Matt The Tuba Guy

In September, I travelled to Denmark and displayed a cut down version of Mitre Peak: Setting up was annoying, I ended up at the corner of four tables! When I got back to New Zealand, I did a bit more planning, then I started building my next map, Milford Sound: The total area is over 100 16x16 plates.

This weekend, I finally finished the map of Mitre Peak at the Christchurch Brick Show. It contains approximately 35,000 parts, and weighs about 36kg. One News came in and did some interviews, and that night, my map was actually featured in the article about the show! My next step is to redo some of the pieces to make the map small enough to take halfway around the world to Skaebaek 2019!

Everything is planned except for the specific parts. The light blue is trans clear tiles, and the yellow and orange are structure and filler underneath the final colours. The process of creating the maps starts with downloading topographic map data, including the contours and land cover. I use a GIS program (QGIS because it's free) to create pixel line drawings of all the layers. I then import them into Photoshop. In Photoshop, I fill the layers, then scale them to one pixel per stud. I then work out what is visible and hidden by subtracting contour layers from each other, and using the border function. After this, I combine the contour layers with the land cover layers in a long tedious process I won't go into other than the fact it takes longer than the actual building to complete. In this process, the layers will show bottom structure (underneath the 16x16 plates), middle structure (bricks and 4x4 plates on top of the 16x16 plates), top structure (2x2 bricks), filler (plates), and final colours (plates of the appropriate colours, plus tiles on the water) Once I have completed all the layers, I cut the layers up into the sections (16x16 plates), and upload them to my google drive so I can use my phone to do the actual building. Basically, there is a LOT of design work that goes into each map, which is why I have done a much larger area (equivalent to 22x32 standard baseplates, or 5.7m x 8.3m) so that I can just continue to expand this map.

In the last year, I have completed the 1:12500 scale Mount Cook map. It weighs about 50kg, and has about 54,500 pieces! I also built Mount Taranaki, which is at the same scale of 1:12500. It weighs 30kg, and has about 23,500 pieces. This year's map is Mitre Peak and Milford Sound, which is at a scale of 1:6250. I have partial designs for a much larger area, with the plan to expand the map over the next couple of years. Changes from last years maps include improved modular sections, new edge pieces to hide the inside, and some internal Technic connections to hold it together better, and try to prevent the gaps between sections that bugged me last year. It is still very much a work in progress, but I hope to get the mountain done by the Christchurch Brick Show in July, with the other side of Milford Sound as the work in progress. I am going to Skaebaek this year, and I hope to take a part of this map. I will probably have to do a bit of work to get the weight down, because I have to fit it in 30kg with anything else I need to take halfway around the world!

Since last posting here I have built one and a half maps. My first one is Mount Cook V3. It is at a scale of 1:25,000, and is 2x8 large baseplates, so about 3 metres long! It splits into 8 sections, each 1x2 large baseplates. the total piece count is about 65,000 parts, and it weighs around 60kg! my second one is my current project; Mount Cook V4. It is at a scale of 1:12,500, and is 3x3 large baseplates. In this one, I have added trans clear tiles over the water, and also designed a new construction method, building everything on 16x16 plates that sit on top of brick pillars. I still have a bit of work to do on it. I have two more maps planned at the same scale and size as my current one. They are Taranaki and Milford Sound.

This is Aoraki Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand, built with LEGO. It has a scale of 1:31,250, or 1 plate = 100m, 1 stud = 250m. The vertical scale is accurate. This is determined by the dimensions and height to width ratio of a 1x1 plate. It has approximately 20,000 parts, and weighs about 30kg It is approximately 80cm x 120cm, covering 6 large baseplates, and splits in to three sections to make it easier to transport. During this year, I have built three topographic maps with LEGO. All of them are the same scale, using a 100m vertical resolution and 250m horizontal resolution. The first is of Banks Peninsula and Lyttleton Harbour on the south side of Christchurch, New Zealand (where I live) It covers 6 large baseplates, divides into the 6 baseplates, and contains about 5800 parts. I displayed this at the Southand Brick Show in Invercargill. Unfortunately, not very many people recognised it! My second map was an earlier version of Mount Cook, with less colours, and covering a smaller area. It is built on two large baseplates in one piece. it weighs nearly 10kg, and has over 6000 parts. I displayed this at the Christchurch Brick Show alongside my first map, which was received a bit better. My third map is the big Mount Cook map. I didn't get it complete by the Dunedin Brick show, and continued building it there. I still didn't get it completed by BrickCon NZ in Upper Hutt, and continued building it there as well, completing it at the end of the first exhibition day. It was definitely well received at that show It is now on display in Twizel at the Meridian building. Twizel is where I spent the first 8 or so years of my life, and is about 75km south of Mount Cook (you can see Mount Cook form Twizel on a good day)

Inventory I posted earlier. The only dark green parts are a 1x1 SNOT brick and a 1x1 plate, so it is a regular green flower. there are light green flowers as well. the white pole is a road sign base as jonwil said.

New part? white x 2 dark bley x 2

Inventory from the side of the box, perspective corrected so it is easier to see: Really looking forward to this modular!

