Ralph_S

Yes You have, and when I find the time I'll deal with you. "modified"?! Oh yeah, may be you are talking about that grill tile piece you added on the doors!

n:

I agree completely, but you've pretty much made my point for me. Model Team was the UCS of its day. I think that explains some of the difference in the perception between Model Team and Creator. The models may be of a similar standard (although 5580 still beats 4955 hand down, despite having only about 100 more parts), but no matter how good a Creator set might get, it just doesn't capture that same feeling. I'm convinced that something like 5571 would still like hot cakes. I didn't buy it when it came out and part of me still regrets that. Cheers, Ralph

Set 5510, 5540, 5580 and were the first Model Team sets and I remember them coming out, way back in 1986. I got a catalogue early in the year and it had these three sets on the back, listed as new for the summer. In particular 5580 blew me away. It was miles ahead of any LEGO set that I'd ever seen and I couldn't wait for the summer to arrive. It was by far the most realistic model I knew. It was also one of the most expensive LEGO sets that I'd ever seen and at ten years old, represented a serious investment. Ultimately I ended up saving money for all three. I also had 5590 as a child and remember putting my copy of 5580 back together when I got it (an extremely rare event) because I figured they'd go well together. I'm not sure whether Creator sets nowadays have the same effect on a ten-year-old (no matter how nicely designed the box may be). Cheers, Ralph

I'm not quite sure what you mean. The larger wheels you showed on the red vehicle in the picture? I use rims with the same diameter but with smaller diameter tyres around them for some of my minifig scale MOCs. I don't use the chrome ones because IMO they don't look like truck rims. Here's an example: Rescue Pumper (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I don't normally use the larger diameter tyres on minifig scale vehicles. IMO they're too big for anything other than, say, a mobile crane or dump truck. The wheels used by LEGO for many of their vehicles work well IMO for vans and light trucks. However, you can use the small racers/ Tiny Turbo rims with slightly larger diameter tyres as well and they look fine. You can see the difference in tyre size by comparing the front and rear tyres on my hot rod. Hot Rod (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I don't know which racers set is the best to get. I have bought a fair few tiny turbos over the years when I could get them cheaply. However, bricklink is your friend. Apparently cross-town craze and bullet run were good ones for wheels, and entirely by coincidence those are two of the Tiny Turbo sets I happen to have. Cheers, Ralph

The difference isn't all that large, but I do agree that Creator sets are designed with a slightly different philosophy in mind. I too have the impression that Model Team sets were pretty much intended as display pieces while Creator sets are designed more with the idea of having a nice set of parts suitable for building, say, planes or vehicles. That said, the main models of the car transporter and the fire engine, for instance, do get pretty close to what Model Team was like and they probably don't look out of place together with similarly sized Model Team trucks. They are great sets and nice models. Cheers, Ralph

Thank Raphy. My Dutch car collection was beginning to look like LEGO city: police vehicles, an ambulance, a fire truck. Where are the people they are supposed to rescue? I anticipate building more more-or-less common cars in the next few months. It was fun. Thanks. I tend to post my Trucks in the Model Team forum and since this car is the same scale as my truck, I felt it wasn't out of place here either. I think the difference between Model Team and some Creator sets is marginal. There currently is an ongoing discussion in this sub-group about this particular topic, so I won't repeat it here. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for all the nice comments. The link from the WW-II to the car was quickly made. I had lots of left-over dark blue plate As I wrote in the original post, from the side many four-door cars have roughly the same shape and the design of the front and the rear is what sets them apart. The front on the Passat, with the large chrome insert is very recognisable. The combination of round lights set into square light units in the rear is also typical for the current model Passat. The way I recreated them is little different from what I did for my Dutch Police VW Golf a few months ago. There are a lot of things I tried on that model that came in handy for this one. All of my cars on this scale have a steering mechanism, although usually it isn't connected to the steering wheel inside the car. That includes this one. It does create a few problems, in that the front wheel well has to be larger than the rear one (typically five studs wide vs four studs wide), but with the wheels turned slightly, somehow this doesn't seem to be all that obvious. I'm hard-pressed to name my own favourite. I agree that this probably isn't my greatest car model. Right now I am quite partial to my classic Jaguar. (I built it about two months ago, but may not have posted it here) Jaguar Mk VII (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr HMMM. I did think about adding a bicycle rack to the rear... Thank you. I completely agree. There is little to nothing I can do to the windscreen (although as you can see from the blueprint, it is fairly flat on the real car). The aft bumper is too square and should be a bit narrower. I did consider making it 9-studs wide and attaching it with a half-stud offset, but this created all kinds of issues. It wasn't helped by there not being any 1x1 tiles in dark blue. I may revisit this in the future. I felt a car like this needed nice wheels. I really wanted to use black hubcaps with the inserts that you get on some racers sets, but unfortunately seem to already have used all of the ones I have in my collection. The only ones I still have are red The combination I used instead (the central bit is a technic gear) seemed suitable. Thank you. I always want to have opening features on my car models and if I can add them without having to compromise too much on the shape or on the structural strength, I will. Off the top of my head, the only car model I have where I can't open the luggage compartment is my classic VW Beetle. Thanks. I wouldn't be surprised if there are EB members who drive one of these. These cars don't stand out, but when I started thinking about building it I kept noticing Passats all over the place. In the Netherlands it's not as common as, say, a VW Golf, and most Passats I see are estates rather than sedans, but there sure are a lot of them. Dark blue seems a popular colour for them too. Thank you. It's appreciated. The display at Hamley's is a part of an arrangement with Brickish. Warren Elsmore (the current chairman of Brickish) had already built copies of my taxi and routemaster for his St. Pancras project. Because this was arranged somewhat last minute, he asked whether he could build multiple copies for the shop display. That really was an offer I can't refuse. Models of mine are on display at Hamley's and I didn't have to lift a finger to get them there It's nice that you saw them and like them. I often get told my models look better 'in the brick' than in pictures. I must be a lousy photographer. Dank je wel. Het wordt tijd dat ik gele 1x3 tiles op de kop tik voor de Nederlandse nummerborden. Thank you Lasse. The LEGOLand cars are usually very impressive. Making a very distinctive car like a Hummer or a Ferrari can be difficult, but if you mess up somewhere, the odds are it'll still look recognisably like a Hummer or a Ferrari. There is less room for errors on a car like this. Griddy was a great help. I know you wrote it quite quickly and that you wanted to improve it. One thing that I would love is if it could also save the file. I have no idea how much work this is (whenever I write a program, it's always some data-processing with a user interface that dates from the dawn of computing; I never do graphical stuff) and I get around it by taking screen shots, but that is a bit clumsy. I've already started looking at a few other cars that I wouldn't mind building and used griddy and blueprints to see whether I think I can do it. Cheers, Ralph

