Hrw-Amen

I don't think Bricklink charges for postage are a huge problem especially if you stick to your own country. They are certainly no where near as bad as on e-bay. A lot of sellers tell you what their policy is in the 'Splash' about the store. The ones I have used usually ownly charge the actual cost of postage and materials. For example over the weekend I place an order for bricks that came to around £60.00 (UK.) and even then the grand total with postage was only £63.00 so the postage element was a tiny add on really. Sometimes when I have a large order, especially if you use the same sellers a lot they send it out by 'recorded delivery' and 'signed for' and all that stuff and it is still really cheap or they add no extra cost for that bit. But I think the important point is to read the 'Splash' as i said. I did nearly come a cropper when I was looking at a store that charged for each different category you bought, so for Black 1X4 plates it would be an add on and for black 1X3 another one and black 1X6 another one and so on. Needless to say I did not use them. You can usually get an idea from reading a bit of the feedback as well. It is often telling by what people don't say as opposed to what they do. People may say 'Items came well packed' for example. They may well of done, but it says nothing about the cost of the postage and packing or how long the customer had to wait to receive the items. If it is an odd post like that and most are OK I tend to ignore it, but if there are pages and pages that whilst being positive omit to say certain things then it may be telling you something about the service. Overall though Bricklink sellers are fine. I would find a couple or three you like and get good deals with for what you want, if they give you a good price and service then try to stick with them as much as possible and won't go far wrong.

I do agree that the boat does look abit like your one. The official one is I think a little longer and thy are both flowery and bright and friendly. Then again that is what you would expect from a Friends boat isn't it?

The Speedorz I find to be pretty useless to be honest, they just don't seem to work as indicated, (or at least i cannot get them to.) which is a shame. The vehicles whilst at first I did not like them have grown on me as I have bought a couple to see how they go together. They seem to be in a more Epic scale than other LEGO stuff, even more so than space stuff, but they are easy to make MOCs from as after all they are not actually based on anything real. I am not so sure about the figures or at least the ones with wings, the attachment for the wings is very blocky and does not give an organic look. The wings look more like part of a 'jump pack' than actual real wings and as such I don't see why any tribe could not have them. Also the named characters, whilst I do not object to them I feel there still needs to be a generic 'soldier' figure to represent the mass ranks. For example in one of the shots on the promotional video it shows a whole hall of lion figures full up, and it also shows a convoy with more than one of the same lion vehicle. This to me either implies that there are an awful lots of figures that we do not have, or even have names for, or that the names given are more like a martial rank rather than a real personal name! So over all I'd say the Speedorz are rubbish. The Vehicles have grown on me. The figures are OK but certainly could have been better.

I try to model all my railway stuff at 7 studs wide. The coal trucks are 7 studs wide as is the box car. Occasionally (usually on engines.) they get to be 8 studs wide, as things like grips, pistons, buffer bars etc stick out. I try to stick to 7 studs though if I can, but I think 7 or 8 look fine. 6 looks just too narrow to me!

Annoyingly I am also looking for the large mine set, having bought all the little ones it was time to save for the large set and yet now it has disappeared. The mining sets sold out over Christmas where I was and have not been restocked. I hope that they get some more in, but it seems I may have missed it. This normally happens, I find I get the little sets save for the big one and by the time I can afford it they are no longer in the shops, it is really frustrating.

Very nice model and I like that you have fitted out the interior with detail. Have you done this throughout the model to make it playable or just in the bits shown? Either way it is a really nice vehicle.

I have asked at my local toy store about this and also about a PAB wall. Although they are a local store they have a few branches in towns within the county and in my home town they have a shop that is more or less put over to LEGO that is next door to the main toy store. I know a couple of the staff who are AFOLs as well have asked if they could have a PAB wall and BAM bin as well as myself. I (And presumably the staff.) have been told by the owner that there is nothing to say that they could not have one, but it would not be something TLG would support so they would have to basically buy enough parts to stock such a thing themselves first which makes it simply to expensive a venture for them to undertake.

