CP5670

The normal black rubber bands will become brittle over time if you leave them stretched. Sets that include them come with several extras though and they are easy to replace. The colored rubber belts (with circular cross sections) seem to be made of a different material and don't break unless you stretch them too much, even if left in a stretched position for many years. At the most, they deform into the new position. I'm not sure what material is under question in this thread though. I don't think I have any parts made of it.

That motto has become a bit of a joke today. If they actually believed that anymore, they might as well destroy every set made in the last few years for having crap quality. Anyway, I don't care what TLG does with their own models. It's not my Lego, after all. They are the ones missing out on a potential profit from it.

Old sets, but the brick quality is the main reason for that. Many of the set designs today are actually better than what we had 20 years ago (particularly in the City and Creator themes), but the translucent bricks, inconsistent colors and crushed manuals/sticker sheets in large sets take away some of the enjoyment of building them. I rarely buy new sets at the moment except those that I think are exceptionally good. In the case of Technic sets, I liked the studded construction of the old sets better. They actually felt like Lego and were more fun and intuitive to build. The recent sets have great functionality, but I sometimes find them tedious to build. Ideally, they should use a mix of both types of construction, like many of the late 90s sets did. Space was also much better in those days. We didn't have any Space at all for several years lately and Mars Mission was disappointing, although the new Space Police line may be a lot better. This aspect of it is just due to inflation. Most things were cheaper back then. That being said, there has been a big price jump on all Lego this year.

If you click the "all sizes" button on Flickr, you can see the image in its original, much larger size. It is pretty grainy though and you can't make out much more detail than the small size.

I don't have any single set over 2000 pieces. I have several in roughly the 1200-2000 range. Most of them are Technic sets though, which take much longer to build than sets of other themes due to the precise positioning needed everywhere. I used to build them in one go, spending maybe 7-8 hours in one day with a few short breaks. In the last year though, I've been spreading it out over four or five days and doing a little bit each day. I always build alone, and always sort out the pieces manually before I start. This is the kind of thing I do: As far as repetitive building goes, I usually build any multiples of the same sub-section simultaneously to minimize that feel. (e.g. if the left and right parts of a model are nearly identical but need to be done separately, I'll build up both copies at the same time)

Yeah, I like this set otherwise, but those wheels are too big for it. They make it look more like a low riding jeep.

The blue guy came out some years after the original classic space lineup, which only had white and red. It's strange that they still had the stickers at that point. The oldest space set I have is a 6927 ATV from 1981, which has white and red guys but they're both printed.

Well, it's nice to see I was wrong after all. This set looks a bit bigger than the old 8459, but just from that picture, there isn't any obvious functionality that it adds over the old set. (and there is only so much you can do with a front end loader anyway) There is a second LA inside the body if you look closely. I don't see the prominent Power Functions sign that all the PF sets have had so far or any sign of a battery box, although it may be hidden in the back.

The "realistic" color schemes of the Star Wars sets don't appeal to me. That is the main reason I never really got into the theme. I like the way they're taking this new line though, as far as the set concepts go. Yes, they are different from the old SP themes, but they actually fit the "Space Police" moniker better. The old Space Police lines were more like military forces.

I think the recent topic on this was merged with an earlier one. The posting order seems to have gotten a little messed up though. That's basically what it comes down to for me as well. I don't like the changes, but I will continue to build with Lego as long as the fun outweighs the annoyances (which it certainly does). On a side note, who is hinckley39?

That's interesting. I guess they must have switched to printed torsos after only a year or so, as all the (original lineup) classic space sets I've seen on ebay seemed to have them printed.

I have had broken or bad parts in the past, but not often. The big ones that come to mind are the micromotors, the 5581 Magic Flash sticker sheet and the original trans-clear damped shock absorbers (all of these things are notorious for being or going bad). That crane string was the only recent one. I still haven't gotten around to ordering a replacement for it. Of course, if you consider the "new" colors to be defects, then every set is loaded with defective parts now. Yeah, I feel the same way about the bricks in several colors these days.

Maybe it's from one of the idea books. I know a few of them included sticker packs and at least one had minifig torso stickers. I don't think any of the actual space sets came with torso stickers instead of prints.

I have no idea. That article I posted earlier says that companies put in extra additives into the ABS to increase its UV resistance, so maybe they were experimenting with something different back then on a few select parts. The affected pieces otherwise look no different from any other parts. The only recent reference I've seen to this was a TLG engineer's presentation at the last Brickfair. He brought up this dark room yellowing effect and said "I didn't believe this was possible until they showed it to me," but he didn't give any explanation on why it happens.

I like the earlier space boxes better, with that grid pattern in the background. Every theme had its own color for the grid.

