Eilif

One more thing. For those who ordered last time. How long did it actually take to recieve your invoice, and then the order itself from the time that LEGO told you the order had been submitted to the warehouse?

Great Job! I really enjoyed the film, and I'll be looking forward to more Sky Captian MOC's from you. Do you have any plans to do any larger models or buildings from the series? With so many folks doing Steampunk (for the record, Sky Captain is not Steampunk), it's rare to see MOCs done in the Art Deco, Streamline Moderne and Raygun Gothic styles that Sky Captian's environment is made in.

Modular buildings and other LEGO sets stay together only until I need the pieces or display space. Cafe Corner and Market Street have both been parted out. Green Grocer and Town Plan have stayed together for over a year, but that's just because I haven't needed the pieces yet. As I build mostly Town buildings, small Star Wars and Exo-Force sets last the longest on my shelf as they don't take much space, and I don't need the pieces for what I build.

Matija, I really like your system. We have similar information on a communal spreadsheet, but your layout is beautiful, and having pictures included, is a really good idea. I can think of a couple situations already where that would have saved us some confusion. I'm also stealing your doublebass design right now! For all involved in LUGBULK, Have any of you heard if we are allowed to share our approved element lists with each other? Obviously we can't share prices, but it would be really helpful to know what elements TLG has approved for other clubs before we submit our own lists. It might also give some great ideas for orderable elements that other folks might not have thought of.

I remove arms and legs from time to time when necessary to make or repair a certain fig, or when I have multiples of a torso or legs and want to have some variants, but I don't do so frequently. They are quite tight fitting, so it's true that repeated changing can weaken the joints. However, if you're using your minifigs for display, they're probably not going to get much looser from an arm or leg swap now and then. Remember though, that when switching parts between old and new minifigs the mobility may not be exactly the same. They may not always go together as tightly, and conversely sometimes the limbs may be harder to move due to increased friction.

Technic hate. I don't think so. Hate is far to strong a word to describe the ambivalence that many EB'ers have about Technic. The OP bases his assumption negative reactions that aren't actually very common here, and the followup poster bases it on observation of Brickset comments. If I may take a brief tangent... those of us who have been around for a while know that a great number (but by no means all all) of the negative or immature brickset comments are just the regurgitation of pre-teens who have not built the set in question and are just happy to have a place they can toss up their opinions without having to register or be accountable for what they write. Brickset is an awesome resource for set cataloging, set release dates and pictures, and people's brief initial impressions of sets, and alot of good insights do appear in the set reviews/comments, but it's not the place to go to get in-depth set reviews. Now back to the topic at hand. Now it's true that Technic is not the Flagship of LEGO. Technic is not what most people think about when they think of LEGO, and it's not the face that LEGO often choses to show the world. That said it does form a vital part of the LEGO machine. As I first said, I think it's not so much a matter of hate, as ambivalence. While Technic does have alot of followers, many people who are primarily interested in the minifigure baseed asthetic asthetic and playfull nature of LEGO system building aren't particularly interested in the mechanical and mathematical aspects of Technic building.

This was hinted at in another thread, but just so everyone knows, print editions of the 2010 versions of... -"The Brick" LEGO's annual magazine about the LEGO, the company, and the toy business. -"LEGO Annual Report" -"Sustainability Report" ...are all available to order for free. All you have to do is send out three emails (one for each publication). Info and email addresses for ordering are here: http://www.lego.com/eng/info/ I really enjoyed reading "The Brick" last year, as it had a nice mix of LEGO info, progressive toy info, and TLG facts and was very well produced. I read the TLG annual report online each year, but this time I'll wait until the hard copy comes in and enjoy it in my living room. If I remember correctly, last year the sustainability info was mostly in "the Brick" but this year it has it's own publication. Enjoy, Karl

Hot Tub. Here's a really good one by Pepa Quinn on Brother's Brick. http://www.brothers-brick.com/2010/03/03/s...b-time-machine/

Thanks for that, I didn't realize you had to sign up for MOCs before you requested table space.

