LennyRhys

Well the MOC I'm planning is a forklift and I don't want it to be yellow... mostly I'm buying for gears, liftarms and powerfunctions parts, and both 42009 and 42043 are great candidates. My only problem is that I don't really care for pneumatics but that may change if I get 42043.

Time taken to build a set depends on a lot of things, and tiredness is a big one. If I do get 42043 I don't think I'll be able to build it in one day unless I am very wide awake and have lots of coffee beside me. It took me most of today to build 42042 and it's because I was very tired and kept making silly mistakes, not paying attention to the instructions. I'm an experienced Technic builder but I'm also inclined to rush, which doesn't bode well for this set LOL. It's possible that I'll buy 42009 before I buy this because I'm looking for parts to begin with, and the crane sure has a lot of parts!

A few people seem to be attaching the grab at the bottom of the triangle, even though the instructions and pictures show the grab attached at the middle of the triangle. Has it already been mentioned, and is it a mistake by Lego? It makes far more sense to have it attached at the bottom, where it can pivot freely (and would probably have made even more sense to use pins without friction to facilitate this).

I've just finished building all bags numbered 1 and 2 and what can I say... this model is amazing. That gearbox is just crazy, and all these parts. My MOC life will be enriched!

This is pretty good! I just found out today that my wife and I have about £60 of Tesco Clubcard vouchers which means I could get 42009 for £50... but I'm not going to rush into anything yet. I'm waiting patiently for Tesco to put the new sets on their website because I think the prices will be very good, especially for 42043.

I agree with kolbjha re. allanp's proposed design - it's really nice, but if you want a differential to handle significantly more torque than existing differentials you'd almost need to redesign the entire transmission system from the ground up, because axles themselves don't handle torque particularly well... certainly not on large scale models. I was taking a model apart just the other week and a 6L axle was twisted by several degrees because of the torque in the gear train. The axle is now useless and needs to go in the bin. Let's not forget that Lego is, first and foremost, a toy! I definitely prefer the original style diff that can be driven edge-to-edge or at 90 degrees, however a bigger sprocket on the outside has its own limitations and I've been snookered by this in the past, which is why I often used the newer diffs in my MOCs. 42030 is my very first experience of the newest style of diff with the external bevel gear, so I can't really comment on that as I have yet to try it in an MOC.

It was actually ebay - I ordered from there because the seller was the only one offering fast delivery/UK dispatch at a reasonable price (below £100) - the 15% discount voucher was a very nice surprise. The shop is http://www.jadlamracingmodels.com/ and the prices are certainly not the best (Arocs is £159) but with the 15% discount I can buy two or three Lego sets and save a lot of money.

Haha I wouldn't let them near the boxes either! I just got my 42042 crawler crane delivered this morning and with it I received a voucher from the shop I purchased it from... which means I can get the Arocs for £135. Might get it sooner than later, I think...

Wow! Patience level 10000000000000000000000000

Cats and Lego... don't get me started!! I keep all my Lego in a room under lock and key so that our cats can't get to it.

I would go out on a limb and say that Lego sets can only be "difficult" for builders who fall within the stated age range. For example, I got 8862 (Pneumatic Backhoe Grader) when I was 12/13. That was a difficult set to build for a kid with young and not-very-strong hands... the pneumatics were a nightmare! I didn't build 8880 until I was an adult and I didn't find it difficult at all... just a long process, but thoroughly enjoyable. And latterly, 42030 is the very first technic set I've built (and indeed owned) that uses the new style of technic pieces rather than Technic bricks and plates. I LOVED it and can now understand fully why there is such a thriving AFOL community, especially for Lego Technic. The stuff is just pure brilliant!

Heck yes! I remember going into the stores in the 1980s and 1990s and lifting up the lids of the big sets to see the ACTUAL Lego pieces in the box - 8868 was a particularly nice one, as was 8880. That made Lego even more amazing back in these days, because you could get so close to the actual Lego without taking it home, and it was agonizing!

In a couple of days we should get pics of my excavator bucket on 8043... which I'm very excited about. And I agree about TLG making a new bucket. Perhaps they'll release a MkII excavator in the same way that they released a MkII crane. Back on topic, I found out that my crane should arrive tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to building it. 42030 was my first experience with "new" style Technic and I absolutely LOVED it. I'm so pleased that Lego have innovated in such a way that the toy is still unmistakably theirs but also totally unique and thoroughly enjoyable. With all the gears and very different construction techniques, I think that I'll enjoy 42042 even more than I enjoyed the Volvo.

Haha that's good! But that tiny bucket on 8043... I think that such an arrangement should be criminalized. MY EYES!!

It didn't take me long to make a decision and choose this over the Arocs. I'll maybe get the Arocs later - Christmas perhaps - but I like the crane a lot. A UK ebay seller had it in stock for £98 so I took the plunge... I know it's not cheap, but it's still a great set and an attractive price for 1,400 pieces (GBP 0.07 per piece).

The metal Technic hook is that expensive? Wow... I have at least three of them - they were very common in 1990s Technic sets.

I was just looking for UK stock and there doesn't seem to be much. Pretty strange, considering how easy it was to buy before official release date!

