CP5670

I've seen this effect. Looks very cool in the dark, and I think many official set pictures (on boxes, catalogs and so on) are taken with some sort of blacklight like this. You always see the trans-neon green parts glowing brightly in them. On a related note, try this: take two identical pieces, one trans-neon green and one trans-yellow, hold them up to a light source (anything will work, doesn't have to be a blacklight) and look through them. The neon green one actually looks more yellow than the yellow one, although they're extremely close. Similar comments apply to red and neon orange. If you hold them up to a light, preferably incandescent, they look practically indistinguishable.

I've always been mainly a Space and Technic person and all my major MOCs so far have been among those themes. I buy a lot of City stuff as well though. I have not bought that many sets of any kind recently though, mainly a few City sets, the UCS Batmobile and one or two creator sets. It's mostly Bricklink for me these days, until TLC gets their brick color problems sorted out.

I spend more money on Bricklink than on actual sets these days. Most of the parts for my MOCs come from there. I don't place orders that often, maybe once every two or three months, but I usually buy a lot of stuff at once. My last order was something like $135 for 1500 parts among 160 lots. The only exception is if I need some rare piece that none of the major sellers with large inventories are carrying. I got a few monorail switch service packs like this from one German seller a while ago.

I think the best stuff I've seen is here (the trucks category in particular) and here (the BIA layout mainly).

That definitely sounds like it's worth a visit. Thanks for the description. Did you manage to get a look at the Pick-a-brick area? That would probably be the biggest attraction for me, as the PAB orders from S@H take a while to arrive and the shipping prices become cumbersome unless you're buying other sets along with them. I also like the idea of seeing exactly what bricks I'm buying in advance.

Yes, that is the main issue I have with it. The piece count looks good on its own but that's due to all the fine details in everything, and the finished models aren't nearly as big as you would expect for the price. The presence of a lot of white (which is one of the colors Flextronics is having uniformity problems with) also means that I wouldn't want to spend that much money on it, at least not yet. I think this set would be more successful if they had made it into a mainstream retail item, with a price reflecting that, instead of a Lego Factory set. As it is, I'll just see if I can find lower prices on ebay in a few months. I like pretty much everything about it except the price.

Yeah, the Tow Truck was the last set that still used mainly studded beams. They made many changes to Technic the following year, with models becoming predominantly studless and making heavy use of the flexible axles/hoses and decorative panels. The Technic logo and box art style was also changed a lot. I really like the overall construction of that set. The model is fairly lightweight but extremely sturdy. It must be one of the strongest large sets they've released. That's basically the idea. As Blakbird said though, it wouldn't be very powerful and would put the axle under some stress. The linear actuators they're bringing out this year do the same thing and should work much better.

This is an excellent overview of a great theme. The background section is interesting. I had seen the blurb about "transporting vital resources" but the German translated one is new to me. They do seem to be some sort of cargo shipping company. I actually have a sizeable M:Tron poster that came with a Particle Ionizer set I got on ebay. The scene is similar to one of the catalog images you posted (the one with the monorail in the background), but larger. Perfectly well. *y* I only had two of their small sets as a kid, but used to love the magnets and stared at the catalogs all the time. I got the entire line on ebay many years later. M:Tron seemed to have an unusually large number of pieces with their M logo printed on them. I don't think any other theme had so many logo pieces, apart from classic space. I have this catalog and love this scene. "Surrender, or we'll beat the crap out of you with our wrenches!" :-D

I was thinking you could somehow attach a 16-tooth dark gray gear (the one that spins freely around axles) to the nut, which would make the axle move in and out when the gear turned and convert the gear's rotary motion to linear motion in a fairly compact package. Although there are other ways of doing the same thing that don't use such rare parts, and the 2008 Technic sets will come with pre-built linear actuators anyway.

Good to see that it's out. As I mentioned in the other thread, I wouldn't pay $100 for it, but many sets have a tendency to show up cheap on ebay while they're still available. I'll look for it there. This is a bit OT, but I was curious if you've been there before. What is the PAB selection like? I'm not that far from this store either and would like to go at some point, but it is still a 30-odd minute drive and I wouldn't want to spend time with it if it's nothing special.

That may be the best one so far. I love how they pick a fight with the Roboforce dude. X-D

Yeah, UFO was a great theme. I still think the Warp Wing Fighter was one of the best space sets of any kind, and there were a number of other good sets in the theme. The minifigs were also very well detailed for their time. You can actually do some cool things with those quarter circle panels. The printing on the gray ones limits their use to UFO sets, but the trans-neon (and later on, black and trans-green) ones are quite useful. Insectoids never really did it for me though, except for maybe the Planetary Prowler. Most of their sets had skimpy cockpits and lacked interior room (although the largest one was better), and the wing and leg pieces weren't useful elsewhere. I also didn't like how their light and sound pieces, although kind of neat, didn't interface with the existing 9V system.

