CP5670

Technic. Space comes close, but I'm a sucker for mechanical functionality and the gears, motors, pneumatics and so on that make it all work.

Nice classic set. Are those hoses around the engine pneumatic tubes? That Technic catalog looks interesting too. I have the catalogs for the next several years but not that one. The most extreme example of this was the engine step in the 8865 set, which uses over 120 pieces by itself.

I have this one. The newer 6571 station is better in some ways, but I always liked the big airport-style fire engine in this and the windows covering the garages. One mod project I have in mind is to expand the base, adding a second room in the area beneath the control center. Interestingly, this set had two different box pictures. There was the original 1989 yellow Legoland box and a 1991 blue System box, and the blue box has the vehicles in different places. If this is referring to the original price, it wasn't that much. $50 is more like it.

Again, he is not the one who makes these decisions. That is done by someone higher up. He was just relaying the news.

Great article. It brings up a lot of important issues with this. One other thing I'll add is that you can improve the strength and integrity of pieces by separating them carefully, especially plates. You want to slowly wiggle them out and pull them straight apart instead of pulling one piece out at an angle. If you do it at an angle, the studs on the bottom brick will deform the top brick's plastic and create small bumps in it that grow larger over time. The bumps especially create trouble in Technic models, since they prevent bricks from lining up properly and add friction to axles that are supposed to rotate freely. I highly recommend not using the Lego brick separator to remove pieces, since it does so at the worst possible angle. I keep a couple of trans-neon green 1x4 antennas handy (these have outstanding gripping strength), which can be used to remove stubborn pieces safely. You can attach one or two antennas to the brick and their strong grip will pull it out, and the part is then easy to remove from the antennas due to their round bases. I usually point a fan at my hands to keep them from getting sweaty whenever I'm building. That eliminates most of the fingerprints, which as you say are most noticeable on black pieces. A metal polish like Brasso works well to remove the tiny, hairline scratches that can give used transparent pieces a slightly foggy look. It won't do anything to larger scratches though. Well, I think storing them in the original boxes is only worth doing if you're picky about keeping exactly the same pieces together when rebuilding the set. The plastic shelves seem to be the best solution. I would suggest using the Stack-on drawer sets, which are sold at Home Depot and many other places. These containers are actually recommended by TLG themselves and are sold on the Lego education site (although the prices there are ripoffs). The most important factor in dust buildup seems to be the AC vents in your room and their locations. Anything directly under a vent catches dust very fast. Height is also a factor, with models on the ground collecting dust faster than things placed higher up. I currently have my collection in my bedroom and I'm not at all happy with the rate at which dust is building up, but I may soon try moving everything to another room with the vents all closed off. Yeah, the latter is a very bad idea. I learned this the hard way in sixth grade and lost 12 or 13 space and city guys from various early 90s sets.

I think that refers to the public days only. Not sure about the discrepancy in the actual dates, but it looks like many parts of the site are unfinished. Good to see the price reduction for registrants though.

This remains the definitive city set in my eyes. I never managed to get one but from the instructions it seems to be perfect in just about every way. I got the two space monorails a while ago but the much higher prices on this one have kept it out my reach. This set is a lot bigger than either of those though. I always liked the monorail system a bit better than the trains because you could easily incorporate height into the tracks and spread them out in all three dimensions. It was apparently released in 1990 in Europe and 1991 in North America, going by some US and German catalogs I have from that time period.

Great model. It captures the Blacktron II look and feel perfectly. I especially like the look of the middle section when all the cockpit pods are docked on it side by side. It looks like this somewhat underrated theme is going to see a resurgence. I'll post pictures of my BT2 MOC in the next few days too, after I get back home.

There was an article in the Washington Post on Saturday morning about the event, which probably attracted a lot of public attention. The waiting lines were especially massive between 11 and 12 on both days, stretching way outside the front door. The place was at least as crowded as 2006, despite what seemed to me like a significantly lower MOC turnout and the fact that everything was concentrated in the main room back then, unlike this time. The main issue on Saturday was that the chain posts weren't affixed to the floor and they got easily pushed inward when the people started to flood in. I had a few kids touch my models or open the canopies, although it wasn't anything that would cause damage. They taped them to the floor on Sunday though and this was no longer an issue. Todd did say to email him any suggestions for next year. The main criticism I had was the seminar schedule, which should have been spaced out a lot more over the three days. Many of them went over time or conflicted with something else, and I was only able to attend about half the talks I would have liked to.

The teal thing did seem strange. Someone asked him a question at the end on whether teal will also go out, but he didn't know what color it was. However, it's quite possible that TLG just calls it something different and he didn't recognize the word. I used to call it turquoise when it first showed up in Technic sets in 1998. Personally, I only have a handful of parts in both purple and teal and finding places to use them is a challenge in itself, so it wouldn't be a big deal to me if they weren't available anymore. The gray change hit much harder since that was one of the six or seven main colors and had been around for almost 40 years. I don't think the company lives by this anymore, at least not to the degree that they once used to, and their CEO implied as much in an interview I read on Lugnet a while ago. If this whole color consistency problem had taken place 15 years ago, I doubt the affected pieces would have ever made it into the market. They would have just eaten the loss and made it right as fast as they could.

