grum64

Come on guys, please. This is a friendly place so please can we keep it that way. There’s far too much acrimony in this world without it spreading to these pages.

Build Day 31, 32, 33 & 34 / Building Time - 15hrs / Total Building Time - 138hrs You’ll be mighty pleased to hear this isn’t my usual photo heavy, rambling post. It’s more a micro post, if you will. Few photos, minimal(ish) rambling. I can hear the cheers . As you’ll see below, progress and I use the word in its loosest sense, has been to just put the track links together, 58 per side, and fit each to the build. At this point I'm guessing that your gaze has just returned from re-reading the top line of this post - 4 build days and 15hrs building time. Yes, it’s taken me that long to assemble 116 links into 2 lengths of track and fit each to the build. The word you’re looking for is glacial. I’ve only got the blade left to assemble & fit but, looking through the instructions, there’s a lot to it so there's no telling how long it’s going to take hence posting this now.

Excellent work and a very good reason to add another 42177 to the shopping list 🙄👍

Excellent build and I can say that because it's just like the one that delivered 6 pallets of bricks this morning.

Another excellent mini build and a great presentation 👍

I have the 42143 sitting waiting to be built but I think I'll look out for another one so I can build your brilliant model. Thank you for posting and for making the instructions available 👍

After reading the comments here and watching a couple of build videos I must say I’ve changed my mind about this set. Until today I’d only seen a few pictures, none of which made this set float my boat. I didn’t realise the ‘complexity’ of the build nor did I appreciate it’s size. It’s now on my to buy list. At the right price of course 🙂

A Pimped P1.. Yes please. Thank you jb70 and all who'll collaborate with you to make what I know will be an awesome build 👍😃

To quote Marvin, "Oh My..." 🤭

Love Bugs but I’m more a Marvin the Martian man 🙂

Thank you. I’m not one to give up on anything so I’ll keep going. Sloth or Cheetah? Time will tell 🙂

It’s going to be an expensive Summer 🫤

One of the best, if not the best, B model I’ve seen. Official Lego or otherwise.

I’ve always thought the G Wagon would be a great candidate for Lego and now it’s here I’m very pleased. Will be definitely be adding it to my collection soon.

Day 28, 29 & 30 / Building Time - 13hrs / Total Building Time - 123hrs It's been a while since last I darkened these pages but finally the time's right to start building again. A collection of frailties worthy of inclusion at the thinking end of a library, leftovers from my recent maladies, have slowed my building quite considerably so there's not much to show for 3 days / 13hrs work. I'm pretty sure this will improve with practice and a goodly dose of patience though. Anyway, enough of all that. A few pictures of progress.

Thank you so very much for your kind comments. I’m glad to say that my recovery is going well and, all being well, I should be back building very soon. Happy doesn’t come close…🙂

Hello My Friends I'm not entirely sure about posting this as rather than it being an update about the CAT as you may have been expecting it’s an update about my health. My last post was at the back end of February and many of you have been messaging asking if I'm OK. Well, the answer to that is no but I will be. As you may remember from my last post, I'd had a chest infection which knocked me for six. No sooner had I recovered & resumed building I became ill again. I now know that somehow I'd contracted Flu which, despite seeing numerous medical professionals and my pleadings, went undiagnosed for too long and so was quickly joined by Pneumonia. Being unable to cough means either of these is bad news, having both together, particularly so. I became very ill very quickly and ended up spending the next 3 weeks in Intensive Care on a ventilator while my lungs were cleared of what was described as ‘a seemingly endless amount of ‘chewing gum like crap'. After that it was almost 5 weeks in High Dependency. As I’m sure you can imagine, this has been really tough, particularly for my amazing family but we're back in our own home and starting to settle into what is now our new life. Things are different but we’ll just do, together, what we’ve done for the last 40+yrs. Get on with things and just keep laughing. I can’t write this without acknowledging the incredibly hard working and dedicated staff of the Intensive Care & High Dependency units and the Respiratory Physios both at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and at The Royal Papworth Hospital also in Cambridge. Without their tireless efforts I wouldn't be writing this now. As for my building. Yes, I'm determined to get back to it but it's not going to be for while. Finally. It's incredibly humbling that so many of you, most of whom I've never met, messaged, WhatsApp'd, emailed etc. A huge thank you to all.

Looks fantastic! I really enjoy the attention to detail, I especially like the rear lights. Excellent work.

Hello williamyzfr1 Thank you for your very helpful reply. I purchased A C's instructions for his modded CAT several weeks ago after seeing them on Rebrickable. I chose these as minimum disassembly is needed to implement the changes. As it is I'm building the CAT to LEGO's instructions and will then build A C's so the false actuators will get replaced with proper ones. Thank you also for letting me know the correct length for the Linier Actuators. I'm pretty sure mine are fully extended so I'll adjust them accordingly and then re-run the initial calibration accordingly, deleting the app and reinstalling it if necessary. Once again, thank you for taking the time to help me.

Thank you for your kind words. As for tears following a mishap, that's only happened once.

