brickbitz

So here is a quick mock up of Thunderbird 4, it seemed the easiest to capture in brick. I'm fairly happy with the rear engine intakes but will definitely rework the front, it's a little too boxy looking. Any comments or suggestions welcome..

It was a good one Ralph, I would have liked to have seen your B-1B up close. I'm sure we'll meet somewhere soon. And for all those trying to grasp the scale, here's a better image from Darren Smith, showing that Duncan really is king of the castle.

six scale is the size of the giant bricks. I'm no expert but I believe that due to the proportions of LEGO bricks they can be exactly recreated six times larger using LEGO bricks. Hmmm seems like a bit of recursion there. Anyway some builders like the challenge of recreating the more unusual pieces six times larger and then using all their scaled up bricks to build something. If you look at the white horse on the right , you can make out the original size 375 behind it for comparison.

Seeing as it's Castle month how about this one? Duncan Titmarsh is the Brickish member responsible for this gargantuan version at the Brickish annual general meeting, he must have the patience of a saint to construct all the six scale bricks and then build the castle with them. Everything works too, the hinges and the drawbridge. James Sutton was responsible for designing and building the six scale minifgures ( except for Tim Fegan's Batman sneaking around the ramparts). Thanks to Martin Long for letting me use his photos after my camera let me down. It was a great event with a fantastic centrepiece and a good time was had by all.

This one was on clearance around the end of last year and most had sold out then. I'm pretty sure they won't have restocked, so chances are you won't get one unless there's a remote shop somewhere with one left :-(

It stands for My Own Creation, it's what you build yourself from imagination without following any instructions, be they LEGO or otherwise. People tend to specialise in area's that interest them, Castles, Town layouts, Ships, Trains, Spacecraft etc. There are plenty of excellant MOC's out there for inspiration, techniques and ideas of what to build...

Must be relevant to where you live then, out here on the East Coast it's always been DHL for every order I've placed over the years, all standard delivery too..

Mine always arrive by DHL around 2-3 days from the shipped date, they always come via Germany. I've missed one once and it only took a couple of days to get it redelivered. DHL are usually pretty good for that.

Just browsing Amazon UK as they claim to have 75% reduction on toy lines (couldn't find any LEGO) and discovered they have the City Coastguard sets up for pre order. Coastguard Quadbike

I had this in my watch list. $162 dollars X-O , which according to ebay is about

Joe Meno from Brickjournal has some great photos of the new sets on his flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brickjournal/sets/

So what's with the Speed Racer theme, am I missing something? I take it , it's licensed from something as all the figures are fleshies. Nice looking windscreen piece on the vehicles.

I think personally there are great elements to both. I'm certainly glad the new Castle weapons and accessories are based on the original Castle elements but with the new shiny metallic finish. The KK2 stuff was a bit rubbish and probably best forgotten. Overall if the aim is make great MOC's, then the original castle lines and new castle lines can be combined to great effect. However I still prefer the original LEGO dragon figure rather than the more realistic recent dragons. Perhaps because they seem more like a general toy rather than LEGO. Got no problems with the great Trolls though...

I certainly hope it isn't a Toymaster exclusive. We used to have them round here in Lowestoft and Ipswich but they closed down 2 years ago. How I miss their sales , always some old sets would turn up out of nowhere with 50% off. The Ipswich one converted to The Entertainer but they haven't ever had any half decent sale stuff there since they opened....

For the UK members Argos have now reduced the rest of the Castle line to clearance. Kings Castle Siege is now

The prototype is unfortunately too small. However after positive feedback from interested parties, the MK II will begin the design phase soon. One of the requirements is that Brickbitz can actually fit in this time :-/

Tired of yomping across country, Brickbitz has now commissioned Brick Industries to design a light support tank. Perfect for parking when going shopping and visiting friends in far away places. The first prototype was unveiled at a low key ceremony today.

The first and best place to look for recent sets these days is the official LEGO site. The building instruction page is now right upto date and even includes all the latest 2008 releases. Well worth a browse http://www1.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/default.asp

Great *sweet* but notice what Google spells.....

There is an article about using an RCX as a controller for power functions on LUGNET. http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=54443 I hope we are going to see a new remote with the PF trains.

My second copy arrived today funnily enough. I usually throw the boxes away but I haven't had chance to open this one yet. Is this what you mean? The last one is the same both sides. Hope this helps.

True, another well known affiliate site still has pictures. I did indeed decide to remove them after discovering that TLC had requested Eurobricks to remove the offending images. As a dedicated LEGO fan I have no desire to go against the wishes of TLC. We all know where these images can be found , if you really want to look for them. Furthermore I won't bother with preliminary stuff in future, it's not worth the hassle. We can all see the images here. :-)

Yep, EJ99 is on my UK catalogue that I received with an order the other day.

White pieces yellowed with age and sunlight are probably beyond saving. For general cleaning I've found "Orange Cleaner" type products good at getting rid of ink markings, grime, some stains etc. What works for me is getting the spray version, putting some on a microfibre cloth , cleaning the pieces up with a good rub and then giving them a rinse. White pieces come up looking almost as good as new, it even cleans the studs if you give it a bit of elbow grease. I use this technique on job lot parts I obtain from car boots, some of which look like they've been in the garden for a few months. The results are nearly always good where yellowing isn't an issue. Hope this might be some help.