His title is "Quality Engineer," from the post on Lugnet about him. He was obviously knowledgable, but I highly doubt that he was personally responsible for the various company decisions he talked about. I'm hopeful that the last few years will be just a transient phase and TLG will return to their old quality standards, based on what he said. I have bought only a handful of new Lego sets during that period, first because of the gray change and later due to this color saturation problem. I didn't want to be spending a lot of money for sets containing bricks that essentially looked like Megabloks. I think this only concerns the classic slopes. The 1x1s initially came out in 2005 while the other slopes were still rough, so my guess is that they will remain that way.

I uploaded my pictures earlier too. Looks like we've got good coverage of this. Page 1 Page 2

This was about consistency, specifically the color saturation varying between bricks that are supposed to be the same color. I don't think there was any concern with part strength, which apparently becomes a problem with over-saturated pieces, while the bricks in these colors right now are typically under-saturated. There were six or seven other, secondary colors that he also talked about having problems, but I don't remember which ones they were (purple was one of them though). I also asked him about the situation with the slope surfaces. He said that the current, smooth slopes were due to an unintentional oversight by TLG originally dating back to 2003, and that all slopes will have rough surfaces again in another year or so, which elicited loud cheers among the audience.

I was at the same presentation and that other guy's account is not entirely accurate. He did say that purple will be discontinued due to the inconsistent quality, but there was no indication that he was the "head" of the quality department or had any say in these kinds of decisions. Actually, one person asked why the gray/blay change was made and he didn't answer the question directly, but his response was something like "I've heard the top management privately admit that it wasn't the brightest decision they ever made." I asked him a few questions about other issues and was pretty pleased with what he said. During the presentation, he specifically mentioned white, yellow, red and orange as the main colors that have been identified by TLG as being subpar, which are exactly the colors I have been complaining about around here. Apparently it takes them a very long time, on the order of two or three years, to readjust the color balance. He said that yellow has been fixed now while the other colors are still bad, but he expects them all to be back to their old levels in another year or so. Maybe I can finally start buying new Lego sets again in large quantities.

That was the best fun I've had in a while. My new model was a real attention grabber in the space section due to its height and pneumatic functionality (full pictures of it will be coming soon), and I also got an unexpected TLG award, with my older Cosmic Enforcer model catching the Lego employees' eyes. I took about 150 pictures during the event, which I'll upload to Brickshelf after I have gone through them and removed any redundant ones. They were also giving out lots of free sets in the evening ceremonies. I got a 7992 Container Stacker from a random drawing, and I saw that Dadster got the big Agents truck from winning one of the evening competitions. Congratulations.

The North American catalogs from that time don't say anything about it, but it's possible that the Lego Direct catalogs or the larger S@H magazines may have something. I don't have any from those years though.

The cracks in front of the headlight bricks are common. I see cracks on both older ones and the newer, slotted variety, even ones that have barely been used. It doesn't seem to affect their gripping strength though, so I don't worry about it. Another (much more valuable) piece that develops cracks very easily is the 1x2 9V light brick used in trains.

For the most part I have plenty of both kinds, but there does seem to a shorter number of white 1x1 plates on BL, at least among stores I've looked at recently. They are common, but not as common as you would expect given how generic the piece is. And yeah, the "square studs" had me scratching my head too.

I will be hanging around my models pretty frequently tomorrow (the two in my signature along with a large Blacktron II carrier). My badge will have my "CP5670" handle on it, so you can recognize me by that.

That set actually has the opposite problem, with the suspension being too weak and not properly supporting the weight of the model, especially in the front. I added four additional shocks on mine and it works better now. For motorizing it, I think you would need to find some way to bypass that chain, which doesn't transmit torque very well. The chain goes around the steering axle though, so it could be a little tricky to put a geartrain through there.

Great review of this set. I got two copies some time in 2001 from ebay, one of which is built. It's certainly my favorite among the 6 or 7 super car sets and is by far the most mechanically complex one, unless you count the 4x4 Off Roader. I made a few slight changes to mine, making the rear steering turn as far as the front one (not entirely realistic but it corners better that way and is easier to drive around the house ) and removing the suspension "stoppers" that prevent the wheels from going all the way down (which just add a lot of friction to the axles). I may also try replacing the dark gray shocks with the looser black ones at some point. The suspension on this model somehow feels too stiff and jerky compared to the older 8865, which had very smooth suspension. Another interesting project would be to try motorizing this model. I remember seeing some attempts at this many years ago, but the old motors back then couldn't move the car. The PF XL motor and the black/red 9V one are much more powerful though. Check this out. It's hard to make out a lot in the pictures but it looks like this may be the next true supercar, with a full set of mechanical functions unlike the Ferraris.

Nice response.

This Control Lab thing is interesting. It's supposed to be hooked up to a computer and supports a huge number of inputs and outputs, as the pictures show. I was thinking of getting one off Bricklink at one point, but I read some posts on Lugnet saying that it has a significant response delay (so that motors spin a second or two after the computer gives the command) and is difficult to get working on modern computers.

Your collection is massive. I've never seen so many of the small sets. Do you keep track of how many sets you have in total?

I have both Control Center sets but disassembled them for parts a few years ago. I think I could easily rebuild the models though, as almost all of the pieces are still in my spare parts collection. It would be cool if TLG released a modern successor to these sets. The Control Center itself has been basically superceded by the various Mindstorms controllers, but it could still be based on the PF elements and be a large Universal-type set with three or four unusual, mechanically interesting models. The first CC set came with a Technic pen and large number of 2x2 arrow stickers that you could place on black tiles, but they didn't include the stickers in the second CC. The second one included two of the very rare wire holding spirals though. As far as I know, those have only appeared in one other Technic set (8082) and a few large Dacta sets.