LennyRhys

Beautiful!!

Thanks Moz. I'm thinking hard about the mold because there is more than one way to do it, but I've spoken to somebody who has done many casts of model excavator buckets so I have a very good idea of what to do. The tricky part will be making sure all the details are reproduced without any problems, and it is therefore crucial that the mold is appropriately vented as I won't be pressure casting and I'm not able to degas the silicone or resin. I will be using a two-part mold and running the seam along the open edge of the bucket, so there should be no visible seam in the cast parts (except at the back). Will share a diagram later, as I need to draw one up for myself anyway! At the moment I'm prepping the bucket for casting so I'm about to fill in the remaining imperfections with Milliput (excellent stuff) and once that's dry and sanded, the bucket will be ready for molding. I'm also planning to buy clay today; the clay will be used to seal the bucket to the temporary mold seam. I realise that if this works well, I will have the option to cast the part in different colours. But black will be first!

@Out of Sight, glad you like it! Regarding the strength of the bucket, the V2 that I have just finished building will be very strong, given that it has the same wall thickness as a typical Lego bucket (circa 2mm). I haven't worked with polyurethane resin before but I know that like many other plastics it has good tensile strength, so if all goes well there shouldn't be any problems. I suspect the linear actuators/gears would give up well before the bucket does. It would be ideal to test fit either the prototype or the V2 bucket to the actual model, but that's unlikely at the moment (unless I find somebody nearby who has the model). I will definitely be making a video to showcase the buckets (again, if all goes well) and then they will be available for purchase. And thanks for the compliment. I've been scratch building with styrene for a few years now and I've just learned by doing. It's such a great medium and it reminds me a little of woodworking, which I also enjoy. @TheNextLegoDesigner, as I showed on the previous page the bucket was designed around a linkage that requires the holes to be placed with one stud between. Any distance between holes can be made to work, but sometimes it's nice to work with standard units (rather than half units). To move this forward I've ordered 5KG of RTV Silicone which I hope to be collecting on Thursday, so expect an update soon!

This is amazing. Looks like there's at least 1,000 parts in the blade alone.

I decided to do something that TLG has never done with a bucket - offer more than one mounting solution. The two holes at the back of the bucket allow for numerous modifications, eg.

No problemo! Here's Part II of the bucket assembly. This session was quite labour intensive so there are a lot of steps here. 20. Cutting, shaping and positioning the teeth (0.5mm sheet to begin with) 21. I have added 1.5mm to each tooth 22. Preparing the top section of the teeth which has the bevel. It's easiest to do this before making the cuts, and the two pieces of styrene (1mm & 1.5mm) are welded together with the assistance of a vice 23. After sanding 24. Cutting & fitting 25. Further shaping of the teeth - taper at the sides 26. Starting on the ears. This will be much easier than usual because they will be affixed to a flat surface and therefore easier to align. I start by temporarily joining two pieces of 1.5mm sheet so that they are held together for drilling and shaping. 27. I then add 1mm to either side so that they have a total width of 2.5mm when broken apart. 2.5mm allows a 3/4 pin to click through and it sits very securely. 28. I decided to add some 0.5mm strip over the top to improve the finish of the part, and also a panel on either side for aesthetics. The width of the strip is 3.6mm which is fractionally less than half the width of a brick. 29. After final sanding to each ear, it's time to mount and align them. This was SO easy compared to the prototype bucket! 30. Almost finished! 31. Adding some reinforcement to hold the ears securely to the body of the bucket - this will be sanded when dry to give it a nice rounded edge 32. I don't often use 0.25mm sheet but it was perfect for this job - covering up the seams at the sides of the bucket. 33. Cutting an emery board to shape the cutting edge between the teeth And finally... adding the side reinforcements. The bucket is essentially finished now... just have to go over it with some filler and some fine sandpaper, and then it will be ready for silicone, which I expect to do later this week.

Dont' worry - it'll still look pretty much exactly the same... just a lot easier to cast in resin!

