CP5670

A double sided plate would be immensely useful. That part exists in some clone brands and is one of the few third party pieces that I have used in MOCs due to its usefulness.

It depends on what themes you collect. I think white would look better for City displays and black would be better for Space ones. One thing to keep in mind though is that the black shelves would show up dust more prominently than white ones, so you may need to clean them out more often. My own display shelves are all white, but they are essentially garage shelves and are very open, so they wouldn't have given the right effect in black anyway.

That new PF controller looks great. Aside from trains, it will also be very useful for Technic models. It seems to do everything that the current PF remote does but allows for variable speed settings. I think the 9V trains might actually run at more than 9V at the highest speed regulator setting. This is something I've noticed with all of the wall powered sources in the Lego 9V system, including the RCX and Control Center. They run motors faster than battery boxes even on a fresh set of batteries.

That looks beautiful, and it has the functionality to match as well. It's especially interesting how he used u-joints in the middle to move the steering geartrain up, instead of gears. All the chrome silver pieces give it a great finish too. The only thing is that the front would have been better with an actual windshield. The thin bars used at an angle like that look pretty flimsy.

My first set was in 1988 (21 years), although most of my collection has come off ebay after 2000. My oldest sets are actually from 1981.

I got mine for $100 MISB in a freak ebay deal in 2001, which is still one of my best purchases there. The auction had a lot of issues and didn't attract many bids. The seller also sent it by seamail for some reason, so shipping was cheap but it took almost four months to arrive. That might be. I think I originally used batteries when I built it, since it came with a European 220V transformer that I couldn't use. I have built it into the dinosaur for the last few years.

The high price of the copy you found might be a carry over from its original price, if the store never reduced the price. With a $220 MSRP in the US, it was by far the most expensive Technic set TLG has ever released (and some of these sets were quite a bit more in Europe). I remember it looked like a great set in the S@H catalogs at the time, but it just seemed too expensive and other flagship sets from that time period like 8480 or 8880 gave you much more for your money. The helicopter simulator is quite good but I think it would have been a lot better with an additional degree of freedom that allowed it to change its heading, maybe by mounting the whole thing on a turntable. I've had a MOC project in mind for some time now to make an improved version with that functionality, along with a rotor blade tilting mechanism that is tied into the pitch/bank controls. The landing mechanism on it is very well designed though. The weight of the control center almost perfectly balances out that of the helicopter.

This set seems quite nice and has a lot of functionality for its size. I might pick it up from ebay, where it still sells for around the $50 MSRP. The one place where it could be improved is the second part of the crane arm. It would be better to have the crank for that on the base of the turntable (or even better, on the truck chassis by using a differential inside the turntable). It looks like it should be possible to mod that in though.

You may have gotten the 8455 for its original price. It was remarkably cheap at its time ($100), considering how much functionality it had. I'm wishing I had gotten a second one at that price back then. As for the 8485, it's a pretty nice set but I'm not sure I would spend that much on it. $400-450 is around the going MISB price anyway on BL and ebay. The dinosaur is easily the highlight of that set and is very impressive to watch in action. It was perhaps the only official Technic model to really use the flex system extensively. The other two models are reasonably good, but not spectacular. I find the control center itself pretty useful too. That set contains the newer kind with an AC adapter port, and like the other wall powered Lego "9V" sources, runs motors at a slightly higher voltage than battery boxes. In fact, I rarely use batteries in any of my Technic models and just run them off that control center. The age of the set is not important in itself. In general, Technic sets have remained uniformly good since the late 80s or so and haven't really improved beyond a point, although the construction style has changed over time. The mid 90s models are at least as good as recent ones in terms of functionality (and have better quality pieces). The only old electric component known for problems is the red micromotor. The standard motors should be fine. I have many of those that still work well.

We have the Futuron grid background available, since it appeared on this. Most of the other Space themes just had different colored versions of the same background.

What exactly qualifies as a theme? I would say all of space, like this kind of space: Actually, I think the color change killed off the Legends concept more than anything else, since the blay ones probably didn't sell as well to their target market. I remember seeing many of the 2004 Legends discounted in the S@H catalogs a few years ago, and even today there is a very noticeable difference in the prices of 2001-2003 Legends and the 2004 Legends on Bricklink and ebay.

You can get the new kind relatively cheaply in a Lego Education service pack. The only problem there is that they come in both dark blay and black in the same package, so it becomes harder to use them all on one vehicle. It would have been better if they offered two separate packs of them in different colors.

I see. I wasn't sure what kind of tractor attachment it was supposed to be, as it looks almost a like crude crane hook.

Very impressive. The hailstorm name is quite appropriate. My favorite part of it is actually the small camera. I wonder where he got that camera and how it interfaces with the NXT.

I don't have any of these sets, but the comics at the ends of the instructions were hilarious: http://www.peeron.com/scans/1380-1/ http://www.peeron.com/scans/1381-1/ http://www.peeron.com/scans/1382-1/ http://www.peeron.com/scans/1383-1/

I think this set looks a lot nicer than the similarly priced 8261. It has a small engine, and it's nice how the driver's wheel is also connected to the steering geartrain. The alternate model is also good, which is rarely the case with small sets. I can't tell how the thing in the back works though. Does it snap into place?

I think by "switch," you're referring to the track splitting points and not the stop/reverse switches, right? It's common for those points to develop this issue. One of mine is a little stiff too, although it isn't too bad. People have apparently had success with lubricating the inside, but I don't know how easy it is to open it up or reassemble it. This post came up with a Lugnet search and may contain some ideas.

I have had this concept in mind ever since I got the set in 1996. The SRB/tank assembly wouldn't add much in terms of functionality, but it would look great. I haven't seen any attempts at doing this on Brickshelf though. Some people have made some quite large crawler transporters that would roughly match the 8480 in scale. This is one example. I have also seen a larger, blue one on Brickshelf before, but I can't find it now.

Well, 100 of most currencies seems like a lot for ice cream: As for the coins, those are mainly seen in Pirate sets. I'm not sure if they were ever used in City sets.

I always found it funny how everything in the Lego world costs $100.

Yeah, that would have been a lot better. Perhaps it was related to what pieces TLG was still producing, since the Blue Fury was one of the few sets not to have a large windshield. I guess after the gray change though, the legend sets lost some of their appeal anyway. It depends on what you mean by this. There have been some specific Creator sets that were fairly comparable to the smaller MT sets (not all MT sets were like 5571), although there was certainly room for improvement. I would especially like to see more special parts in them, like antennas, glass windows and chrome plated pieces, which were common in MT.

Your modifications to that set look quite nice. Well, Model Team is just a name. I don't really care what the sets are called, if they are just like the old Model Team vehicles otherwise.

I use Brickshelf most of the time. It has its issues and lacks some simple functionality with managing files and folders, but I like its generally clean look and lack of any limits on the quantities or sizes of images. It's also nice to be part of a dedicated Lego picture archive, rather than a general image hosting site. I also have a bunch of webspace on my ISP account, which I sometimes use for hotlinking. Flickr's commenting features are nice, but the free accounts are limited and I don't like some other aspects of the interface there. The default sizes for both pictures and their thumbnail previews are too small.

The 2003 Creator line actually had some nice functions. The 4403 Air Blazers had a fairly sophisticated pumping mechanism to turn the main rotor, as well as retractable landing wheels. It's still my favorite Creator set. The 4404 Land Busters set had suspension, although I don't think there was any steering. We never saw this again later on though.

Interesting, I didn't know racing motorcycles like that existed.