62Bricks

I'm working on an escapement. This will attach a pendulum. I'm not picturing what you mean I was hoping there would be one of these little 2L arms with both x and + axle holes. The connection needs to be rigid. This is similar to my current solution: The whole thing rotates on the axle through the center hole of the 45-degree liftarm.

I need to connect two sections of a mechanism where the axles are aligned x and +. They need to be in the same vertical axis but not necessarily the same horizontal axis. Right now I'm using one of the old 24-tooth gears with three axle holes. This works, but I'm wondering if there is a more compact technique that uses a part currently in production. I've been away from Technic building for a while and am not familiar with all the new connectors. Is there anything out there that will do this?

Thanks for this review - I just ordered the set, my first Technic set in many years.

You got a good deal. There are some scarce and desirable parts in there. Yes - the hollow body torsos found on the red and white space men are the oldest version from the late 70s, although LEGO used parts until the stocks ran out, even after new versions were in production, so they might have been sold in later sets. Originally the gold planet was printed directly on the torso, but around the time the torso design changed from the "hollow" to the "short prong" version, LEGO began under-printing the full planet in white, then printing the gold planet on top of that. I suppose this made the gold stand out better on the red torsos, but it also had the effect of leaving behind a white planet after the gold wore off. The hollow-torso red space men were only printed with the outline of the planet in white, so when the gold wore off it left a "red" planet.

I have a friend who does a lot of beading and she uses these felt or foam mats that lie flat and prevent small parts (like beads) from rolling away. If you look online or in hobby stores for bead mats, you'll find them in many sizes. I've never used them while building. My LEGO table/desk has a very hard smooth top, but I usually use the lids from my storage bins to corral pieces while I'm working.

I believe that is because the older ones still contained the old bromine-based fire retardant which tended to yellow them over time and with UV exposure. The later versions did not have that compound and held their color better. They all started out the same color, but it is difficult to find any from the 80s that have not yellowed somewhat.

I can foresee a lot of griping about being featured on the homepage. It has already started. I think most sellers probably missed this new help topic: http://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2443&q=featured The four "featured" stores on the homepage are unique to each visitor and they change every day. They are chosen automatically based partly on the location of the visitor, partly on how much business the store does, and partly on customer service stats. I also foresee a lot of griping about the wanted lists supposedly favoring larger stores. I think some sellers may be missing the point of the new feature that allows buyers to find the store with the largest number of parts on their wanted lists. Of course it's going to favor stores with larger inventories because that is what buyers want - to get as many parts as they can in as few orders as possible. In short, the new Bricklink has (finally!) started to focus on the buyer and has begun to loosen the grip sellers have had over the site design and functionality. So many sellers are resistant to being held accountable for good customer service. It's great that the site got where it is today as a "hobbyist" site, but the amateur approach to selling bricks is not going to sustain it into the future.

The old "search items for sale" page is still there, they just moved it - Click the SHOP icon at the top of the page, then the STORES link from the menu bar. That will slide things around and show you a new set of links. One of them is "Search Item" - that's the old search that lets you include comments in the search. Here's the direct link: http://www.bricklink.com/searchAdvanced.asp

I don't know about the manual, but the dark gray parts look very much like dark bluish gray and not dark gray.

My sales dropped off the day of the switch and like some others I was worried that something had broken. But then some new orders came in yesterday and everything seems to be OK. Many of the problems people are reporting seem to be isolated and probably browser-specific. The site was built on some pretty creaky HTML, which, while it was very outdated, did have the benefit of working (mostly) on a wide variety of browsers. There are still some very vocal members at BL who apparently think the site should have been tested on every one of the half-million users' particular OS/browser combo before going live, but that's just bluster. I did discover and report one bug where the bottom of search result pages were getting cut off. It seems to have been fixed within 24 hours.

A "full spectrum" fluorescent bulb will offset the colors more clearly:

Modern molds are not cast. They are machined.

Yes - and the "Things were better when we were kids" lament is a perennial favorite. It has probably been around as long as humanity.