I just think that there's a fine balance between a good looking element and a "Lego-looking" element, and IMO this is what the 10x18 bucket achieves - it is more realistic than any other Lego bucket before it but it still looks like a Lego element, and as usual the mounting ears are improperly placed...but the bucket still works fine and looks great. It's easy to make a bucket look good, but IMO it's a lot more difficult to make it look like Lego. The thing I have decided to remove is the part that Moz mentioned in post #24, where there is a lip at the top of the bucket. This is a feature of real excavator buckets, which are reinforced where the mounting ears connect to the main body of the bucket; it has never been done in a Lego bucket before so I have decided not to do this. As Moz suggested, I will be making the internal shape more cast-friendly and the external shape will be slightly different, except in profile where it will be much the same. Here are some pics of my progress so far. If anybody has any questions, please fire away! 1. New design including the altered shape of the bucket and thicker walls 2. First cut in 1.5mm styrene with craft knife 3. Two identical parts are temporarily welded together and sanded/filed so that they match 4. The two sides can be separated easily with a craft knife (they were welded only in very small places) 5. Measuring out the back wall of the bucket in 1.5mm styrene. Using calipers I can get this accurate to 2/100 of a mm. 6. The first weld - fairly straightforward, mating flat surfaces at 90* angle 7. I always check alignment using my mat - it's very quick that way. The weld is somewhat pliable for about a minute, so there's plenty time to adjust if necessary. 8. And the other side goes on. Normally the sidewalls would be joined with a single strip of 0.5mm styrene, but in this case I have opted for 1.5mm at the back to make construction easier. Welding curved surfaces with accurate geometry is NOT fun! 9. Back to 0.5mm styrene, I attach the back. I usually curl it before attaching to make it easier (you can see this in the picture above, in the background). Sometimes this can be a pain because the styrene wants to pull away from the weld, so you need patience for this part! 10. And now it's a bucket! The 0.5mm styrene needs to be braced because it'll just warp if not. 11. Bracing the underside with some 1mm styrene. 12. Before cutting a sheet of styrene, I check if it's square. Sometimes it's not, but if you need precise geometry in a 3D object, your sheets MUST have perfectly square corners. 13. After cutting the 0.5mm to the requred width, I fold it where it will meet the angle at the back of the bucket, and then weld it in place with poly. 14. It's important (again) that the fold is parallel and perfectly square, otherwise it will pull the bucket to one side or another. This is going to be the master for silicone molding, so I have to be as accurate as possible with the geometry. Experience definitely helps in this area, because getting good geometry is one of the most difficult things to do with styrene. Another tip I picked up is that sometimes it's better to make a cut after fixing rather than before. With this 0.5mm sheet firmly in place, it is very easy to cut it at the front and back of the bucket where there is already a straight edge. And the idea there is that you always make your parts too big, because it's far easier to remove styrene than it is to add it! 15. Cut to size, we now have the bucket with a 2mm back wall, perfect for casting! 16. Adding the "skirts" to complete the profile of the bucket. 17. Careful planning makes a job easier. This is the schematic for the teeth at 3:1 scale. Every dimension is given a value and the differing thicknesses of styrene sheet will be arranged in a specific order to achieve a neat and accurate finish. 18. Here, the final 0.5mm panel has been fixed to the underside of the bucket. The teeth are each 6mm wide and the base of each tooth is marked on a 0.5mm sheet. 19. The last for now: here is the schematic I drew up for the prototype bucket. The space between each tooth is 9.5mm.

Thanks again folks. I'm very keen to push this forward (having spoken to somebody who is very experienced with resin casting) D3K - not bad! Not sure I'd have the heart to do that to a 10x18 bucket... and I have a spare one too! ____ So I'm about to start the redesign and rebuild of "The Bucket that Never Was" and I've been doing a bit of research into excavator buckets for this class of excavator. I think that the bucket I have designed already is a bit too realistic for Lego in that it looks more like a scale model bucket rather than a Lego backhoe bucket (which is no surprise, seeing that scale models are what I usually make with styrene). I have to be careful here because the bucket should look good (of course) but it should also look like it belongs with a Lego model, which is difficult because no such bucket exists (as yet!). My idea is to go out on a limb and very slightly alter the existing design and hopefully it will tick all the boxes: look good, especially on set 8043 be tough and robust, for playability be "cast friendly" unlike the original bucket I designed pass as an official Lego part - simple but effective design I'll update soon as I hope to start building the bucket later this afternoon.

Thanks guys. I agree that TLG should have made a bucket for 8043. Having spoken to an experienced model maker about my bucket it looks like I'll have to make it again, but much thicker so that it is suitable for casting. That's no problem really, just some more time, and I'll share the process step-by-step in this thread so you can see my style of scratch building and how I work with styrene. I'm not going to change the overall dimensions of the bucket because I think that the bucket in its current size offers a suitable alternative to existing Lego buckets. The picture I took earlier was a little misleading; although my bucket is significantly larger in volume than the existing backhoe bucket from sets 8851/8862, in profile they are actually similar in size. The biggest differences are the length, a result of a slightly more pointed shape, and of course the width, which is 6 studs vs 9 studs. Here's a quick photo of the buckets side-by-side, and you can see the similarity in size from this angle. Of course the black bucket is bigger, but it's not so big that it will look too big! More to follow next week when I build the bucket...again!

