CP5670

Well, the prices on current sets here are better than the rest of the world. That also means that things sell quickly though, and discontinued items go out of stock much faster. I used to buy a lot of stuff from Italy five or six years ago. The overseas shipping rates have gotten up dramatically since then though, more than the exchange rate differences would suggest, and it's rarely worth it these days.

They must be much cheaper than the ebay/BL prices though, for people who know their value. I would go on a huge spending spree if I ever ran into a store like that. This situation doesn't seem to be common around here. The closest thing I ever found was a Technic 8456 set for half price in 2000.

Yes, I've heard that there are a lot of small, obscure toy stores in Europe that may hold on to some of their inventory for decades. I bought a lot of sets from two guys in Italy a few years ago, which they probably found in this way. TLG has since changed their whole supply and distribution process though, so this situation probably won't occur quite as often with current sets in the future.

Some of the best posts I've seen around here.

The advanced building pdf in the first post has some excellent ideas. However, there are a few methods in there that I would not advise using, either because they are too flimsy or they do long term damage to pieces (and which TLG internally considers illegal for that reason).

If you complain enough and the seller is otherwise decent, they may still let you cancel the order. I got into a situation last year when I didn't know about the fake exchange rate issue and placed an order from a Belgian guy who was doing that, but he was good enough to let me drop the order. Lasting Toys' splash page actually says that the shipping being too much is a valid reason to cancel an order by Bricklink policies, although I haven't checked that. Interesting, I didn't know that. I remember some years ago, many European sellers did not take Paypal and only accepted the Bidpay/Western Union money orders, which place the fees on the buyer. Maybe Paypal dropped that rule in Europe to compete better. I used to buy stuff from Germany and Italy a lot back then, although I rarely do these days.

This could be very useful. Thanks for the link. I've found numerous such items in the past that went for very low prices due to some quirk with the auction, but I usually stumbled into them by accident and simply got lucky.

Yeah, the intimidating look is precisely what I was going for here, since these are the bad guys after all. I put in that railing on the bottom level since the big transparent panel doesn't reach all the way up to the floor when it's closed. Wouldn't want the pilots to fall in there during a high G maneuver.

I've had my set built into this model for a few years now, using those same instructions. I like it better than the stock Silver Champion, even though it's somewhat smaller. Its suspension works a lot more smoothly. I am not sure if it's exactly the same as the official 8458 third model though. They look very similar, but from those instructions it seems like this one was a custom AFOL-designed version.

One guy at the Brickfair event a month ago had made this one. It was an absolutely stunning piece of work.

I'm one of them. Almost all of my best deals have come off there. One other good place to look is the clearance section on S@H, which they bring up every now and then. I've gotten numerous sets from there for half price over the years.

Thanks for the comments everyone, glad you liked it. Yes, the shape was designed more with looks than realism in mind. The somewhat stubby appearance and the long width were sort of intentional, in order to fit in with the general style of official Blacktron II models. One thing I always liked about BT2 was its unique design style and how they kept it consistent across the theme, so I tried to maintain that look and feel here. Thanks, I spent a lot of time decorating the hangar area in particular. Apart from the main doors, there are several smaller hatches on top to let you play around inside. The first place model was actually a runaway winner and easily beat everything else. I was pretty surprised to have even gotten that close though, given some of the other models that were there.

Blacktron II flagship carrier that launches Scorpion fighters. The hangar and front canopy doors are powered by pneumatic pistons and the main cannon on the bottom can turn and pitch. The Scorpions fold up to fit inside the hangar, which contains docking bays and service vehicles. The interior consists of a cockpit, a navigation area, weapons control hub, command room, science lab, heavy weapons storage and 20 Blacktron troopers. The original model was built in 2008 and updated with modern parts and techniques in 2022.

These are my choices: Space: SP Striker Town: Airport Shuttle (don't have one myself, unfortunately ) Technic: Airtech Claw Rig I can't really comment on pirates or SW, as I don't collect those themes actively and only have a couple of the sets. Is there any way to make the forum scale down these images?

Ban.

I had a kind of semi dark age, where I lost interest in the System themes in the late 90s but remained a Technic builder. I kept my System collection in storage but didn't do anything with it. I never cared much about fitting in with other people as some others have described, but town and space were in decline at the time and I was getting more heavily involved with computer games in my free time (I had/have always been a big gamer but that was when multiplayer gaming really started to take off, and I was also getting into game modding and customization). I got back into the System themes at some point in 2003. I had been using ebay since 2000 to pick up many old Technic sets (8868 was the set that started it for me, as I didn't know about it at all until I saw it there) and I bought two Model Team sets at one point, which used more traditional bricks and stud-based building than Technic. I had enough fun with them that I decided to get a few space sets as well, which eventually turned into a huge buying spree as I found hundreds of old sets that I used to stare at in the catalogs for hours but had never gotten in the past.

I got my first set, a 6503 Sprint Racer, in 1987 or 1988 when I was 1. My parents can't remember what circumstances it came under. It was probably just an impulse buy, especially since I liked cars in general and was big into die cast cars back then too.

Looks interesting. I would have given it a shot if it had come a month or two ago but I don't have much time to start any new project at the moment.

That works well if you need to control the height off the rack itself but it will need an extra framework to hold the raised thing in place. The gear racks are the standard way to do this otherwise. If you have some old space or town sets from the late 80s, there was also a pre-built rack assembly consisting of this and this, which may be good if you need to fit the gearing into a small space.

I agree on both points. This was my favorite set in the Alpha Team theme. It looks very sleek and packs in a fair amount of detail for its size. The rotor design is especially nice and it spins more smoothly than the four-bladed rotors on most other helicopters. If you have a blacklight, you can get a cool looking effect by shining it at the helicopter in a dark room and spinning the rotor. It's been the other way around for me. I used to think of that piece as a camcorder when I was very young but started seeing it as a rocket launcher some years later.

I agree, the old boxes in the 80s and 90s were way better than the current ones. If you go back to the early 80s, some of the big sets even had hard, polystyrene boxes with indentations made specifically for the manual and catalog. However, I can see why they moved to the cheap and crappy box designs they use these days, and I'm actually a little surprised it took them that long. I keep all of my Lego boxes, but most people just toss them out after opening the set and the better box adds no value for them.

The extension cable sold on S@H also serves as an adapter to the 9V system. You can use most of the PF and 9V elements together using that cable.

How big are these fences supposed to be? If they're minifig scale, you could just use this piece.

Even if he does mention it, it's still against Paypal's rules for him to charge that or have such policies. I wouldn't quibble over it if it was a very small amount, but $5 for that is silly. As you said though, I don't think the shipping price is that surprising. 600 tracks will require a big box.

If you aren't into Lego, how did you know what a BURP was and that the green ones were rare?