CP5670

I keep it around 72-82F year round, so there isn't much variation. Prolonged hot temperatures (over several years) can cause bricks to expand and develop a stronger grip, which I've seen with some late 80s sets. Maybe the cracking cheese slopes are caused by something like this. They told us the exact same thing with yellow four years ago, so I'm taking it with a huge grain of salt. Here is another picture from a few years ago. This effect is hard to see in a picture though since it varies a lot with the ambient light.

I'll certainly be there. I'm local to the area (20 minute drive) and should be able to take time off work then. I have only built a few small space models over the last year but will bring those, and maybe also this office building I am working on, although I probably won't have the interior done by then. I can't wait to see all your creations. That SW hangar looks amazing.

Any MOC I've put a decent amount of effort into stays built forever, although I often make small changes and updates to it over time. Most of my sets remain built for many years too (and I typically only buy a set if I like the model enough to keep it built, possibly with modifications), although I sometimes take them apart if a MOC requires many rare parts from it. In most cases though, if I need parts for a MOC, I go to Bricklink instead of scrapping sets.

I made this a while ago, although it's more of a space model: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=44171&st=0&p=774822&fromsearch=1entry774822 Those mining excavators are fantastic. They have excellent detail especially given their sizes.

I occasionally place something from a different theme into a layout, although like Jay Sathe said it's more for comic effect than anything else. I also incorporate Technic functionality into Space/City models all the time.

There is definitely a problem with that piece, given how many people have reported cracks in it now. It's strange how only some people seem to get them though. Mine are all just fine, even if they have been placed on models for many years. My best guess is that it's either related to the room temperature/humidity or limited to certain factories/geographic regions. I see some differences on my treads too. Some are rougher than others. The rough ones were like that out of the box (late 90s sets opened in mid-2000s), but could have deteriorated into that state over time. This doesn't seem to affect their performance, however.

This gear has been used sparsely for a long time. Even in the 90s, I can only think of two or three Technic sets that included it. It was more common in the 80s and in Mindstorms and Lego Education sets. I've got a bunch of them but rarely use them. You can usually get similar or higher gear ratios in a smaller space by stacking two sets of smaller gears together, like 12/20 and 8/24.

I miss various things people have brought up already: flip-up boxes, printed/unique parts, high quality brick colors, etc., all of which contributed to the feel that this was a premium, high end product. You don't get that sense anymore today. The old catalogs and their dioramas were also fun to look through. On the other hand, I like how we have a wider selection of parts and more complex sets in most themes today. I have mixed thoughts on the box alternate models as well. They are certainly fun to look at, but only the models on the largest sets are actually worth building, and those are also the hardest ones to build without instructions. The last flip-up boxes appeared in 2000, and the last time they were actually common was in 1998. That was sort of the point though. Back then, TLG really adhered to the "only the best is good enough" idea and pulled out all the stops to bring out a premium product, and then priced it accordingly. I guess the customers ultimately spoke on what they actually wanted. It was also easier to have the fancy boxes back then since there were fewer sets coming out each year, and each set was in production for much longer than it is today. However, it's interesting to note that Oxford actually has similar (less elaborate) kinds of boxes today. The competition has caught up with TLG over time.

I would like to try this out too. Trans-yellow stuff has always been hard to come by. The painted pieces I've seen in some pictures look indistinguishable from official Lego parts.

They have had this "hard to find" designation for a long time. I remember seeing it in the S@H catalogs in the 90s, with sets marked like this that were still widely available in any toy store I went to, even ones that were not major chains. It might be nothing more than a form of marketing. On the other hand, some of the largest sets were labeled "not available in any store!" back then and these were actually much harder to come by. I think you could get only get them through S@H or the Lego brand stores (which were less common back then).

I still have one of them from when I was a kid. It works pretty well, although larger bricks often jam up inside it.

Or to put it another way, they realized that customers don't care about brick quality. The mismatched/translucent colors are here to stay for the forseeable future. I think TLG would have fixed that issue if it had hit their bottom line in 2007 and the customers had collectively howled enough, but even the AFOLs barely noticed it, much less kids. This is the most annoying aspect of the color problems. Getting the right color on Bricklink has become a lottery unless the pieces are black (which is one reason why my Bricklink orders tend to be dominated by black pieces). For a while, I was keeping a list of "safe" sellers that I could be reasonably sure were carrying pre-2006 pieces built from pre-colored ABS, but the new pieces have been around for several years now and that is no longer feasible. I would be quite willing to pay double prices for pieces with the proper color and opacity, if they were actually distinguished as such on Bricklink.

The smallest pieces in my collection are the plastic sprue things that flippers come packaged with (and also 1x1 round plates in the 80s) and the control stick lever. That modulex cheese slope probably beats everything though. As for the biggest piece, maybe the brick vac. It did have connections for the baseplate lid it came with, so it was technically part of the Lego system.