Thanks folks! @Moz, interesting to hear your thoughts. I think a two-part mold would work provided I used appropriately flexible silicone that could be pulled out from the cavity of the bucket. You're right about the cost of molding too - I'd say at least £25 for good quality silicone and then there's the cost of the resin too. I know a couple of people who are very good at resin casting so I may outsource this part just to make sure it's done properly. I'm suspicious that the back of the bucket is not thick enough to mold... it's a single ply of 0.5mm styrene. I may double it up if that needs to be done.

Thanks for the offer. I don't think the bucket will be ready for a few days yet - I want to be absolutely satisfied that the paint has cured 100% before it is used with Lego elements. Once that's done, I'll start properly looking into test fitting solutions. Yes and no - pressure casting requires a pressure chamber and they can be prohibitively expensive; and there's also the consideration of casting something complex like this which will require a multi-part mold, and perhaps some minor assembly of cast parts (I still have to figure that one out!). But I would argue that the final result will be more pleasing than what can be achieved with even the best 3D printers.

Thanks everyone. :) @Patman, styrene is a wonderful craft medium. I use a craft knife to cut it and solvent cement to weld it together. It's a bit like woodworking in that there is a lot of sanding, but it's more precise than wood because there's no grain or pores in the plastic. @kabelbinder, I hope that some day this bucket will be available but this project is at a very early stage just now. I'm still waiting on paint to dry (painting always presents challenges of some sort) and once the paint dries I'll be looking to send the bucket out to someone to test it and provide some photos of the fitting and functionality. Stay tuned!

So I finished building the bucket, which involved reinforcing the main seems with 0.75mm styrene rod, and also some minor tidying up. I then rubbed the entire bucket down with 1200 grit sandpaper so that the paint would key, and proceeded with four thin coats of Plastikote Matt Super black. I'll check it again tomorrow morning to see if it needs another coat, but I think it's fine and I'm happy with how it looks now. I may give it two or three coats of matte varnish for extra protection...we'll see. I've also included a pic showing the side elevation dimensions in studs, roughly 11 (L) x 9 (H).

Thanks Blakbird. I don't think it's too large for 8043 - I spent some time working on the proportions in Photoshop and the final design is actually smaller than the original plan. For a very small excavator, the bucket from 8851/8862 might be OK (even though it is a very old part and looks dated IMO); 8043 is not a small excavator though as you can tell from the size of the cab in relation to the superstructure, so the bucket would not be so small on a real machine. This - to me - does not look good, which is why I designed my own bucket. Pictured below (photo by Out of Sight) is a better idea of how my bucket will look when attached. It has a similar profile to the 10x18 bucket, but doesn't have the cutout or lip at the back/top. What you see here in terms of attachment point or height of bucket is basically the same as my bucket. An LDRAW file of 8043 would be very helpful at this stage - does anybody have one? I think that the profile of the 10x18 bucket still looks small for the excavator, which is my reason for making it slightly larger. In reality, this excavator would be comparable to 50-ton class, so basically a Liebherr R954. If you look at pictures of the R954, you will see that the bucket is not small.

Thanks! First things first - I basically need somebody (from the UK preferably, like myself) to effectively "road test" the bucket on the model, and take some pics as well to see how it looks. Provided it looks good and functions well, it can then be used as a master for molding so that it can be cast in resin, which would be the easiest way to reproduce it. I have built a number of things from styrene but have not yet done any castings, so we'll see how that pans out! Resin casting would give a number of colour possibilities too. I'll probably paint the styrene bucket either black or dark grey. Edit: @dr_spock, Thanks! I'm not sure on the exact size of the Arocs bucket but this bucket is considerably bigger for sure.

So in my extended wait for the arrival of 42030 (which I'll be picking up later today) I decided to break out the styrene tools and build a bucket for set 8043. This is very much a prototype but I would like to consider taking it further if there is sufficient interest. I know that many people were surprised (and a little saddened) that TLG used the wrong bucket for the excavator, and I think that the model would both look and function better with a purpose-built bucket. NB: I don't actually own set 8043 but bear with me! Now I'm afraid white stuff (especially sheet styrene which really is white) doesn't photograph all too well but the bucket will be painted eventually... matte black would be in-keeping with TLG's latest buckets, however I'm open to suggestion - dark grey (or dark bluish grey) might look really nice as well. Fairly standard excavator bucket with some Lego-esque styling and five evenly spaced teeth. The bucket has a nominal width of 9 studs (72mm) making it exactly half the width of the existing bucket. Being designed specifically for 8043, the width between the mounting ears is 3 studs (24mm). It's MUCH bigger than previous backhoe buckets, but has a similar mounting arrangement to the smallest one. Althought it's larger in profile than the original bucket, the aperture is a very similar size. This is the mounting configuration that the bucket was designed around (this was the very first thing I did, before I even started designing the bucket itself). Again, the dimension used here is three studs (or holes). This arrangement allows for a very good range of movement however it does require parts that are not included in the set. Because of this, I put an extra mounting hole beyond the existing one so that there are more options for mounting. The two holes closest together are exactly two studs (or holes) apart which allows for further modification/development. Family photo!

