "them" to host my pics only because it was extremely easy to do from a phone. They were a part of Photobucket, so the change to paid services seemed inevitable. They might have deleted the pics I had uploaded, but I still have all the originals in hi-res. Take that, Photo*uckit. I have set up a Bricksafe account but haven't used it yet. I don't exactly leap for joy at the thought of going through this all over again just to restore the lost images. P.S. Just so you know, they hosted pics all the back to 2004. Two-thousand-four!! The late Jurassic, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth!! Aren't they just fantabulous??

Nice build. Definitely approved for GoC from me. I think @Ayrlego makes some good points. I also like the trees, and the overall layout is pretty good. Perhaps you could vary the ground textures a bit, but I really like the smoothness of the path. And the gateway and fence are nice. Dude. There's, like, no such thing as too much gold, man.

Usually, yes. As in pretty much always! (Or at least equal width f/r...) I bought it off a lease return, already set up that way. The difference is so small I can't tell the fronts are wider just by looking. I was concerned single 710s wouldn't be adequate on our terrain, and dual 710s are insanely wide, hence the dual 520s.

I like the "new look." The front ballast shape is beautiful, and the black doesn't bother me, even if Deere almost always paints their weights green. The taller cab looks more natural, regardless of how it scales. I prefer the smooth, realistic look of the first front fender, but the second one definitely matches the overall design better. Regarding tires, I was checking the operator's manual of my T8.390 and the maintenance section for tires (in this case 520/85R46 rears, 540/65R34 fronts) specifies that "To get the traction and cleaning action of the lugs, the tires must be installed on the wheels so the tread is turning as shown [chevron pointing down going forward]." Basically what I was trying to say in several paragraphs, condensed into a single sentence. Ah, but we've only just begun! Next we're going to learn about Load Index and the speed ratings for ag tires. (Just kidding... )

I'm not trying to start an argument but agricultural tires with chevron lugs are designed to be self-cleaning in soft or muddy conditions -- but only in one direction, with the chevron pattern pointing down going forward (opposite of what you have here) as the mud is forced out and away from the tire, allowing the lugs to penetrate to hard soil beneath. As shown, forward travel would force mud to the center, thereby causing the tire to ride up on it and making contact with solid ground difficult. Several of the big rear tires I've seen have arrows indicating they are supposed to be mounted opposite of how you have these. I've personally operated about 20 different tractors, seen hundreds more, and literally thousands of listings for sale, and they all have the chevron pointing down going forward -- unless someone specifically mounted them "backward" for some reason. And I've never seen any ag tractor or other self-propelled machine (combine, forager, etc) on rubber tracks with an upward-pointing chevron going forward. But some towed implements on tires or tracks are factory-equipped with the chevron facing as you've shown. Some people mount them "backward," ie chevron pointing up going forward, if they do lots of roading (explained to me as a way of reducing wear) and some combine harvesters mount them that way, too -- explained to me as "less traction to get stuck [forward] and more traction to get unstuck [reverse]." (Spin those tires slick full of mud in the "normal" configuration and reverse traction of a heavy combine is almost nonexistent.) Then some folks mount one rear tire facing each way, for "equal traction" each direction for specialized tasks such as loader work. Theoretically. In reality it seems the tractor would just "fight itself" under challenging conditions. On solid, dry, relatively flat dirt, the direction of the chevron makes little difference. Add hills, soil moisture, plant stubble, etc to the mix, and my experience with tires mounted opposite what you've shown is excellent traction going forward (the "working direction") and a remarkable drop in traction in reverse (but of course, everything we run has a powered front axle too, which largely eliminates the issue.) I've always wondered how a tractor equipped with rear duals facing opposite directions would handle. I'll be mounting my 520/85R46 Michelin duals in a few weeks to pull a tri-axle tanker, but the concave/convex wheel design will force me to mount them the traditional way. Of course, a radial tractor tire mounted any direction will outdo a (mostly pointless) bias tire. Ok, I'll shut up now. Great MOC regardless.

Excellent! I love big mining rigs, and this is great. The wobbling of the elevated bed is about the only distraction, as previously mentioned. Otherwise, nice. But... you have a slight typo in your title. My first thought was, "Has CAT changed their nomenclature without me realizing it?" but I quickly realized otherwise. Good work. Keep it up. P.S. That is one brilliant pet food bowl.

Nice. I like the overall look, with some Technic and Model Team attributes. The black fender extensions are neat, even if the style clashes slightly with the smoothness of the main fenders. The lights are nice and the fuel tank cap makes me smile. The relatively simple mechanicals are suitable, methinks, but then I am somewhat Technic-illiterate after all. And you're right - you can never have too many tractors, real or model! (One of my "daily drivers" is a 2014 6150M, with the 20speed PowerQuad trans and self-leveling front-end-loader. Different animal than the "R" machines altogether, but about the same size. ) Now someone hurry up and build a model of my NH T8.390, so I can endlessly harass you for (free) instructions! To finish on a serious note, a couple of questions: is there any particular reason why the rear tires are mounted backward? And by "drawbar" I assume you are referring to the 3-point-hitch -- at least for the front end? Edit: I just looked in the Flickr album, and I like that flip-plow model. It matches up well with the tractor. (In the real world, I view plows as pure evil. In these rolling hills we farm, it's no-till forever, baby! ) Keep it up.

Beautiful build all around. The elevated house is lovely and the orange trees fill the scene with color. Well done. @Darnok I was thinking that someone had built an orangery (or something similar) - Elostirion, perhaps?

I reported the spam posts just before posting here.

Argh, a spammer named "Kerneopsy" has infiltrated the boards, with random numbers entered for "favorite theme" and "recent set" questions. But other interests are sensible, so maybe an actual person is behind it. Spam/incoherent jibberish all the same...

Looks great - I really like the Oleonder and the winking Corrie lady. But I have a hard time believing that a purebred Greenie would be so careless with his/her money! (Unless it's a trap... ) Did you see all the BoBS CMF stuff 2 years ago? Edit: Arrr, Bob Kehl has skill.

Yeah, yeah, rub it in, whydontcha. Beautiful use of color, in a somewhat whimsical build. Looks like fun.

Dang it, they should've cancelled Castle and Pirates instead. I'm kidding. I'M KIDDING! But still... just imagine what could've been. Edit: Thanks for the info!

Whoa... giant MOC, and impressively detailed. It's a somewhat whimsical design, which I fully understand, and it stands out all the more for it. Good work.

Oh, a pair of fine creations! The pirate island hideout is suitably ramshackle, but the orderliness and overall arrangement of the soldiers' outpost really strikes me. Why can't we get some new sets that mimic this, instead of all the empty panels that made so much of the "walls" of the last official "fort"? Good work and keep it up.