AussieJimbo

Nice little demonstrator. It can certainly move a lot of weight. The Rotacaster wheels look nice and solid with lots of potential. http://www.rotacaster.com.au/robotics-wheels.html http://www.rotacaster.com.au/shop/category/cat10325/Rotacaster_Robotic_Wheels_Lego_NXT_Compatible.html :classic:

Top job, Sergio. Great looking model and an accurate rendition of the original train. :classic:

Great update, bbqqq. Very clever how the pin fall detection and setting for the spare is all done mechanically. Top tier. :classic:

Nice work on the police vehicles and the Octan prime mover and bowser, L@go and AndyC. I like the little AC one from the previous page too. Are you still going to do the advent calendar build in the bag, Splat? Another model that's out there to be bag built is the red truck from the current City Harbour set. I'll get a shot of my bag built taxi posted in a day or so. :classic:

Great layout. Awesome bridges. Thanks for the pics. :classic:

Cheers, distortme, printout worked fine for me too at TRU Canberra Airport. Thanks for the tip, dogfin. :classic:

Did you use an original coupon or a printout? :classic:

Great idea, beautifully executed. Well done, thire5. :classic:

The solutions I use are to either build lower platforms or just imagine that the doors are actually sliding doors like they would be in real life and live with the fact that minifigs have to step up at that station. :classic:

OK, I'll have a six pack of Heineken brick bottles full of genuine Lego water please. http://inhabitat.com/heineken-wobo-the-brick-that-holds-beer/ Cheers LegoSjaak, meyerc13 & Kryne. :classic:

Cheers, mate. Glad you like it. I've been wondering about real water options. I've got enough height in the wharf for an inch or so of water. :classic:

Thanks Section8. Eventually I want to integrate it into a city but I don't really have the space for that at the moment. :classic:

The new City Harbour 4645 is a nice set but I was a bit disappointed that the sea and the roadway were at the same level. I knew I wanted to raise it up a bit and an impulse buy of 60 1x1x5 reddish-brown bricks in a recent bricklink order gave me the perfect raw materials. I also picked up quite a few 2x16 black plates which were useful in building the support structure for the baseplates that make up the basic wharf from the original set. There are still a few rough edges but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome so far. I'm looking forward to building a bigger port layout when I can get my hands on some more pieces. You can see some initial structures behind the wharf (a sea wall and a simple timber crib railway trestle). Here are a few quick photos. Larger Larger Larger Comments and suggestions appreciated.

I did a B&N order at the beginning of the year that took 5 business days (to Canberra) with priority UPS shipping. No damage whatsoever, all Lego boxes in very good condition. :classic:

Thanks for the spreadsheet, Splat and also for the brickguru link. Very useful. Haven't bought anything from Amazon.fr yet but knowing about the deals available has helped me resist the urge to lash out on too many things locally and save a bit of money for a better value online purchase sooner or later. :classic:

Production to take place in Sydney with a projected 2014 release date: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/warner-bros-animal-logic-bring-lego-to-life-on-film-in-sydney/story-fn3dxity-1226196758136 :classic:

That handover occurs when DHL delivers the parcel to Australia, which was 4 weeks after it was posted. The Australian end took 2 days. DHL themselves told me to expect at 3 weeks before it landed in Australia. UPS manages to do that in a few days. So clearly "most of the delays" were in DHL getting the parcel to Australia for processing by customs and Australia Post. :classic:

Another vote for the Harry Potter game. Great piece count overall, plenty of beige and brown parts, loads of dark grey 6x6 plates, spiders, flags, brown arch windows, in addition to pieces already mentioned. The big grey tiles and the 8x8 light grey one were key parts in my rotary car dumper. I bought three sets when they were on sale. I've assembled one for play which was a nice fun build in itself. I'll probably pick up some more for parts when they're at the right price somewhere. :classic:

Oops...wrong. :classic:

No, it was from Magic Magnus' Bricklink store. Pretty happy with his service. I could have just got the figs but decided to throw in a whole lot of bits and pieces at the same time, mainly tiles and plates. All parts delivered as described, gave up counting after checking about half the bags in the order and finding them on the money or a part or two over on the larger bags (eg 202 reddish brown 2x8's in an order of 200). You're never 100% sure about things when you buy from an online source for the first time but I'm a happy customer and I'd buy from Magnus again. Might have to see if he can use UPS next time though. :classic:

Hope your delivery isn't too banged up. I rang DHL Australia (twice, they didn't return my call the first time) about 2 and a half weeks after it was sent and they said expect 3 weeks plus Australia Post delivery time. They couldn't tell me where the package was. Eventual delivery specs were - sent 11 October, picked up by me on 9 November after delivery attempt the day before. I forgot to add that the "box of minifigs" end of the package was also damp when I picked it up from Australia Post (we had quite a bit of rain) so the already smooshed box was also soft and spongey. Oh well, the minifigs were safe in their individual packs and no Lego came to harm in the process. I'll see if I can pick up an empty box from a friendly local retailer. :classic:

I'm not impressed with DHL. I've just received a Bricklink order (my first *grin*) from Germany. 4kg package, size of three minifig cartons taped together, shipping cost 40 Euros. Seller sent it the day payment was made but it took a month to get here and was pretty beaten up as you'd expect when it's been in the sausage machine for so long. Most of it was bagged parts which survived fine but I didn't get the mint Series 5 box I was after. Their tracking was rubbish too. If you've got my package for a month, tell me what you are doing with it and what the ETA is. At least it eventually arrived but it's pretty poor value and service compared to the good value, low damage, faster shipping I've seen people getting from amazon.fr/UPS. I'd definitely recommend UPS. Last time I used them the boxes arrived completely undamaged in 5 days from the US. I think it was about the same money for 2 medium and 1 large boxes (can't remember the weight) from B&N. I won't be using DHL again if I can avoid it. :classic:

Fantastic work, helos. Both the engine and the coaches are superb. :classic:

To get an idea of the scale, the tunnel portal has to be 10-wide to accomodate the Emerald Night and 13 high (IIRC) to allow pantograph trains/Toy Story train. If you want to cover that with the simplest hill (think simpler, less high Lego version of the pic Hoexbroe posted) you'll want to go at least 15 bricks high and span 12 or 14 wide. So for example, 30 basic 2x4's for the sides plus plates over the top gives you 4 studs worth of hill/tunnel. That gives you a ball park estimate of 250 2x4 bricks plus a few dozen plates (plus whatever you need for the tunnel portals) for a theoretical hill that is one 32x32 baseplate long. Of course you'll want a bigger hill than that bare minimum and a wide variety of bricks so you can build a realistic looking landscape, so the piece count just goes up and up. :classic:

They are compatible and recommended by Lego professional builders for hidden areas of large models. You can attach four standard 2 x 4 Lego bricks to the top of a 2 x 4 Duplo brick. I'll be picking up a few of them at some stage to help build up a hillside. :classic: