grum64

Build Day 9 / Building Time - 3hrs / Total Building Time - 26.5hrs / Towbar Off - 0 / Gearstick Off - 0 I've been sitting on these pics (metaphorically speaking. Contrary to popular belief I'm not that daft 🤔) for a day or two. Upon hearing this my rather special Nephew told me I should get on with writing & get them posted so, like the good boy I am, I'm doing just that. The windscreen's on but surprisingly, to me anyway, it was a right royal pain to fit. It’s held on by the 2x1 hinge bricks at each end of the scuttle panel but each time I pressed it down they'd move. The 'screen's angle didn’t help making fitting it squarely onto to the hinge bricks really rather difficult. After more than a few goes I had a lightbulb moment and took the bricks out, fitted them to the 'screen and hey presto, all done. Make sense? I hope so. Although it’s on I can't say it's the most securely held part you'll ever find which is why I’ve knocked it off twice already today so once more, just once more.... I think I'm going I'm going to need a bigger Pot of Shame. Plates upon plates along with a few bricks here & there make up the offside rear wheelarch & then the lights, filler cap etc assembly (which itself is an interesting little build). Once the two assemblies are fitted together it's quite fragile with the two detatching themselves very easily. I've done really well so far as regards airborne parts & parts whose sole intention is to hit the floor at the earliest possible opportunity. Having said that, the aforementioned opportunity arrived today when I might have been (was 😇) a tad heavy handed when trying to fit the windscreen and sent the whole build sliding across the table. In itself that's not a problem but as said build sped on its way it met a pair of foil trays containing the parts from bags 8 & 9 sending their contents far and wide across the floor. On the upside but of no conciliation whatsoever was that three 1x1 Tiles left stuck in the bottom of one of the trays. A win’s a win however small. I've been through pages 157 - 193 of the instructions to check all necessary parts are no longer at ground level and it appears they’re all present and correct but only time will tell.

Build Day 8 / Building Time - 2hrs / Total Building Time - 23.5hrs / Exhaust Off - 6 / Towbar Off - 0 / Gearstick Off - 1 Just a couple of hours today but progress has been made so I'm a happy Grum. When I showed our wonderful 2yr old Grandaughter the pictures she looked, pointed at it and smiled. "Green truck", she said, "beautiful." From the mouth of babes...🥰 The doors were interesting to build and not without their frustrations. Fitting the 36840 1x1 1x1 & 73825 1x1 1x2 Brackets used on the leading edge of each door and the latter used again for the wing mirror brackets all came off several times. I'm hoping it'll not be a regular occurrence. The exhaust's already in the pot of shame and the towbar & gearstick very likely to follow it I don't want much more going in it. Besides it only holding so much, if many more parts come adrift not only will the pot be full the model will look more like it's being scrapped than built.

Build Day 7 / Building Time - 3.5hrs / Total Building Time - 21.5hrs / Exhaust Off - 4 / Towbar Off - 2 / Gearstick Off - 3 With the wings on and headlights attached the Landie's now recognisable for what it is. Much of their building was plate on plate with a few bricks added in. Much of the build so far has been this way which might sound a little 'uninteresting' to some but it's enjoyable building. I'm not sure how much of the days building time was taken up refitting the exhaust & towbar which came adrift numerous times but it was more than enough. But both are on their last warning. Any more of that malarky and they're in the pot until the build's finished. About an hour in the gearstick decided it wanted a piece of the action an detached itself / got knocked off (delete as you think applicable) 3 times. The first time was when fitting the stickered centre dash tile when it did a full on vanishing act only to reappear around an hour or so later having been residing up my sleeve. Much more of that sort of thing and it too will go in the pot Speaking of stickers. I've had a message asking how I put them on. Well, usually I don't but not just because realistic I can't without ruining them, putting them on skewwhiff. I have tried in the past but ended up losing them only to find them stuck to my hair, clothing or, as has happened a time or two, the underneath of my build table. For this build and the previous one, the 50's inspired Pick Up, I actually bought printed parts as for these two sets at least, they weren't overly expensive. I've used them before on my GT3 & Chiron amongst others. They're great quality and so much better than applying stickers The only disappointing thing was the Landie's didn't come with a windscreen with printed A Pillars. I've tried to find a used one with the stickers applied but to no avail so the windscreen will remain pillarless. I'll not use the orignal sheet just for that. What's That? Buy a spare sticker sheet you say. Have you seen the price of original replacement sets? Sellers are asking ridiculous money for them, £45+ in many cases I know it's early days yet so it's likely I'm completely wrong but I seem to remember that when building the Beetle, VW Camper, Mini etc, they were built more as 'almost a whole' by which I mean you'd build a good proportion of the model on the model with just a few other assemblies added along the way. Hope that make's sense. It does in my head as I'm writing but experience has shown that that’s not always the best guide to what does and doesn't make sense Lastly, and it may seem a small thing but using a few of the parts that will later be (deliberately) removed to become most of the fire extinguisher to support the front of the chassis has been really helpful so hat's off to the designer. As I said, it's just a little thing. I usually use odd Lego parts, my mobile, iPad, coaster, a combination of all of the above or whatever else I have laying about that'll do the job. Pressing down, or more often wacking parts into place, when the model's unsupported seldom ends well. Trust me, I know these things.

Build Days 6 / Building Time - 3hrs / Total Building Time - 18hrs Good Evening My Friends Another fun day with my little plastic friends. As it's just the one days work there's not too much in the way of progress but there's been some delicate assemblies made up of a multitude of small, often tricky to fit, pieces so I'm pleased nonetheless.

😀 I remember as I little boy, about 5 or 6, sitting with my Grampy in a room in his house, curtains closed, while a projector whirred away showing film of the 1956 London to Singapore Overland Expedition. It wasn’t a television program or suchlike just handheld camera footage. To this day I’ve no idea where he got it. By profession he was a master welder and senior engineer at Marshall’s in Cambridge who built and converted vehicles for the Armed Forces, emergency services etc in the UK and many countries around the World. A great many of those vehicles were Landrovers so it might well have came about from connections there, I don’t know. All I do know is it fascinated me then as it fascinates me now. The nearest film I’ve found since is a Timewatch programme shown a few years ago and also a more recent four part TV series recreating the journey with the then 86 year old Tim Slessor, a member of the original team, and a Landie also from the original expedition for which there’s also a YT link. For those not familiar with the expedition the programmes, especially the Timewatch one, are well worth watching. It’s a look back at a time when all things were possible and the World was a very, very different place. https://youtu.be/oz6tU-j53kI?si=q5Og0TwdjXyDCFDp https://youtu.be/o3I1sn9avpI?si=dh49ZNDC4OsF05bK

Thank you. I've had this for sometime but it never found its way onto my build table. Strange when i think how much I've been looking forward to building it. Indeed. The Landie ruled the off road world. Right up until the Landcruiser came along and unceremoniously knocked it clean off its perch.

Hello My Friends It's been a few weeks since last I posted but I've not been idle, I've have been building a few non Technic models. I don't think I've done any large scale brick building since the 10252 Beetle so it was good to get into it again Brick building has never been my strong point but it's said practice makes perfect and after building these I can't help thinking I need a lot more practice. They all had more than their fair share of difficulties. Having said that they've been really enjoyable to build with a shout out to Mario Kart. Should you get the opportunity to build it I urge you to do so. It was such fun to build and full of really interesting building techniques. Anyways, best get on topic else I'll be in trouble. It's time to get started on the 10319 Classic Landrover Defender. Build Days 1 - 5 / Building Time - 15hrs / Total Building Time - 15hrs The moderators have kindly allowed me to post the Landie here as it is pretty much a scale model (not sure what scale but I've got 1/12 from somewhere). I've always been a big fan of the Model Team theme, I have a few of them and I'm inclined to think that some Creator and now some Icons sets are as near as we're likely to get to being Model Team's present day equivalent. Long may they continue. But I digress. I have been asked by the moderators to emphasise the Technic aspect of the model. The chassis does have a goodly amount of Technic in it, which I'll do my best to do but as you know only too well, that sort of thing isn't really my strong point. Come to think of it I can't think what is. After putting together the first of the accessories, the jack (which works) curiously the instructions then have you building the engine or rather, an engine. I've no idea why at this point in the build, but that’s what it says so (unusually for me ), that's what I did. This one's the V8. Towards the end of the build, step 423 you get to build another engine, this time, the TD5 diesel. Strange. After the first engine there's the spade, pick, hammer & axe, Jerry cans, traction plates and a rather nice cantilever type toolbox with assorted tools. The building of the Landie itself starts with Technic studded Liftarms and Plates. All went well as did putting together the rear suspension assemblies. The problem (and I suspect it probably won't be the last) came when fitting said assemblies. This proved exceptionally tricky taking around an hour despite using my trusty cake tester to help line them up but they were done. I put together the front ones and was about to fit them when I noticed that something wasn't right. Looking back a few pages led me to the rather surprising and then blinding obvious realisation (to most people) that the rear suspension assemblies were the wrong way round. Not just on the wrong sides, oh no that would be far too easy. I'd got them totally the wrong way round, they were facing inboard not out and and for reasons I've still no explanation for, I hadn’t noticed. Removing the erroneously placed assemblies consumed 25 minutes of my time and refitting them took... well let's just say it took an amount of time. As far as I'm aware, suspension is fairly rare in a set this scale. Later in the build we get steering, again fairly rare? Please do correct me if I'm wrong. So far the rest of the build has been pretty much plate on plate most of which seem to be to give the floorpan some rigidity. Finally, thank you for the goodwill messages and enquiries as to my welfare. As always your kindness and concern is humbling. I'm fine and fully intent on staying that way. Here's the build pics so far. Apologies for the abundance. The exhaust and towbar are fragile and will almost certainly be knocked off with alarming regularity. I suspect before much longer they're almost certainly going to find themselves residing in a pot until the end of the build for no other reason than to preserve what's left of my ever decreasing sanity.

Good Evening My Friends Hope all is well with you and with your Families. I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. May it bring you adventure, good health and dreams fulfilled. And Lego. Lots of Lego. See you all in 2026 with the 10317 Land Rover Defender.

Thank you for that. My sanity's been restored. Until it goes walkabout again anyways 😏

That's the one! Thank you very much for finding it for me. I knew I'd seen it only a few days ago but could I find it? I thought I was going nuts. More nuts than usual. Now I can't understand how I saw it being a 2020 post 🤔 Yep...Nuts 🤪

Hi Igor I'm sorry to say that neither of these are the one ☹️. The pics accompanying it were great with the MOC being shown with the real thing. At first look I thought the model WAS the real thing. I'm sure I saw it here but now I'm wondering...🙄

I was browsing through EB the other day and came across an amazing Volvo Grader MOC. For reasons I don't recall I didn't have chance to comment and now I do I can't find it. Anyone know where it's gone and why.

Hello My Friend I'm really pleased with the GWagen. It was such an enjoyable build. I felt bad writing about the few negatives, afterall they were really picky. With the exception of the spare wheel centre cap. I still can’t understand having to apply a sticker with the Mercedes logo when the exact same parts in the rest of the set were all printed. As for the doll. They've certainly become something of a phenomenon. Our Grandaughter has one and that's all she wants unlike many of her friends who spend (or rather their parents do 🙄) a small fortune collecting them. I think Screwy Wabbit is a very good description. Until now I've just referred to them as monstrously cute.

Good Evening It’s been pointed out to me that although I had plenty of praise for the GWagen I’d not said if there was anything I disliked. Well there were a couple of things that I'm sure there were very good reasons for being as they are but they irked me none the less. In reverse order: Number 3. The top of the ladder Would it have been too much to ask to add another 1x2 Thin Liftarm with Axle Holes? The brown axles 'sitting proud' make it look unfinished. I fitted one and it looks so much better however you’ll have to take my word for it as I forgot to take a photo while in the shed today (more of which later). Number 2. Flimsy body part (No, not mine 🤭) Although it's not too noticable this area, to me anyway, looks rather flimsy. It's like the builder has made a mistake. It's a tad flimsy. With a bit of gentle wrangling it pretty much blends in but after a while it pops out in a cheekly little 'I'm still here' sort of way. Number 1. The spare wheel center cap I know in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a problem of epic proportions but why for the love of Great Aunt Matilda didn't they print the Merc logo on the part? Lego went to the trouble of printing the front badge, steering wheel center cap & wheel hubs so why not the spare wheel centre cap. Don't figure. Anyway enough of my moaning. To answer those who've asked what's next. I'm taking a little while out to build 72037 Mario & Standard Kart and once that's finished I'll be back with the 10317 Defender 90 which I'm really looking forward too. Lastly. I've spent the last few days building this little critter for my Grandaughter. Labubu Doll. Designed by rebelnili - Rebrickable

I absolutely love this but far more than that I love that you’re back building after such a torrid time. It can’t have been an easy journey but I hope it helped.