CP5670

I was thinking the same. Most people I have seen don't really know or care about the differences between MB and Lego. You can also see this with mislabeled ebay auctions and bulk/unsorted used Lego lots that are mixed with MB. This is a little off topic, but if you liked Basic then Creator has essentially become the same thing today, just with a new name. It's easy to get a lot of Technic parts by just buying one or two large Technic model sets, although it sounds like you're coming from 1980s Technic and the theme has changed a lot since then. I like the Technic figures, although they never appeared in the larger model sets and haven't been produced in many years anyway.

This is the only train I have, along with the 10002 extension car, but it's easily my favorite Lego train ever. It looks like many real-world train systems (such as Amtrak) with the kind of color scheme it has. I made several modifications to the internal layout on mine, moving all four large doors to the front car for one big cargo section, and enlarging the dining area in the rear engine car. I also added an extra train motor in the back in order to add lights on that car. I actually liked the retro, compact look of the instructions. I think modern instructions are far too lengthy and drawn out. This re-release was very good on the whole. TLG reproduced several discontinued pieces just for this set, and the changes from the original were quite minimal compared to some of the other legend sets. One issue with both the door printing and the stickers is that the white looks noticeably darker than white plates, so the white stripe on the train doesn't look uniform. I think the original set might have had the same problem though.

The IR remote may also contain the same substance. I noticed a trace of the smell around its holes too. I think the smell subsides over time, as it is much less prominent on the receivers I've had for a while than on the new one.

Yeah, it was the 2160 Crystal Scavenger in 1997. That's a pretty rare piece these days. I only have the one from that set.

I thought I would bump this old thread, since I bought several PF parts a few days ago and realized what the OP was talking about. The IR receiver I got does have an odd, musty smell to it, almost like moth balls. I don't find it bothersome though and can only smell it if I put it up to my nose. None of the other PF parts have any issue. I checked out the two older receivers in my 8275 Bulldozer and noticed that those also have a similar smell, although it's much fainter.

At some level, you could say that Lego's competition is all other goods and services out there. They all compete for the consumer's money, after all. You have to draw the line somewhere, and MB puts out what for most casual buyers is a product similar to Lego. Technic is also one of the main attractions of Lego for me. By "freestyle" it sounds like you mean the Universal/Multi-model sets, although I'm curious why you gave up building Technic. Bionicle is a separate line these days with no connection to Technic.

It seems to grip the nozzle so firmly that it eats away at the plastic when you remove it after a long time. I've had a few bad experiences with it, ranging from slight damage and discoloring to the otherwise perfect all-yellow pistons on my 8854, to actually having the nozzles torn off altogether on some pistons many years ago. TLG replaced those for free though.

That part of it looks great to me too. An onboard rover is very much in line with the old Space flagship sets, like the Galactic Mediator.

That might be worth trying out. Thanks for the tip. Although the 45psi is probably more than enough for most situations, as the pistons already move very quickly at that pressure. By "older, thicker tubing" do you mean the harder tubing from the 1980s? I don't use that stuff at all and have replaced it with newer tubing on any models using it, since it damages the nozzles over time.

You're missing the point. I have no intention of buying MB myself because their products are not to my satisfication, but I still want them to stay around and keep TLG from overcharging on Lego. Lower quality bricks at lower prices is not something that appeals to me but I do understand that other buyers might find such products attractive. It's a weaker product at a lower price, which makes sense. TLG had the standard 15 year period to capitalize on their basic brick designs, and they made tons of money from it. There is a good reason why patents expire after a certain period and why all of the recent legal rulings on that issue have gone against TLG. If a major clone brand disappears, the competition on TLG will certainly not disappear altogether, but it will obviously be reduced to varying degrees, depending on how big a market you look at. As for set designs, I'm referring to MB and other companies who actually make their own sets here, not the blatant (and illegal) copycat brands like Enlighten.

Are only the 2009 versions doing this? That particular piece has traditionally had a very strong grip and can be fairly difficult to remove from some pieces, although I think the ones from the last year or two have been better.