I was thinking of getting one of those off BL several years ago, back when the price used to be more like $15 or so, but I realized that I hardly ever use the couple that I already have. :-P They came out with the modern turntable the year after this set, which mostly negated the need for these screw axles. I think their only use now is to hold non-Lego objects onto models, like the Technic pen in 8094. I guess you can try to make linear actuators out of them, but they're often too rare and fragile for that.

I love the vehicles in the Star Justice set and have no problem with transparent stickers, but I can't see myself paying anywhere near $100 for it. It looks more like a $60-ish set to me. I might try to get it cheaper on ebay or something.

Another nice review. The slow shutter speed pictures are great. I think that was the only set with 8 distinct functions for a very long time and was only displaced by the 8455 Backhoe in that respect. The turntable on the back doesn't turn very well though, as the weight is all distributed on one side. The screw axle prevents it from popping off but there is still a lot of friction in it. I don't have mine built anymore but it might be worth trying to put a weight brick or something on it. Yeah, it's quite a bit bigger. When everything is fully extended, it becomes something like 26" long. Although the 8455 actually has more/better functionality.

Setting: Home, at pretty much any time of the day. I'm always up all night and am the only one around the house. *sweet* Workspace: My projects are scattered around my bedroom floor. I often point a table fan at whatever I'm working on so my hands don't get sweaty, to avoid getting too many fingerprints on bricks. Food: none, maybe something to drink Music: none Movies: none When I'm done: I usually find some pieces that I'm running low on and make a note of them in a text file. When they reach a certain number, I go to Bricklink and buy everything I need.

That looks quite nice. I wonder if something like this can be done to restore discolored white bricks.

This looks like a one-time freak thing and shouldn't be anything to worry about. The main quality problems these days center around color/density issues. I remember getting a 1x10 plate with an 8480 Space Shuttle many years ago, which had an odd deformation at one corner. It looked as if the plastic hadn't completely filled the mold and there was a kind of rounded slit along the edge there, although it still fit okay with other pieces. I still have it somewhere.

I might have had it happen once at some point. Can't remember. It's very rare though, and typically involves some common plate or something. On the other hand, if you're talking about MISB sets bought off ebay, I have been ripped on that twice. One set had an undone seal and was missing a bag (seller ignored my emails, and I only found out after leaving feedback) and another was advertised as unopened but was used (this seller was much better and gave me half price off it). This is out of over 150 things I've bought there though.

I think I prefer 4 studs just so they match with the scale of everything else, although I was never a fan of the old cars even as a kid (late 80s/early 90s, like the kind that come with 6394 or 6395). They looked strange and lopsided to me. The World City police car or the one that comes with the town plan are ideal in my opinion, just in terms of the scale. On the other hand, 6 or 8 studs for the trucks looks great, and I like the modern trucks much better than the old ones. I think 6 studs should remain a minimum for them.

I like looking through them too and only have one from earlier than 1986 (a Technic one). Although I probably wouldn't pay more than a few dollars for them.

Now that I think about it again, you may be right. I guess my memory sucks. :-P I'll find out for sure in a few days.

Yeah, I'm almost certain it's Krypto. I remember seeing something like that on one of the boxes. I can verify it next weekend when I go to my parents' place (my old Lego boxes are stored there). They started including short blurbs on the boxes of larger sets from around 1992, at least for the US versions. The descriptions always ended with something to the effect of "only you, the Lego maniac, can decide what happens." *sweet* I like the use of the white carpet for the terrain in that comic.

On closer examination, I think it's actually possible to push those four little pins in. They need to be pushed to the sides though, not inwards, so you have to jam something really thin into the holes and pry them in that way. It seems like it would require four hands to get them all in at the same time, but I might be able to do it with some effort. :-P I'll try it tomorrow when I have more time. The two parts of the motor are connected very tightly and there is no place to get leverage with a knife or anything like that. They don't seem to be glued in any way though, as I can twist them very slightly. I found another page on this motor, where you can see the four things I'm talking about. Although it looks like that guy screwed up his motor altogether.

I've seen a few cases like this where the box pictures are slightly different from the actual model. The Airtech Claw Rig compressor is another one that comes to mind. The changes sometimes seem pointless and make you wonder why they bothered. :-P The other stickers on mine have held up pretty well, although I didn't try to remove them after I put them on. The flag started to break after a year or so and just fell off its axle at one point. I taped over it and it's holding up well now, although it's a little frayed along one edge. This is actually the earliest set I've seen that uses this crappy sticker material (which is unfortunately very common today). Even other Technic sets had good stickers for many years after that.