Hrw-Amen

I have recently used some of my very old white standard 2X8 bricks which would date from mid 1970's era, I had no end of trouble getting them apart, they were simply stored in stacks of ten high one on one and were very difficult to separate. Mind you they had probably been together like that for the best part of 25 years without anyone touching them.

I am a big fan of Blacktron and I think these are a good up date to the theme, I do like the walkers but the Halftrack has to be my favourite.

So will that be like an international (Inter factional.) Moon base with M-Tron having a module connected to the Ice Planet main base and maybe a Space Police II module as well? That would be kind of cool, a bit like the ISS, but for LEGO Space factions. Dare I think a Blacktron Module?

Looks like a nice rail car, it will be good to see it in the brick once built. Can I ask, looking at the photo of the real train, it appears to have a large white (silver maybe?) ram type thing on the front end, what is that for, is it some kind of cow catcher or is it just a fluke of the photo only it is hard to make it out?

I would also like a non rail car / high speed passenger train, preferably not one that has a pantograph making it look ridiculous without all the overhead cables to go with it. Working points / switches and some electric signal sets would be good. I guess the signals are easy enough to make though I have not put my mind to that yet.

This looks a lot better than I thought it would, I will be interested to see how well it copes with points and curves. I think black is a good choice for this engine, it looks better than the green I feel that the loco seams rather heavy goods traffic and industrial, so black sits well with it. I have to say though, the real buffers look a lot better. Can't fault you for trying different methods though.

Well if you bought the set to make it rather than for re-sale value then there is nothing to worry about. You have to break the seal to open it anyway to find out if anything is missing or not. If it isn't then fine, if it is then call Customer Service, they can hardly refuse to replace bits just because the seal is broken when you had to break it to find the bits were missing.

I would hope that is not always going to be the case. OK, so only through certain channels but surely one of those channels should be the TLG website?

Maybe because BBQs are quite common nowadays whereas coffee machines are not so much in fashion? I recall a coffee machine at work up to about ten years ago, then it broke and we got a water machine. Now even that has been removed. All the coffee machines still in office type buildings I know all look old and tacky now and way too unclean for me to risk a coffee from them. As opposed to BBQs which every one of the neighbors seems to light up every day usually just after we have finished putting our washing out to dry, making it stink.

To be honest I do not know where that came from, but I did it for as long as I can remember, right up to when proper mini-figs were introduced. I think it was just because the scale by and large was so much smaller then. I expect my father tarted me on it as he got me into Lego in the first place teaching me to count with it.

I think I had most of them as a kid, I know I had the fire engine and milk truck for certain.

Gosh, that means that a lot of you were born several years after I started working for my current employer, that makes me fell really old especially as I'd done a number of years somewhere else before that! I do have some of those very old proto-mini-figs that had the same shaped head as today's but without printing of any sort, (They were just plain yellow.) and an all in one body. I think they came with a very old police boat? Before that I just used to use 1X1 bricks with a 1X1 round brick as the head and a 1X1 plate as a hat. Back in those early days though things were a much smaller scale.

I was just wondering if any of the younger members of EB have any minifigs or anything else LEGO wise that is older than they are? I know I had LEGO from an early age (My mother tells me I was two years old when they bought my first LEGO. Now given that I was born in the 1960's some of my LEGO is now over 40. But alas no minifigs from back then as they were not yet around. My first ones came from the classic space range so some time back but not older than me.

Still kind of spooky that they do a Belville Teaset though, unless TLG named Belville after this as a sort of homage?

Very true, most people just walk by. In some ways you cannot blame them when there is a legal system in p;lace that oftem seems to turn things on its head so that attackers become victims of people who have assualted them in an effort to prevent them from assaulting the original victim. I guess it is all about lawyers making money at the end of the day, but then we get a sciety like this that is too afraid to stand up for its moral values. Nice MOC and an interesting topic to portray really, not something that I would have thought of doing. Was your sister pleased with the result and how did it go down in her presentation?

Very interesting, whilst a quick Google does not show who makes it, it certainly does confirm that there is a lot of it about, mostly it would seem in or from Japan? I even found a Porcelain LEGO Beville Tea set! There is even a porcelain LEGO ash tray with the image of a real LEGO Brick on it, I am pretty sure that is not the sort of thing TLG would make themselves though. Edit. More info: A bit further reading finds that the company was based in New York and noted for doing collectable china stuff. Apparently the name is a shortened version of the company president. Seems that there is not too much information immediately to hand though.

I observe from the pictures that several of these mini-figs have posed legs, is this the dawning of a new leg design to permit more positions or is it just artistic licence in the photographs?

Really nice looking model, I may have to redesign my platforms if this keeps up as I may be tempted to switch to ten wide.

Konajra, those are wonderful MOCs, but I have to say that machines like this are almost more terrifying than a MOC battle tank would be, the huge scale and destructive power they have and the noise they make is mind blowing and very scary for those coming up close to them. I don't think I could work in an open cast mine around such monsters. I have only ever come upon one such machine totally by accident and it scared me half to death with its awesomeness, it was hard to think that something such as that could have actually been hidden. Still they are excellent recreations of the originals and so detailed. I would not like to be a mini-fig who accidentally gets in the way of one of those buckets or those crawler treads though!! It is good to know though that some of them are on display in the company offices, did they ask you to make them or do you work around / with such machines as these? For myself I think, I have not used lots of technic parts, the only instances are in gearing for trains (Similar to on the EN.) that I have made. But then the gearing is hidden away. I would like to incorporate more, but as a child I did not have any technic stuff, just system so I don't have the knowledge of it in my bones so as to say and am finding it quite a challenge to get to grips with in old age.

Interesting read although I think a lot of how useful something is comes down to what you want to MOC or what you collect. For me the alien in S3 was very useful and I bought several of them. I admit it was a reused head, but for me that was the best figure in the 3rd series, so it just depends what you are doing.

I remember the TTA, gosh I was at senior school then and thinking of going to art college. All those images really were a wonder and I was quite hooked on them. I recall a ship in one of the books called the Stellar Cow, (Because it was cow shaped.)and every time I see a cow it reminds me of it. Nice to see someone else bringing those old ships back to life.

Very good, I like the MAGS little vehicle. I had not thought of an autonomous vehicle for them before, it is a good idea.

Looks really nice. The wheel detail looks really good as well. I'll have to try making some like that, I have to confess that to date I've pretty much stuck to LEGO standard for wheels.

Yes, I do that with my themes and I have also been looking at that Ninjago set and thinking 'Cool ADU fighter jet.' I am also collecting the new Collectable Mini-fig Space Warrior (Or whatever it is called.) figures as heavy ADU infantry, along with the Pink Space Girls and well, ADU girls.

I built up enough curved track for a loop from bricklink easily enough and purchased a couple of boxes of straight. I found it much easier to get cheap curved on bricklink than I did straight. You can also get track sections on the LEGO Shop at Home website although they are a bit expensive that way. I am not a fan of the flexi track and found that especially the EN does not seem to like long lengths of it, having said that it is useful for those times when you just cannot make it fit and need a shorter section. I find them useful on reversing loops. I also went with the EN and Maersk first, but since then have purchased the three basic trains sets as well so I now have loads of track, although I am sure enough is never enough! So I would say get yourself a good sized loop first that will fit on your table, run the trains. If it is fun and you enjoy it then invest in some base-plates to attach them too. If I had room for a set up that I could leave up I think I would get enough to do this. As it is I don't so only bits that are scenic and will stay made up are on them. Ballasting everything would be very expensive (I have done my station.) it looks better but it is expensive. I guess you don't have to do it all at once though.