This seems to be a fairly common story in the business world. A previously successful company expands too fast and makes bold acquisitions, and then falls down hard. It reminds me of what AMD did with ATI a few years ago. The article also talks about TLG's similar experiences a few years ago. They say that 2003 was an especially bad year, which I find puzzling since they actually made a lot of great sets that year, in a variety of themes. I guess their problems went beyond just the sets they were selling. They are privately owned but still for-profit. They still need to please their private stock holders (primarily the Kristiansen family, which no longer runs the company themselves). Of course they are in the business to make money. And there's nothing wrong with that. Only if you don't mind paying more. As Eilif said, if MB goes bankrupt, you can expect to see price increases on Lego across the board, as they are certainly the largest of the clone brands.

The dog is a great concept but I'm not that fond of these SP minifigs, especially their open helmets and opaque visors. The aliens in this theme are far better. It looks a little odd, but all of the old Space factions used the same thing. I just assume it's some kind of microwave-based weapon.

This is a cheap and easy way to get the alien. The "set" is essentially just the minifig though. The actual model is obviously an afterthought, although I like that spyglass piece.

That looks nasty. The stickers on my Silver Champion have become brittle and cracked at the edges, but have held on pretty well despite that. The color of the printing has a big impact on this. I have had the white components of some stickers largely "saved" because they were surrounded by black or yellow borders that kept the white together, like the big Technic logo on 8457. I've had the same experience. In one case, I put the two different 8459/8464 air tank stickers on different sides of the tank, and only one side was exposed to light. That sticker had become trashed after three years while the one on the other side looked perfect, so UV exposure seems to be the only explanation. They are obviously far more sensitive to it than bricks are (in terms of yellowing). The earliest sets I have with this problem are 8858 and 8880 from 1994 (at least I managed to keep together the 8858 Technic flag by taping over it) and the latest ones were pretty much everything in the World City police line in 2003. After noticing that, I stopped using white paper stickers in the affected colors until 2008, when I found that recent City sets like 7990 and 7991 were having no problems.

That sounds like you got a messed up sticker sheet, which is common these days with the lousy box packaging TLG uses. The differences probably due to the type of paper they are printed on, as I described earlier. Also, the white paper stickers only peel in certain colors. White, red and blue components of the stickers will peel under UV, while yellow and black parts are unaffected.

You know, I never understood why there were no more of these later on. Hard hats in real life are usually yellow, but almost all of the Lego ones are red.

Depending on the color and material the stickers are made of, you might not need to take any special precautions to preserve them. Just make sure to align them exactly right, so they don't hang over the edge of a piece. I have stickers over 15 years old that still look great. The important thing is what kind of paper they are printed on. Clear paper stickers are much more resistant to long term damage than white paper ones. White paper stickers in certain colors from roughly 1994 to 2006 are sensitive to UV light and will peel off and become brittle over time. I think TLG changed the white paper material in 2007, as the sets I bought from that point on haven't exhibited any issues so far.

I guess the new one will be just a minor update over the existing set, like the RIS 2.0 set was?

Nice, it sounds like the big sets are coming out sooner than I thought.

Well, he does have the set number in the title. I think most people look for "lego 7735" or some variant of that. Some of the biggest bargains I have come across over the years are items with a wrong or no set number in the auction title, or lacking the "Lego" somewhere in the title. Personally, I would stay away from auctions like that because of the picture. You can't tell anything about the quality of a used set from just one small picture like that.

This is actually one of the main things I like about Space over Star Wars. Star Wars typically uses loads of gray shades and other "neutral" colors, along with trans-black for all cockpits, which leads to realistic but rather dull looking models. I would much rather have the dynamic, eye-catching colors of Space models over strict realism.

Nice to see the fixed classic space logo, but the yellow guy was always much more common than the black one. They had to mess up the printing with the rare black one. The problem with all of these sets is that they span a variety of different themes. There are typically only two or three minifigs in each pack that I'm interested in, so I end up not buying the pack as $20 for three minifigs would be way too much. They should release theme-specific versions of these packs (space, city, pirates, etc.) instead of these mixed collections.

I mod almost all of my sets in some way. It's rare for TLG to produce a model that I think is completely perfect. The changes are usually something trivial (e.g. closing up the hole behind the driver on 7991), but may be more significant (4 wheel steering for 8466 or changing 10001 interior layout) or occasionally become a ground-up redesign using most of the same parts and the same basic shape (I did this with some space sets, like 6954, 6986 and 6991). Modding is part of the fun of building sets for me. I need to take pictures of my more interesting mods and put them on Brickshelf at some point. I only have a few up there.

Cool, I didn't notice the monorail earlier. And I was specifically looking for any kinds of classic parts in that scene.