Great review. I always wanted this as a kid but instead got the later 6597 a few years later. I love the baseplates in these sets too, as well as the landing lights spread across them. Like all the Lego airports though, the building is too small, even compared to other Lego city buildings of the time.

That looks great. I remember that catalog scene well. The solid white color always struck me as a bit incongruous with M:Tron though.

I usually keep them together (although I often modify them to my liking), but I rarely buy sets at all these days and only get the ones I really think are exceptional. Most of my Lego for MOCs comes from Bricklink.

This is the main advantage of PAB (and the Lego Direct service as well). Even common parts that are newly released take around a year to become cheap on Bricklink, and rare parts stay expensive indefinitely. PAB can have slow and expensive shipping though, and is easier to justify if you're buying some regular Lego sets at the same time. I have had this happen quite a few times lately, although the sellers cooperated when I complained. However, the major BL sellers with very large selections are pretty accurate in describing their parts. It's more of an issue with small sellers who have discontinued specialty parts.

#2 is a big issue in my book. I like the concept of sound bricks (and light bricks as well), but the current ones are hard to do anything with since they don't interface with the PF system at all and go against the modular philosophy of Lego. They're little more than throwaway pieces as it is. The old 9V sound bricks from the 80s had lame sounds, but they did at least work together with the rest of the 9V system. Programmable bricks with custom sounds would be even better, but they need to be easy to power and control first.

Actually the studded ones rotate the most smoothly due to the material used (the usual ABS). Modern studless ones are usually fine, but the one that came in my 8421 some years ago has quite a bit of friction in it.

I post one or two teaser images on the forum and link to the rest on Brickshelf, with the images themselves as the links. This seems to be the best middle ground; people who like what they see can click the images to see more. When I'm looking at MOC threads, if there is no image or too many images (especially oversized ones), I often don't look at the MOC at all. I am not a fan of flickr. The interface is clunky, especially when trying to access different images of the same model, and the default image sizes are very small, with far too much work required to see the larger sizes. As for downloading pictures, it's more accurate to say that flickr deters people who aren't very bright. Most browsers have settings to prevent sites from disabling context menus, and even aside from that, if the picture can be seen at all, it's trivial to take a screenshot of it. On the other hand, most people who plagiarize models probably fall into that category, so maybe it works out. Brickshelf has plenty of its own issues but I like the "no nonsense" nature of the site, with no image size or quantity limits and easy, intuitive access to all the images in a user's folder.

The Lego hoses automatically pop off around 45 psi. I've heard that it's best to keep it under 25-30 psi or so to not wear out the seals. The pistons already move super fast at that pressure.

That was just it. It's a nice enough set but it was a downgrade from the earlier 8880 in terms of mechanical complexity, and you can really tell when you build them both. I got this set as a kid but was pretty disappointed by it, as I had missed 8880 but it left out many things that had made 8880 great (especially having drive and steering on the same axle, which was very rare back then). The suspension does work smoothly and it generally did what it tried to do very well, but it simply didn't aim that high. It felt like you were building a "regular" Technic car in some ways, while 8880 and 8466 felt like true flagship sets.

8110 is a better set overall but I don't think its functionality is that much more impressive than 8466. It's one of those models that has several disparate subsystems (4WD, pneumatic arm, front winch), each of which are fairly standard on their own except for the suspension. 8466 is "just another" super car, but on the other hand we haven't had any other super car with a full transmission since then. 8466 arguably looks nicer with the sleek shape and metallic green color, while 8110 is certainly better for parts. As for the 8466 tires, they are indeed of limited use due to their size and weight (although I have seen them used on trial trucks), but the size allows you to build some things that would not be possible with any other Lego wheels. It depends on what exactly you want to build. In general, both of these wheels are too big for a typical Technic model. I think the most versatile wheels are the old foam 20x30 wheels (which don't compress under weight like the air-filled ones), followed closely by the 62.4x20 wheels that are used in many sets today. With all the shortcomings fixed, that is. It's basically what 8448 should have been in the first place.

Tablets are definitely the best way to read those instructions. Note that there are other tablets out there besides iPads. I think they would also be very useful for placing Bricklink orders from. This process takes a few hours for me since I often place big orders and do it from my Lego work area to check exactly what I'm running out of and need to buy. I use a laptop at the moment, but it just sits in one corner since it's too big and heavy to move around constantly, so it's less convenient than it could be.

It seems okay for me. Make sure you have tightened the nuts on the screw axle (although not too much or it won't turn smoothly). It can't take a lot of weight since there is no counterweight, but works fine with light or no loads, even when extended.