The over all theme is well established and the contrast of black and white do look good and rather ghost train like which I am assuming was what you were going for, so it is a very good effort especially as you say you are not into trains. As a themed engine and trucks it is very nice. What fate is awaiting the prisoners? I can see what the others are saying about those balls on the roads and I agree that they will not work in the real world as they are too wide to allow it all to turn. That said the train will not loose much character without them as it has a very strong theme. As to the front truck turning, yes it will have to do this if you wanted to run it on LEGO L Gauge track. It is a little hard to see from the images but you will have to off set the connecting rods by ninety degrees as well. (it looks as though this has not been done from what I can tell, although it is hard to see admittedly.) This is an easy thing to fix. The wheels in the tender are easy to make work if you wanted to, either by using the PF train motor (Which pivots.) and a stationary front/real wheel set to get six wheels. or if you prefer to put a motor to drive the drivers then you can easily make the middle set of the tender wheels float so they ride in or out with the curvature of the track. It is a nice thing to do if you can get a motor to work the drivers, but to be honest it is a lot easier to use a train motor to power the tender. There is no real right or wrong about it and it is down to personal preference.

Same here, most of the time it is fine, but on occasion it just hangs for a minute or two before loading. Once it has loaded it is back to normal speedy service, it just seems to be random pages on occasion. I've opened new windows and loaded to same page to see and get the same, but then I can load other pages in the new window fine whilst the original is still hanging? It is not anything specific, seems to be totally random.

That is an interesting build using those technic bits for a frame, the same almost as a real building of that kind would go together. I also like the interesting way that you have put the shelves together, I am trying to work out exactly what parts you have used. One more to add to the list of Co-Op businesses, when i was 3 years old I went to a Co-Op Playschool whilst my parents were at work. Later on after many years the play school closed and they used the building as a branch of the Co-Op bank. Now that has closed and I think the building is empty right now?

Very nice and bright. I can never get photos that good no matter how many tutorials I read! But it is a very interesting build as well with a nice overall look to it. Very factory like, but in the sort of way a small child would imagine it, so bright and vibrant. So after using that exo-skeleton to pick up the chocolate does he get to eat it?

That was a very good ship back in the days of the first Blacktron, I remember it well. Your up date on it is a nice take and I especially like that everything is interchangeable and that you have the evil robots in the little side pods.

Nothing terribly exciting recently from me, I have been busy making up the Hobbit sets i bought over Christmas. Now it is back to the trains for a bit. I have just been looking at coal wagons. I wanted a wagon that was simply to make yet looked the part, also one that I had bits (Or could get them easily.) to make a train of them. So far I have made six, five black and on white all to the same design. The sides fold down so that they can be loaded / unloaded. I have also been looking at Box Wagons, I have several short axle ones like we had over in the UK in the olden days. I think they are still in some places, but are not as common as they once were. When I was a lad we used to get whole trains of these down the port loading up from the boats. But anyway I wanted something a bit more up to date and I remembered that on my old N Gauge layout I had with my father we had some longer 4 axle type of box wagons that were almost as long as a passenger coach with multiple doors on each side. So I decided to try and make one of those. I plan to make a couple more at least to have a train of them. For anyone who is interested the main 'box' is 40 studs long, I have tiled the interior with lime green simply because I have loads of them I got from a PAB wall when on holiday. Besides I don't think it looks too bad with the blue?

I got one in the post yesterday, wondered what it was until I opened it. Looks really nice and I was well pleased for about a minute or so until the wife demanded I give it her as I have a forest policeman on my key chain. I pointed out that she has one as well but that did not seem to matter to her reasoning. She did not get one though inspite of being a VIP member in her own right?

It actually looks a lot better than I was expecting it to. I am sure the train can be modified to take PF in the tender and some roads on the wheels would not go amiss. Overall though it is looking good. Price would be nice to know in advance though?

Those army men are great, I bought a whole bunch of them and 'yellowfied' them. Your little gun emplacement is really cool, feel sorry for the guy at the back!