I think people who make this criticism are really exposing how they have lost their own sense of imagination and creativity. Children have no problem dreaming up other uses for specialized LEGO pieces - and even if they build the model exactly as the instructions say, they are still able to use that model in imaginative play. But adults who have lost that ability look at modern LEGO sets and cannot imagine themselves using their imagination, they they incorrectly project their own inability onto children. They cannot imagine using a firefighter's helmet as anything except a firefighter's helmet. Children (or, ahem, certain adults who never stopped playing with their LEGO pieces) have no problem using that helmet as a frog's eyeball, or a duck's head, or whatever they want. An adult sees a molded roof piece and cannot imagine it as anything except the roof of a building. A child has no problem using it as a hat, a beak for a giant bird, etc. As someone pointed out, when this particular critic was a child, LEGO sets were well on their way to being dominated by themed model sets. What he is probably remembering as a box of random bricks is not the sets as they came from the shop, but his family LEGO box, which, if it was like most others, was a collection of all the parts from all the sets in one big happy pile of possibility. So I usually just feel sorry for these critics. They have lost their confidence in their own imagination.

I think the low resolutions on older scans are because many of them were scanned and uploaded many years ago when scanners and digital cameras were not as sophisticated. Peeron was (and I think still is) the primary source for many of the sites and apps offering scans of older instructions, and I don't know that anyone is actively updating those images any more. Another option is to look for fan-made files in LDD or LDraw-based files. These can be used to print hi-resolution images if you need something printed out to build from.

You could piece something together using the "Most Common Parts" stats pages at Bricklink: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogStats.asp?statID=C&itemType=P Unfortunately, it only shows you the top 25, ranked by how many set inventories the parts appear in. BUT you can manipulate the list by choosing various categories. For example, using the dropdown menu at the top, you can choose "Brick" and get the list of the 25 most common bricks. Same with Plates, Slopes, etc. If you did that for 20 or 25 of the largest part categories, you'd have a pretty accurate list. Of course since this information is obviously kept in the BL database somewhere it might be possible to get at it more directly.

About two years ago I spent $60 on a used lot, sorted it, and used it to stock a Bricklink shop. That is the last time I spent any money out of my own pocket for Lego, and in that time I've grown my personal collection from around 20,000 pieces to over 100,000. I keep all my Lego buying and selling funds in one Paypal account, so that's how I keep from dipping into my "own" money for more. I have a debit card for the account that I keep next to my VIP card in my wallet so I can treat myself to the occasional new set or some new bricks from the PAB wall if they have anything I need for my building. I don't if it would work if I was a set collector. I just like parts. I have no problem getting rid of minifigs or rare old pieces because I don't use those kinds of things in my own building. It is work to run a good Bricklink shop. It takes time hunting down inventory, sorting, listing, filling orders. But I enjoy making great finds and learning about parts, so it doesn't feel like work. Might not work for everyone, but I may never have to pay for Lego again...

Jarne - It would be worthwhile to sort your bricks to make it easier to find the right ones. When I sort a large number or bricks, I will usually first sort by the major types - all plates go into one box, all bricks into another. Wheels, tires and wheel holders go together. Wedges and wedge plates go into a box, and slopes go into a box. I also have a box for small 1x1 pieces like small plates, 1x1 slopes, 1x1 bricks, etc. That will reduce the amount of time you spend sifting through one big box. Here is a long thread about how others sort and store their pieces - once you re-build your sets, you may want to keep the parts together for the next time you build them, or sort the pieces by part and color as you take them apart: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26213

True - I forget to include the CUUSOO-era models, which required fewer votes to be considered. It almost makes me wish for a lower vote requirement for non-licensed projects.

I put Birds and the Exo-suit at #1 and #2 for the same reasons. Research Institute is more of a minifig play set, and I prefer building, but it is also an original idea so I give it high marks. When these three came out I had hoped LEGO was starting to favor these kinds of original sets rather than imitations of licensed products. Then they dropped three licensed sets in a row.

I'm going to be honest: I've thrown several of those scimitars away because I thought they were MB! They appear so un-LEGO to me I never even looked closely to see if they actually were...

Yes, but I'm not sure what use it would be to have 13,000 pages of minifigs listed by price: http://www.bricklink...rchSort=C&sz=25 If you use the old search function, you can sort the results by lowest (or highest) price: http://www.bricklink...rchAdvanced.asp

You don't mention whether the connection needs to be cylindrical without any protrusions from the center. If not, then any 1-brick wide piece with a pin hole would give you a fairly secure connection by inserting each pin halfway in. This is not a "legal" connection, since it holds the pin ends in compression. Here's an example with a 1x1 Technic brick. You could also just flip the wheels around and use a cylindrical pin joiner on the studs:

One of the improvements in the works at Bricklink is to display the average order fulfillment time alongside the seller's feedback. That way you'll have a better idea of how long it usually takes them to get your order out.