I think that Lego intended this set more to be for parts/modding than for features. If it was fully RC it would probably be as good as a flagship set, as TheItalianBrick pointed out. I'm really tempted by this model not so much because I like the model itself (although it is nice) but because there are a lot of nice parts in relatively high quantity - track links, clutch gears, 3L driving rings, and LOTS of blue!

So I'm ready to ship buckets in the UK from tomorrow (I think the PO is closed today). Provided that goes OK, I'll be shipping internationally when I get back home.

Thanks Max! So I'd say I've reached a milestone: five buckets have been drilled, sanded, varnished & packed and are ready for immediate dispatch. I have set up a Facebook community for the bucket so that there is a place where transactions can be handled. I don't want to circumvent forum rules by conducting business here as this is not the marketplace and I don't have 100 posts yet, so if you want to place an order for a bucket, please use the Facebook page and not the forum messaging system. In saying that, please share your experience with the bucket here for the benefit of the wider Lego community, and don't hold back - we need the good and the bad! And importantly: UK shipping only for the moment. Please bear with me on that one! There are a few things I'd like to note, some of which have been printed and will be supplied with each bucket: The bucket is NOT a Lego element, and therefore it should not be treated as such. Polyurethane resin is hard plastic but it is likely more brittle than injection molded ABS, so please handle the part with care. All cast parts will be physically identical because they came from the same mold, however there may be some very small air bubbles on one or two edges of the buckets which will vary from part to part. The finish of each bucket may have some minor blemishes (e.g. patches of shine) which is a result of the casting process - sometimes the release agent left a sheen on the part, which is why I have chosen to give each bucket a very quick spray with matte varnish. You may wish to further coat the bucket with varnish, or even paint it as I did the prototype. Geometry is good but not perfect - that's what you get with handmade parts. If you do happen to have an accident and break or damage the part, don't worry - it should be relatively easy to repair with good quality super glue. And I think that about covers it. Of course if any of you have questions or are unsure about anything, please let me know and I'll answer here in the thread for the benefit of everybody reading it. Pics:

The Arocs is back on sale by Amazon UK and for a shade under £152. I'm not in any great hurry to buy either it or the crane, so I'll wait and see how things shape up over the next few weeks. Loving the building testimonies in this thread though!

There are some really good suggestions here. I think that it should definitely be a set rather than a part, and whilst I like the idea of re-releasing an older set I think it would be great for Lego to produce a set that uses a mixture of building techniques from the 40 years of its history. For example, I think that they could be very creative and use bricks and plates in conjunction with the newer studless beams, paying homage to each era of Technic's evolution. I think that 4,000 parts is a bit too much for a technic set. Oh, and the 40th anniversary set should include a new 4L liftarm/studless brick, with obvious numerical significance. And that element should never be used again in any other set.

@OzShan, yes - every time I make a mold, I'll use the same master. Granted, it's a fair bit of work to set it up, but as you can see from the results it's well worth taking the time to set up a good mold. One thing I would do differently is to use clay instead of plasticine; that blue stuff was very good for the job, but it was an absolute NIGHTMARE to remove from the master and also very messy. @BachAddict, definitely in excess of 100 hours and I'm still putting in roughly 8-10 per day, but I don't want to make the buckets prohibitively expensive which is why I decided to charge per bucket rather than charging for my time. This is primarily for the Lego community, not for me. And with any luck, this will prompt TLG to get their proverbial donkey in gear and give us a new backhoe bucket for the first time in 20+ years! Final price will be £20 per bucket plus shipping. In the UK that works out to be quite a neat £25 which includes 1st Class Recorded postage. We're going on holiday tomorrow and I plan to take a few buckets with me to finish them up and post them out. I know that it'll likely be a while before I'm ready to fulfill all 25-30 orders, but I can certainly do a handful, and that will give people an idea what to expect from the bucket and how it looks on the model. I'll update later today when I've done some finishing work on some of the buckets!

@ Blakbird, I hear ya. For US customers I thought that a proxy might work, so will look into that when the time comes. I'm just about to demold the 27th pour and the mold is definitely on its last legs... parts are harder to demold now because the silicone is quickly losing its elasticity and it therefore grips hold of the part more firmly. I think that if I get 30 casts I'm doing well! I've also drilled holes in two of the buckets. It's gonna take a LONG time to drill them all because I have to use a Dremel first and then finish the holes by hand to get them accurate. Here are 25 cast buckets, not including the very first cast which I'm keeping separate. Still no finishing done; just focusing on casting at the moment as I want to get it out of the way.

Haha yeah I won't be doing that. I will be using a trusted and secure payment system, so Paypal fees are fine by me. It's ebay fees that I don't care for. Also I'd prefer to use a reliable delivery service - looks like £3.90 for Royal Mail 2nd Class Recorded (Signed For) but I'll have to go tot he PO just to be sure. The benefit of shipping the exact same thing several times is that you only have to price it up once. I took delivery of 100 boxes this morning and I've hot glued 30 of them ready for packing. With any luck I'll have some buckets ready to ship out by the weekend, but no guarantees. I still have to drill the holes, which needs to be done very precisely, and I haven't decided how I'm going to do that yet. I could build a jig, but I might get the job done just as quick if I drill the holes by hand (i.e. without an electric drill). Will update later today.