This is a thread for those who areparticipating in LUGBULK 2010 to discuss the program. Others are welcome to participate, but please read the other LUGBULK threads before asking questions here. I realize that no one has recieved their pieces yet, but the deadline for participation signup has passed, so those who are in for the first round of LUGBULK 2010 know who they are. One Note, as per Jan Beyer's request, Do not post any element prices in this thread! TLG has asked that we not share current pricing info, and I think we should honor that. As for us, the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club is participating and I'm heading up the process. We are currently wrapping up our element seletion and getting ready to send our final order to TLG. A few points of interest about our experience thus far.. -After we submitted our 80 element list, LEGO sent back the 57 elements that were approved, and left it to us to decide which elements would comprise our final list of 50. -One enterprising member created a Google Doc spreadsheet so all members could adjust their totals on the same sheet and included average bricklink prices and USD conversions on the sheet. I can't recommend this enough. It greatly streamlined the process. -With a few exceptions, almost every item we selected turned out to be cheaper (most of them significantly so) than the average Bricklink price. -Even when they were less than Bricklink prices, some elements are so expensive that to order 50 (the Lugbulk minimum order per element) costs more than one member's 500dkk alotment. This caused some annoyance and in most cases we decided not to order that element. -Not all unorderable elements are Licensed or from OOP sets. We were surprised to find that we were unable to order train wheels. A few Questions for other LUGs involved in LUGBULK. -Did you require that each member order in quantities of 50? We encouraged members to do so, but allowed individual members to get together to split quantities of 50 for elements that were particularly expensive or not desirable in quantities of 50. -Did your group order the elements for individuals collections, or did you all pitch in to buy brick for a communal club collection? We chose the former. Anywho, despite the inevitable headache of oragnizing something like this, our order process is proceeding well. I'm very happy with TLG for extending this offer to us and NILTC will likely participate in the second round of 2010 ordering as well.

Question for Bryan or anyone else on the Brickworld team. Where do we sign up for tables? I seem to remember that last year there was a place on the registration page to sign up for table space. Also, is there going to be a space to request specific table assignments? (i.e. being near NILTC?)

Everyone knows. Family, friends, workmates, etc, and if I forget to tell them, they all find out when showing them around the house and they see the LEGO room, or they see the pirate on my desk.

Benny, this is fabulous, I have a boatbuilder building on my seashore, but I didnt think to build a proper wet boathouse. Beautiful! The dockside action is great also. It feels very much in-motion.

Sounds like your heart is very much in the right place. If you'd like to get involved in LEGO community service, I have four posibilities for you. Admittedly the first two suggestions are somewhat self serving, as I am a member of NILTC, and the creator of BILd, but these are all ways to get involved and connected to the Chicago LEGO and AFOL community. 1) Join Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club (niltc.org). It's not a charity, but you'd get a chance to participate and contribute to massive group displays (layouts often measuring well in excess of 100 linear feet (average width 4 to 6 feet). The shows that they put on greatly increase the membership and community awareness (which helps with donations and grants) of the community centers and libraries that they display at, and you don't even have to hav any trains of your own. 2) Volunteer with the Building In Lawndale Program (BILd). Once a week for ten consecutive weeks a semester, we use LEGO to teach (mostly math and science) to third grade boys in the inner-city Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale. We have had two semesters so far, and though we had to skip this smester we will be promoting at Brickworld and conducting a BILd class in the fall of this year. PM me if you'd like more info. 3) If you are near Deerfield, IL and have experience working with children on the autism spectrum, Beth Weis conducts LEGO classes for autistic children and their parents. I'm not sure if she is currently looking for help, but you can get in touch with her through http://www.bethweis.com/ 4) It's also not charity work persay, but the First LEGO League of Illinois (youth LEGO robotics competition) is an excellent non-profit, and can always use more help.

You've got some pretty impressive desgins. As skeptical as I am of the charitable value of the project, I have to say that I really like many of the designs you have come up with, both the layout and some of the detail work such as the dock and commercial facades.

My first "train" was the unitron monrail that I picked up from a garage sale in college. I was in my dark ages, but at 10 bucks, it was too good to pass up. My first TRAIN theme set was the Engine Shed. I was just out of my dark ages, and in the year before Cafe Corner came out, it was the most realistic LEGO "Building" available. My First actual Train was the Hobby Train and Christmas Train which I purchased when they went half off on LEGO.com. I never really considered myself a train builder, but I had wanted to get a train of my own for a while. I still haven't gotten around to MOC'ing a train yet, but someday...