The first one you posted looks great. I don't think that ever became an actual set. I like the final version Metroliner better than the prototype, since it looks like a lot of real world train systems with its color scheme.

LDD looks reasonably good to me. If you think LDD is bad, try MLCad. The ideal thing would be a program with LDD's renderer and interface combined with MLCad's functionality and parts library.

You have a point there. I know that a lot of people scaled back on the hobby in general after the gray change. I would think that they should have still seen the change in Bricklink orders though, which is how I originally noticed it. I haven't bought that many (newer) sets since then but have continued to build MOCs. Black is probably my most used color but I often use the others as trim colors. It's hard to pinpoint why exactly it happened. TLG switched from pre-colored ABS pellets to clear ones towards the end of 2006, and only a few months later they outsourced a lot of production to Flextronics in the Czech Republic. TLG bought out the Czech factory themselves last year, saying that they were not satisfied with Flextronics' handling of some things, but it has certainly taken them a long time to improve anything. Yes, I recall you saying that. Yellow was actually the color that TLG themselves said is fixed, so it was only a matter of waiting long enough for it to appear in sets. The only pity is that a lot of good yellow sets from the last few years will never appear in the high quality colors. The gray issue doesn't sound good though. There have been a number of bad quality reports concerning both of the blays lately, and these colors never had problems before.

The airtanks are good to see. Although it seems a bit pointless if the helmet is not fully enclosed. On a side note, some of the Creator sets look fantastic, especially that car transporter. The Technic front loader looks interesting too.

It's a good model with plenty of detail, but considering the scale and price of the model, I think some simple Technic functionality would have made it a lot better, like connecting the harvesting blades to the wheels (so they would spin when the harvester moved). I love your review though and how you brought in the other sets too.

You're right in that sense, but the end result has been the same. It is essentially the opacity that has changed, so the color varies with the angle you look at it from and the lighting conditions. You can especially tell the difference on the bottom of bricks, like in the picture I posted. The old black is actually more shiny, if we're talking about the same parts. I have in mind 2x2, 2x6 and 2x8 plates in particular. Many of them have had a more dull finish in the last two years. They are also very slightly rounded along the edges and have lower clasping power.

Thanks for posting about this. As you said, it's too early to say anything conclusive (the old whites can last for at least 20-30 years if some precautions are taken), but if the new colors actually provide some benefit like this, I would have much higher opinion of the color change. I don't see how gray is more important than white, yellow and red combined, even though I am a Technic builder. The difference is often glaring enough for the new ones to look like clone brand bricks. Here is an example. I think TLG would have been a lot more proactive about correcting this if the AFOLs had actually noticed. The grays put me off from buying much for a long time, but just as I was starting to get back into it, all these other colors changed as well, and I have again bought very few sets as a result. In fact, I think this situation is worse than the grays because the modified colors are not identified properly on Bricklink or Peeron (probably due to the several intermediate shades involved). As a result, it is often impossible to tell what exactly you are getting when you buy anything in these colors. Among the original 7 or 8 "major" colors, black and blue are the only ones that have not changed over the last five years, and even with black there are several types of recent pieces with a substantial difference in their reflectivity and gripping strength.

This is only true up to a point, or we would not have clone brands today at all. Only a few of the old brick designs were covered by patents, and those expire after a period anyway. You may be right about things like the train tracks, but old gray and transparent bricks would pose no problem. I'm not sure that none of the clone companies produce accessory packs. Brickarms can also be used equally well with the clones (many of which also have minifigs), and it could be argued that this allows them to indirectly compete with TLG in a way. The "intention" of such products is open to interpretation and is probably irrelevant anyway, to be honest. After all, Lego itself was never intended for adults until recently.

Sure, there were people who noticed it anyway and posted about it, but I highly doubt that the majority would have cared so much if TLG had kept quiet about it. The reason I say this is that the same thing happened again at the beginning of 2007 with several other colors. Now this was unintentional and is still likely to be a temporary glitch (temporary meaning 2+ years ), but the difference is stark enough to be obvious to anyone who can genuinely tell the difference between gray and blay. However, it is rarely mentioned in the AFOL communities. There was a long thread on the Bricklink forum about it when the first such pieces came out, and people occasionally notice it on EB and wonder what is going on, but it has been nothing like the uproar we saw with the grays. Going back to the gray topic, I would be interested to know if there are any particularly high quality clone brands that still use the old gray. One called Oxford has been brought up on EB as a good quality one. That may be an option to consider for MOC builders when the grays finally do run out on Bricklink.

You almost always get the same parts in extras though, and exactly one of each. Given how common it is, I think it has to be intentional.