CP5670

Very impressive model. I love the swashplate mechanism on the main rotor. It's more compact than any others I've seen in the past. You have also done the angled beam connections around the tail wing nicely.

At least in the US, Lego Education will sell to anyone. I've been buying stuff from them since the late 90s. The sets do tend to be expensive, more than normal Lego sets, but they often have good deals on bulk Technic parts. They added a "global" section to their website a few years ago, so it may be possible to buy from them in other countries now too. I like the emergency and airport/space sets here. The part selection looks quite generic (in contrast to past Lego Education sets), but they have a very classic look and feel that I like.

That is better than I was expecting. I thought they would be at least $3. I doubt I will buy them directly but it should impact the Bricklink prices too. The shovel change may carry over to mainstream sets this year. Small changes in parts like that have happened many times before, and it's often not obvious what the purpose of the change was.

I did this more for reasons of interest than space or money. I always liked City, Space and Technic as a kid, and was never much into the other themes. Today, I have expanded that to include Creator, Model Team and Aquazone, but still rarely venture into other themes. I occasionally buy individual sets from other themes that I like a lot, but only have a few of them from over the years. The most recent one was the Army Men set.

Adding an airtank is a popular modification for this set, but I tried it once and don't think it really improves the model. The compressor in this model is pretty weak and it takes a long time to fill up the airtank. If you use the pneumatics by opening a valve first and then turning on the compressor, the functions work more smoothly and precisely than if you do it the other way around.

The dinosaur's front legs are essentially powered by the rear legs' movements, through the gray liftarms, which is probably why it walks more smoothly backwards. There is a walking dog in 8888 that has a more symmetric mechanism like the AT-AT, so I might try that out too. I was building two or three at a time, keeping them built for a week or two and then taking them apart. Although I like the excavator and plane simulator enough that I might just have to get the parts for them so I can keep them built. I would like to see sets with such models too. Models different from trucks, construction vehicles, etc. were fairly common in the Universal/Multi-model sets, but they disappeared when we stopped getting those sets.

Great models. I wasn't a big fan of the Mission Commander either and built a different ship with the same pieces, but yours stays closer to the original design and fixes most of its flaws. I love your SP1 Mediator too, with the original set still being one of my favorite space models.

BUMP I built some more of these models and took some pictures. (pictures and comments moved to first post)

These are some nice mods for what is still my favorite Technic set. Does the engine still go at the same speed as before? I always liked how the engine and fan on this model spin so fast.

I was referring to not only that picture but the next several in that thread too, particularly the one with the Technic triangles. The translucency is more apparent in real life, since you can see how light passes through the pieces in a way that is not obvious in photos. There is also an example here. The worst cases of this effect I've seen, mainly in 2007, were at least as bad as Megabloks. Lego has improved since then but is still a long ways off from its old level of opacity. Although it's worth noting that minifigs (in normal sets) seem to have shown more of an improvement than many other types of pieces, so the quality of these new minifigs will hopefully be at least decent.

This particular issue is so widespread that there is little point in asking for a replacement. Chances are that the replacement will have the same problem. Not sure what exactly you mean by bad plastic, but one of the main indicators of that is discoloration caused by translucency. I believe that is what people have complained about with the China-made minifigs, but we've been getting plenty of that with normal Lego bricks too.

You must not have been looking very carefully then. One issue in particular is especially pervasive, and there is plenty of evidence of it here for example. You are right that the place of manufacture has little significance though. A lot of this stuff has been coming out of Denmark, before TLG started moving anything from there.

Exploration in the Classic Space sense wasn't particularly realistic. Even the Classic Space ships often seemed to be heavily armed, but they just had nobody to fight with. "Real deal space" would better describe the Launch Command, Space Port and Discovery themes. Like others, I like a mix of both exploration and conflict. You can certainly have both. I think the Exploriens theme was kind of like this, and the original Aquazone themes also come to mind even though they were not in space.

We've seen clone brands (and not just the bootleg ones) copy many things other than basic bricks from Lego, so it seems to be possible. The only difference here is that the quality would be up to scratch. But yeah, I don't know much about the legal aspects of this either. In the case of monorail tracks, they haven't been produced in a long time and will almost certainly never be in the future. The small company (especially if it's like Brickarms, etc. and is made up of a few AFOLs) may well just assume that TLG doesn't care, and stop production in the event that they do complain.

That girl torso is the first (and still the only) one of its kind in my collection, so I like it. The sticker signs were indeed lame though. Those have always been printed in the past. I think he's drinking from the mug, but I was confused by that too. Why is he angry? Maybe the coffee is bad?

Things like monorail tracks would probably be covered by patents, not copyright, which would have expired by now. I was thinking more along the lines of old gray bricks though, as well as transparent bricks and windscreens that haven't been made in decades. I used to have the same thoughts as you, but my perspective has changed in the last few years after Lego itself started dropping in quality so sharply. I still don't like mixing certain types of modern Lego into my collection, which largely consists of the higher quality 80s and 90s Lego, but I don't want to stop buying Lego and limit myself to my existing parts either. It's interesting you brought up Bricklink, as that has been the biggest problem from my point of view. The various quality problems have made buying on Bricklink a lottery these days, and it's impossible to tell what exactly you are getting there. For a while I hardly bought anything from there that wasn't black or blue, but you can only do that for so long before your MOCs start to look boring.

I had brought up this possibility once, but in a different sense. What if a legitimate business comes up that is offering discontinued Lego parts/colors at the same or better level of quality as Lego? If they don't have the Lego logos on the studs, there is nothing stopping someone from doing that, and I think it would be a great thing for MOCers. I wouldn't really care where the pieces came from as long as the quality is there.

It's nice to hear something official about it, but the fact that the minifigs are a standard Lego product does not necessarily say anything. As I have said many times around here before, the "Lego product line" has been anything but "great quality" for the last three years.

That bag doesn't look all that thick or rigid to me. Despite what people say, it may be possible to feel inside at least for certain kinds of accessories.

I hardly ever use stickers that cover multiple parts but I often use single part ones, depending on the material they are made of and the rarity of the piece they go on. I treat the stickered parts like printed ones and store them alongside those, and the remaining stickers that are still on their sheets go in a 6954 Renegade box. The stickered parts can often be useful in MOCs.

Looks great. It reminds me of the Orca in the C&C games. It's always good to see something in Technic that isn't a land vehicle.

Those threaded axles are not made of metal. The threading actually makes them thinner and weaker than normal axles. Aluminum axles would be a good choice here, but I don't think that guy is selling any axles yet.

That shovel looks like it's made of the soft, deformable plastic I described in the quality thread. We've been getting that junk stuff in normal sets too though, even on some minifig accessories that used to be made of other materials.

That cake is hilarious. Happy birthday!

The dollar actually strengthened during the global recession. It had become weak in the years leading up to that. I don't think short-term changes in Lego pricing are related to exchange rates, which fluctuate all the time. As for longer periods, there was a time around 2002-2004 when Lego prices were unusually low, but TLG was making big losses in those years and they probably reduced their profit margins to make their products sell more. The prices have risen since then, but I think they are still lower than the 80s and 90s prices if you take inflation into account. One example I can think of is the biggest Technic sets, which are generally $150 today but were $140-170 in the 90s, which would be well over $200 today. Although the quality was also better back then.