Hard to find just means that it's not for sale at most regular retailers. If you like to build structures, I'd defintely recommend any of the cafe corner series buildings. They are a great source of pieces (at a low price per piece) and will give you alot of insight into some of the more modern building techniques. Green Grocer is a great place to start. The good thing about alot of recent building MOC's is that while their are many of new pieces avaialble, it's much more about the style and technique than some magic pieces. As to sorting, I sort by color and type for most bricks, plates, slopes, etc. For special pieces, accessories, etc, I keep them in drawers by type. Here's a pictorial blog of how I got my sorting done. It might give you some ideas. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?...c=22165&hl=

Clone reviews: There have been quite a few over the years. Do a search for Oxford, Enlighten, or Best Lock and you'll turn up a few. If you want a more reviews, check out the bloks forum http://bloks.hyperboards.com/index.php Not alot of direct comparisions, but definitely a good resource for the clone-curious. Brick deformation: Worrying about this gets a bit to far out of the range of "fun" for me. I've mixed clones and LEGO's at various times, and have never had any obvious brick deformation. Yes, if the dimensions were way off, it could be a problem, but these are plastic bricks and they have alot of "give". Furthermore, I'm certainly not going to start worrying about the way I disassemble LEGO. Teeth, fingernails, brick separators, gutar picks, I use them all. I like playing with LEGO, the less rules the better. Translucence: I agree with peppermint on most of her brick comparisons, but I have to say that I have seen some translucence in Megablocks. It's not alot, but it's often there. Some of the best things about LEGO are the heavy pigmentation, which makes them quite opaque, and the glossyness of the brick, which gives them that shine that makes it easy to separate them from Megabloks. Other companies sometimes (though rarely)match this. An example of this would be Tyco, which is why it's so hard to tell Tyco red and yellow bricks from their LEGO counterparts of the same era.

If you're referring to something that an AFOL has already built, it's not going to happen. TLG has a long standing, established corporate policy of not soliciting designs from outside. The exceptions have been when they approach an AFOL or group of AFOL's to create a specific product under TLG guideance. Having AFOL's work under contract or by agreement with LEGO keeps the design under the TLG ownership from start to finish. The other possible exception would be the "LEGO architecture" series which was not designed by a LEGO employee, but by a LEGO Certified Professional, and IIRC, that was also developed under LEGO's carefull eye.

You could specify, but very few folks are going to sort out LEGO for donation. Saving up money yourself, and raffling off the final product is probably your best bet. Good idea. If you are displaying it on behalf of the charity, you may want to contact the charity first to see if they mind you using their name. They probably won't, but you don't want any bad blood. The real danger is if you use their name to ask for donations and either the project isn't finished or it doesn't sell for enough to make a donation. That's the kind of thing that will reflect badly on the charity, and they won't want that. The only way a charity is likely to let you use their name is if the product is already finished and ready to auction or raffle off. See #4 for what I mean by sponsorship. If you can secure the necessary brick ahead of time, you may be able to make the construciton of the project an event of sorts, and perhaps a charity would host it for you. But of course there again, you'd have to buy the brick yourself ahead of time. Again, if the model is already built, you may have better luck with an auction, or raffle. Remember, though that if you don't sell enough raffle tickets or auction the model for enough $ to cover your expenses and make a donation at least as big as your expenses, you are going to be the subject of alot of criticism and anger. Typically people want to know that 85% or more of their money is going to direct aid, and less than 15% is going for organizational overhead. Thus, if a model costs $5,000 to create, you had better be able to raffle/auction it for $10,000, and that'd still only give you 50% direct aid. As an example, I do a 10 session educational program with LEGO for third grade boys here in inner-city Chicago. We accept donations of about $55 per student. We are volunteers, and 95% of the money goes right back into LEGO that we buy and give to the boys at the end of the program, and the rest goes into classroom supplies and brochure printing. That comes out to nearly 100% direct aid, but even with a display at brickworld, a fair number of good contacts and a nearly 80 member email list we still struggle to acquire the 600 bucks a session that is required to do the program for 10 boys a semester. I know this comes across as a major bummer, and I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it's hard and starting small and building is usually the most responsible thing to do, especially when you're dealing with other people's $, donations and trust. If you want to minimize risk, the first thing you need to do is run a piececount estimation and figure out how much this is going to cost. The sad fact is that you are unlikely to be able to secure brick or cash donations to get anywhere near the size an 11x13 creation, so you are looking at a large initial out-of-pocket expense. Cool! Since your in the area, check out our local LEGO club www.niltc.org In conclusion, I should restate that in my humble opinion, your wisest course of action is really to try a smaller project first. Dreaming big is great, but the numbers are very much stacked against you. If, however, you have the ability to self finance and you want to go ahead, best of luck, and feel free to stop back in here if there's any questions we can help you with.