I’ve a few favourite sets. 8258 Crane Truck - This was the very first Technic set I built and as such was something of a challenge to say the least. As I recall it took 20+ weeks to build but at the end of it the feeling of accomplishment was indescribable. I still get a warm fuzzy whenever I think about it. 8043 Excavator - This one was the second or third Technic set I built and my first full PF. I was completely blown away by what I saw as the complexity of its design, I certainly did some head scratching trying to fathom which gears were going to operate which function as I built. The overall building experience and its playability just made it a great set. I keep saying I’d going to rebuild it. Now it’s back in my mind maybe I will one day soon. 8880 Supercar - I'd had this set sitting on the rack for a couple of years but I always put off building it. The biggest studded set I’d built until then was the 8275 but the 8880 was in a different league altogether and was very intimidating. With so many complex shapes and structures, (especially the engine cover!), it was by far the most difficult set I’ve built and easily the most frustrating but having said that it’s those things that in the end made it absolute joy to build.

Good to hear from you Bart, it’s been a while. I'd not thought much about it before now but you're right, I do seem to have had a few 'incidents' with the CAT but I can't think it's any more than with any of my other builds. I think the majority of those I have had have been a result of how I build. I think it's safe to say I'm a bit more heavy handed if that makes sense. Where most people fit parts delicately and with nimble fingers I find a lot of the time I have to use more force, more of a line it up & shove it approach. It's not quite a crude as that, at least not always, but you get the gist and it’s that extra oomph when my hand slips or something similar that propels things rather than maybe just dropping to the table if a softer approach were used 👍🏻🙂

Build Day 26 & 27 / Building Time - 8hrs / Total Building Time - 110hrs It’s been a good deal longer than expected since last I posted due to a very unwelcome chest infection that arrived unannounced, rudely bypassed ‘under the weather’ and went straight to knocking me off my circulars completely for 10 days. I then fell victim to my own ineptitude which delayed things further. With the cab now finished in, even if I say so myself, pretty good time (stop laughing 🫤), it and the body assemblies must now become one and hopefully reside happily ever after. It was almost 17:00 and I was tired & about to call it a day but with the cab already atop the body of the CAT I couldn’t help thinking it would be a good idea to secure the assemblies together. After all there was only one yellow 5L Axle and four red 3L Pins with Stop Bush, two of which were already in place awaiting a push into position. It wouldn’t take long so that’s what I decided to do. Unfortunately, this decision proved almost as disastrous as any one of those occasions when seemingly sensible women looked at Henry VIII and thought ‘that’s the man for me’. Pushing the first pin into place it soon became obvious that it was going nowhere, at least not without a fight. I had one hand up against the front of the CAT and my other pushing the pin but it was still unwilling to move so I pushed harder. Then much harder still. Upon reflection the ‘much harder still’ was a mistake because before I knew what was happening my hand slid up & off the pin hitting the cab and sending it bouncing end over end across the table, a trail of pieces in its wake, and landing on the chest of drawers. This sent my VW Beetle, Caterham and two Racers Ferrari Race Trucks (both awaiting disassembly!) to the floor where an explosion of colour like a firework display flew off in pretty much every direction 🤬. Also two Racers Ferrari cars disappeared down the back of the chest of drawers. On the upside, disassembling the Race Trucks won’t take so long . Surprisingly, the cab escaped a similar fate, All it lost was the screen & instrumentation pieces from inside the cab, a few bits & pieces from the roof, both extinguishers and the ladder assembly which required a little attention. Mercifully the body of the CAT escaped damage. It travelled across the table at a rather impressive rate of knots & came to an abrupt halt after bouncing off the window. I’m sure it would’ve gone through it had the window not been double glazed Parts from the CAT retrieved and refitted, the two assemblies secured together (according to the instructions this time) and it was time to put the ripper together which proved to be fairly straightforward. In fact it took a great deal longer to fit it than it did to build. I can’t say I’m a fan of the false actuators. Besides having a stud length of the grey axle showing they just don’t look very good. I’m far from an expert but there must have been a better way of doing them. I’m not blind to this being my own stupid fault (once again). Had I fitted the axle before the pins as per the instructions none of this would’ve happened. I was tired but that’s no excuse. I made a complete and utter horlicks of things by not paying attention to the instructions and taking shortcuts. Something that won’t happen again. My digits will remain hypothetically entwined. I've recently read that the final calibration has a hissy fit if the extension of the Linier Actuators isn't correct. I don't know if this is right or not but I'd rather not take any more chances. Because I use digital instructions I'm wasn’t able to use the respective picture in the instruction book to set the correct length of said Linier Actuators so just wound them out to their longest. May I ask if anyone can shed some light on whether this was correct and if not what the correct length from the instruction book is please. I'll be most grateful for any help or advice. Thank you.

I know this isn’t to do with Lego directly but please bear with me for a few minutes If the moderators think this being here is inappropriate please move it where you think it best to be I’d just like to say a few words about Steve Wright, a UK radio DJ and TV host who very sadly passed away today To some of you he’ll be unknown, but to me and many others he was a voice and later a face that took us through our teens and accompanied us onward through adulthood I for one have listened to him almost every day since 1979. Even when I was away at sea I still managed to listen to his show on the endless supply of cassette tapes recorded by my Sister that, no matter where I was in the World, greeted me each time we docked Until last year, when he 'left' his afternoon show, it was he and his team I'd listen to every day especially while out in my shed with my Lego. It may sound strange but he helped me through some very difficult times when something I was trying to build wasn't going right. I carried on listening to his other show but sadly that's all now come to an end Thank you for the laughs Steve. May you rest in peace.

You’re very kind 😳