If you look at real BWE's, they travel straight during normal operation, slowly moving along the mine face sweeping back and forth. I guess they can steer so they can move closer to the mine face once they have reached the end of the mine, but it wouldn't do that very often. I think the best way to implement steering in the set would be to have a reversing gear that reverses one side, so that it either moves straight forward or rotates on the spot, because that's all you would really need. Definitely looking forward to getting (a couple of) this set.

It looks to me like the XL motor is connected to the far left axle, which has two 8 tooth gears on it. This meshes with the two 24 tooth clutch gears on the middle axle, which also has a black 12 tooth gear, which meshes with a tan 20 tooth gear on the third axle, which also has two red bushes. This third axle looks like it goes into the gear box, with a total gear reduction of 1:3*3:5=1:5, I think.

This sounds interesting. I have built something like this which turned out surprisingly good. I actually built it as a show set, but it ended up too big, so it ended up as an exhibitor set which may or may not go ahead due to part availability and prices on Bricklink. Since it isn't eligible, I might as well post it in here. I hope that is ok. The interesting thing about this building is that it no longer exists thanks to the earthquakes we had 5 years ago. Would it count even though the building no longer exists? If not, I may have problems finding something worth building!

$450 in NZ. Once again LEGO is ripping us Kiwis off! Big Ben = $350 AUD ($375 NZD), $250 USD ($370 NZD), 170 GBP ($365 NZD), $450 NZD This should be $400 in NZ like the Tower Bridge. I will still be getting the set, I just hate that we have to pay ridiculous prices in NZ.

Nice work! Minor nitpick: the SEG plaza (post 151) is in Shenzhen, not Guangzhou.

As far as colour goes, chrome silver (head rest parts) rather than metallic silver (the panels) or pearl silver (the wheels) would be amazing! It would probably be too expensive though (even the already high price night not cover that!)

My introduction to Technic was Bionicle. I started collecting around 2002. In 2004, I started to get the larger Bionicles, which has a lot of Technic beams and other generic Technic parts (this was before Bionicle started moving towards sets consisting of large complex parts) I think it was the end of 2004 (boxing day sales probably), I got 8434 (the black and dark silver airplane), and 8386 (the Ferrari 1:10 F1 car) Bionicle is pretty much an extension of Technic anyway, so it is not too surprising that I moved to Technic! My first flagship Technic set was 8421, the big mobile crane. After this, I continued to get Technic and Racers sets. I continued to collect Bionicles until 2006 (according to Bricklink, I have 72 unique Bionicle sets, with quite a few doubles, so the total is over 100) My 'dark age' would have been the year of 2007. The only Technic set I got that year was 8271. (still my only Technic set from that year) From then on, I have got most of the Technic sets from each year. It wasn't until 2014 that I started collecting sets other than Technic. In the local brick show that year, I won the engineering prize for building an (almost) 10m high tower out of Technic. (one of the reasons I built the tower was because, the previous year, Ryan McNaught displayed his 5.5m high Saturn V rocket, which was the 'tallest Lego Structure in the Southern Hemisphere' so of curse I had to beat it!) The prize was 60026 Town Square, a city set. Henrik Andersen, the designer of that set was there, so I now have a signed set, which is pretty sweet! Since then, I have collected quite a lot of Creator Expert (modulars and the Architectural models). The building techniques are very different to Technic, although there is a surprising amount of Technic in some of those sets! I still collect Technic because I have invested so much into it so far, I have to keep updated with the latest parts (the new huge turntable in the BWE will come in useful for example!)

Al Hamra is recognisable. Some tan or dark tan on the inside could be an improvement though.

Getting it to scale wasn't particularly difficult. I knew what scale to make it, so I looked up the dimensions on Wikipedia, and used Excel to calculate the dimensions in bricks/plates. Excel is really useful for that kind of thing. Your city is very nice! I have considered doing this for my city of Christchurch. Probably two versions actually, one before and one after the earthquakes.

I was going to say that even though the VAB is huge, it would be dwarfed by supertalls, but then I decided to build it myself. Turns out it really is HUGE! 259 parts, a few more would probably be necessary to make it stronger. Pretty sure I have it at the right scale!

Any particular reason you are using 1:2466? is it related to imperial/customary units in some way? As a metric user (i.e. not an American), 1:2466 seems an odd scale to pick.

Not bad. At this scale, it is quite hard to build accurately! What scale are you building at? around 1:2400 by my calculation I have considered doing this myself, although at a slightly larger scale (1:1000 probably) .

I think so. I was wondering which part was making the angles on the wings, and that piece would explain that perfectly

Does the new 16 tooth clutch and driving ring work with the driving ring extension?

Well these were on special in the weekend, so I got three of them for $104 (NZ) each, which at just over 10c a piece is a good price in NZ! I have built all three of the models that it has instructions for (which is actually four buildings because the main model has two buildings), and they are pretty cool, especially how they are built in two halves with a pivot, so it is possible to make a street of buildings twice as long! As a Technic builder, the construction is certainly quite different, and it takes a bit of getting used to. My next step is to dismantle them, and build a couple of bigger buildings myself. Results will be posted (eventually)

Random thoughts: The original version seems to have Shell stickers on it. I have heard rumours that LEGO is listening to Greenpeace, and dumping Shell. Perhaps the redesign is due to issues with Shell? Personally, I do prefer the original version. On the other hand, the redesign has 3x11 black panels.