Well done Brickarms! This is the kind of synergy that is breathtaking to behold. I hope you and other LEGO accessory producers find new ways to market and sell their products in ways that add value to specific LEGO releases.

If a competitor came out with a LEGO compatible brand that had the same or nearly the same quality of product and designs as LEGO at a lower cost, I'd definitely acquire some of that brand as well. I don't think anything could happen to make me give up my beloved LEGO though. In fact that brand already exists, but is unattainable for me right now. If I could get Oxford bricks (a korean brand) here in the USA without haveing to pay so much shipping as to make them more expensive than LEGO, I'd buy them right now. I am thoroughly impressed with Oxfords designs, and all reports are that their quality is up to LEGO standards (unlike the sluban brand that copies Oxford designs in China and exports them under a number of brand names).

I would second the above suggestion. As someone who uses LEGO for community service, I applaud your desire to use the brick for the greater good, but there are alot of challenges involved. A few. 1) Unless you are incorporating brick in a new way, or going for a colage-style creation, taking donations of LEGO brick is a hard way to get the pieces you need to build something cohesive. I would estimate that if you solicit for donations of brick, less than a third of the brick you will recieve will be usefull for your project. Don't even think about sending unused brick back to it's donors, that's a huge headache. 2) You are unlikely to raise enough funds from an auction to pay for both a significant donation to a charity, and pay for your next project. LEGO is a very expensive medium to build with, and it's hard to get your $ back when you sell, much less make any donations. 3) If you are accepting donations of $, you will likely have to commit to a certain charity in advance if you hope to get donations. 4) Very few organizations have space to display a huge model, and even fewer have the ability to transport it. The building, storing, displaying and selling of the item will be largely up to you. You might be able to display it temporarily at your charity of choice, but not likely for very long. 5) How old are you? This is a huge issue. If you're underage, alot of folks might be willing to donate used LEGO to "help the kid do something great" however, unless you have the direct sponsorship of an organization, school, or church, you're unlikely to get any $ donations at all. 6) Raffle tickets are one option, but since raffling an item off means that you won't be able to auction it, you've got to sell enough raffle tickets to cover the cost of donation and creation. an 11'x13' creation is several thousand dollars worth of LEGO. Can you sell a thousand raffle tickets at $10 each or 2 thousand at 5 bucks each? 7) If the plan doesn't work out, you are liable for returning folks money and bricks, or having alot of angry and potentially litigious ex-supporters on your case. Now the good news. Accepting cash is easy. For my after school LEGO program, I just setup a paypal address and solicited donations. You don't have to have a 501c3 charity status, you just have to be honest and clearly let folks know what you are up to and let them know exactly what the cash will be used for. The hard part is getting people to give. Your best bet is to set your sights a bit lower. Build with your own funds, or accept donations of LEGO locally. You might also accept donations of LEGO with the caveat that pieces donated will either be part of the model, or will be sold to fund pieces for the model. Get a moderate project together, build it, and then auction it off. The Build-To-Sell LEGO biz is hard to break into, but a moderate project will get you acustomed to the process so your next build can be even bigger. Hope I didn't rain on your parade too much. There's alot of hurdles, but if you're really committed to doing this, a few smaller projects on the way to doing the "big one" should be a small price to pay for actually getting the big one done. Complete your eurobricks profile so we know who you are, and show us some pics of your plans and we'll be able to give you more concrete advice. If there's any questions you think I can answer about LEGO and Charity work, feel free to PM me.

All right folks, a "taking a break" has been given and some of you have warning levels. The matter is done, so I'm going to ask you all to drop it now, or there will be further consequences. Have a nice day!

Agreed. Could someone post the text from the file asap! NILTC has a meeting this weekend and we are hoping to discuss this.