This is a really nice MOC but I think it's lacking functionality to be considered a Technic model. It's more like Model Team built from new (studless) Technic elements. Really nice though, and as others have said it's instantly recognizable as a Hummer.

Just off the phone to Tesco who have informed me my order appears still to be at the warehouse (two days after order was placed), however they can't track it properly which means they just don't know where it is. Fingers crossed it will be delivered to the store by 3pm today, failing which another one has been ordered to come by 3pm tomorrow. This is testing me to my limits, honestly!

Yeah, I took a trip to the hardware store this morning and got heaps of batteries (40 to be exact - 24 AAs and 16 AAAs, long life variety!). I quite like to mess around with electronics and I might do some modding at a later stage, but alkaline batteries will do for now. Sadly, when I went to the store this afternoon to collect the Lego set I was informed of a 24hr delay, so I'm going to have to wait another day. Patience doesn't get any easier when you're older... at least not when Lego is involved!

So I did find a good deal. I found 42030 on Tesco.com for £127 and they were offering 1,000 extra Clubcard points on Lego purchases (which is a lot like £10 or £20 cashback), so I figured that was an amazing deal and went ahead with the purchase. I'll be going to the store tomorrow afternoon to collect it and have yet to decide when I'm going to start building it. I also need to pick up batteries... LOTS of batteries!

Foggy - your story makes me sad! I'm glad I found out the value of the PF parts first, and my decision was to buy some of them or the entire set! As a small update, I was watching an ebay listing of 42030 (used but 100% complete) this evening and it sold for £96 including shipping, which is VERY cheap. I tried to bid on it in the last few seconds but I was using my phone and something went wrong - ebay told me I entered an "invalid amount" so I wasn't able to place my bid, and then the listing ended. So now I wonder... could I have had the set for under £100? I'm aware that the set can be bought for as little as £125 new, so in reality it's not a great loss; I just love bargains, particularly Lego ones! But £125 for a set with 1600+ parts and nearly £100 worth of PF elements... I need to just buy it, right? The most I've ever spent on a Lego set is about £70 or £80 (I bought 8880 on ebay back in 2005). But I'll happily spend £400 on diecast model cranes...

If I was buying primarily for the model I'd definitely consider the mod, however I'm buying primarily for the PF parts so I don't mind building the model in its original form. M motors are very cheap and I was planning to buy at least one extra, however I'm not sure about buying small linear actuators. Perhaps later!

Welcome to the forum Simon! I'm afraid you'll probably find it VERY difficult to get V2 receivers as they are not available separately and are difficult to find on the second hand market. I don't mind going with the V1 because it does what it's meant to do - it's not as though V2 fixes faults that V1 had. At least one commenter reports that the V1 has better range than the V2, althought I'm not sure that this is a common observation. Having spoken to my wife about this it's looking very much like I'll be the proud owner of #42030 relatively soon. I don't like to rush big purchases like this, but the lure of Power Functions and the prospect of building many exciting remote controlled MOCs is really enticing me, and I may very well make a purchase tomorrow. Reading up about Power Functions has also been really interesting because my knowledge of Lego electric motors extends to the stuff that was produced in the late 90s and that's about it. After that, I have no clue! Edit: Blakbird, thanks for the comment. You are absolutely right that the new set will be a great refresher for me, considering my experience of Lego Technic is "bricks and plates with studs and holes, and some liftarms", which is more of a relic for all you folks I think! My plan is to build the Volvo as it is and get used to Power Functions, and once I've done that I'd like to play around with PF parts and see what I can come up with.

Hi everyone, So as some of you already know I haven't bought a new Technic set for a very long time, and that may be about to change. I'm really keen to get started on some Power Functions MOC projects using the IR receiver and remote control however I have absolutely zero experience of Power Functions and none of the parts. Which brings me to my question: I see that Power Functions elements are pretty expensive, and I've done some research using ebay/bricklink as a guide. To buy (individually) the PF parts that come with set #42030 would cost me close to £100 (if not more), and the set itself can be bought new for about £125 and used for about £100. What do people suggest for somebody like me who has a lot of building experience with Technic but is new to PF - should I start small, or get what seems to be an extraordinary deal on PF elements and get the Volvo? It seems (to me at least) that the set represents exceptional value for money considering how many PF elements are included (particularly 2x V2 receivers and 2x remotes), but I have nothing to compare it to. TIA Dave