This certainly fits with the era you are trying to create and it is such a nice little train. I agree some old fashioned freight cars would be nice to see, but it is wonderful as it is in that little scene at the platform.

The solution with those points and actually moving the approach track rather than the switch itself is something that I would just never of thought of, yet in your video it just seems such an obvious solution.

That looks nice. I have been thinking about building a 'based on' loco as I need a mid sized diesel for goods trains. I am not sure though thinking that is it right to just make one up rather than making an actual model of a certain class? Maybe some more pictures of your cute little steam shunter will persuade me to do this! Is that the driver's tool kit left on the side, I hope it does not vibrate off once they get going and he looses all his wrenches and screw drivers!

It looks quite cute and just like what it is supposed to be, but I cannot see unless you were a real fan why you would buy it? Maybe for the lime green bits if you wanted them, is it going to have any new bits in that color or is it all off the shelf? Maybe if it gave us access to lots of 1X1 lime green plates as they seem hard to come by, but otherwise no.

It is hard to find suitable shelves for this purpose and I have been looking myself. I think making your own is the answer if you can do that and have the skills. The only thing I would like is to have a glass front / door so that they can be closed and free from dust. You seem to have made some nice shelves, also you can make them whatever colour you like this way.

That does look a bit office like and as a modern engine shed I'd say it would work well. I think if it was me I'd have to add some roof features like vents or air conditioners etc. It is a nice design although all those dark green windows could get a bit expensive I think. Over here the sheds that I have seen on my travels in to and out of London look much more warehouse like, just like a big B&Q store that happens to have a railway track inside it. But then they are a bit boring to be honest so i would try something like you have done rather than build one of them.

I also have several Octan tankers of the official set I have a couple but also some of my own design with the same wheelbase (In fact most of my two axle goods wagons have that wheelbase.) and I have never had any issues with it. I have a few twin axle passenger coaches which have a 12 stud wheelbase and they seem to be OK as well. I have tried numerous wheelbases and anything more than 12 studs I found would encounter problems, but less than that seemed fine. As an idea to see if it is thew wheelbase causing the problem, you could change out the standard train wheel sets and replace them with Technic axles and wheels, (Like on the train motor.) these can be squeezed in a little further or spread out a little further than the normal wheels especially if you only have three brick widths between the wheels. It may just give you an indication of where the wheels are sticking, or if it all runs OK then show that something else is at fault? Just an idea. You could always just rig up that configuration with some technic bricks and a baseplate to try different configurations?

I also have never used a wanted list in Bricklink although I know they exist. For my own MOCs I know pretty much the kind of bricks / plates / tiles I use a lot of and my orders are normally just to stock up on ones that the I am running low on, not for any specific set. Normally even though I go to my sellers of choice intending to buy say, a load of black, DBG, LBG plates and tiles, I inevitably find all sorts of other things that 'may' be useful in the future. I get the impression that this is what most Bricklink buyers do but I may be wrong? As a result I have thousands of unused bricks and stuff sitting in the containers, but one day they will get used for something.

I have found Bricklink to be ever so reliable. Basically though I tend to stick to the same half a dozen sellers that I know will give me a good service. Many of them you can order in the morning get and invoice by dinner time, pay via paypal and you will get it in the post the very next day, the ones I use really are that good, hence why i go back to them. Even on the odd occasion of using a non regular seller the longest I have had to wait for items has been a week and the seller did actually state on his site that as he worked full time he could only post on certain days so I knew that in advance so no complaint. I find paypal is the quickest and easiest method of payment. For delivery obviously if you choose sellers outside your own country they will take a little longer to get stuff to you. I tend to stick to my own country for buying, it makes things much smoother. With the price, yes some are listed at very high prices but again look around, find a store in your country that has good feedback and you are certain to get a good deal. Sometimes it is better to pay a little more (Not some of the outlandish ones.) but a few pence more if it is from a seller you trust and have used, especially if you are ordering a lot from them. No auctions though, that price is what it is displayed as.