When I think of Model Team I think of very detailed vehicles on a considerably larger scale than suitable for minifigs and largely built with system elements. I expect them to have some working features, although not necessarily using LEGO Technic elements. It's obviously not a rigid definition. I can think of a few official Model Team sets that didn't have all that many Technic elements in them beyond a few beams in the chassis and a steering mechanism. Some other sets LEGO have released have the same look and feel, but weren't labelled as Model Team: some creator sets, the larger Ferrari and Lamborghini models in the Racers theme, the classic airplanes they released as 'sculptures' (Wright flyer, Sopwith Camel and Red Baron). I normally don't particularly care about what theme something I build fits into, but when posting something on EB it becomes an issue. Take my VW Passat. Where should I post it? Town? That seems to be mainly minifig oriented. Racers? Hardly. It's just a sedan. I'm basically stuck with having to chose between Model Team and 'other themes'. I think Model Team comes the closest. Cheers, Ralph

Having built a lot of classic cars and sports cars in recent times, I felt like building something a bit more mundane: a current model Volkswagen Passat. Trying to build a recognisable model of a car that is not particularly spectacular represented a different challenge. Volkswagen Passat (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr A few weeks ago, Lasse D posted a very useful little program here on eurobricks. It allows you to superimpose a grid with proportions that correspond to LEGO plates over an arbitrary picture. Normally I'd do something similar with a hand-made drawing, but I decided to give his program a try when building my Passat. I worked out how long it was going to be (27 studs), found blueprints, cropped those to the length of the car and superimposed the grid. The programme is still an early version, but it came in very handy. Thanks Lasse! Passat with superimposed grid by Mad physicist, on Flickr I know the Passat is not universally popular, but I like the car's understated looks. Dark blue seemed the perfect colour for it. Volkswagen Passat (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I always used to think of the Passat as a fairly large car. When I was working out the dimensions of the model, I realised that it would have to be only 10 studs wide, which after having built many American cars -which usually end up being 11 studs wide- seemed small all of a sudden. Volkswagen Passat (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Many Passats sold in Europe have four-cylinder engines. On the current model the engine is mounted transversally. Volkswagen Passat (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Part of the challenge of building one of these was trying to get it to recognisably look like the real thing, despite the real car not being particularly distinctive. I think that on the real car the grille and the tail lights are the main features that distinguish it from, say an older model BMW five series, a Toyota Camry, or a Buick Lacrosse, to name a few. However, I am reasonably pleased with the result. Cheers, Ralph

There's little I can write that I haven't written before, but to summarise: I think that what scale is appropriate (and to what length the length of a minifigure corresponds) depends on what you want to do with them. If you want to build vehicles with sufficient room inside to play with the figures or to have s-de-by-side seating in a car, for instance, you'll have to take the figures' width into account. A consequence is that if you have the figure standing next to the vehicle, it'll be dwarfed. If you want to combine your figures with vehicles, buildings, etc in a diorama or city, basing your scale on how tall they are makes sense, but a consequence is that cars are so narrow you only have room for one figure inside. It's always a compromise. Cheers, Ralph

Indeed. You are right. I apparently messed up the title. It is definitely an F6F Hellcat. I do have a Wildcat Grumman (General Motors) FM-1 Wildcat (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr It was the first minifig scale WW-II fighter I've ever built (as far as I can remember) and in a sense was a precursor to the planes for the carrier. Cheers, Ralph

I don't worry about this at all when building. Not even for a second. If I were to consciously copy parts or techniques from somebody else's MOC, or have been inspired by things I saw elsewhere I will mention that if I post about my model, but generally I just do whatever comes to mind. I usually don't remember whether something I do now is something that I may have seen before elswhere, is a new idea or is something I myself may have done in the past. It's not uncommon for me to take apart my own models from years ago to find techniques that I don't remember using. Many of us are constantly looking at other people's MOCs and picking up ideas and it is impossible to keep track of what you saw where. The possibility that somebody else somewhere on the internet may have done the same thing before you did doesn't mean it is off-limits to you. Cheers, Ralph

I saw this one yesterday and ran into a problem I often have when people ask for advice: the only way for me to show what I might do, is to build it myself. I agree though, that the roundness of the fenders presents a problem and unless you're good at using half stud offsets or are happy with the wheels sticking out to a full width of 7 studs, the fender parts LEGO uses for this sort of thing aren't an option either. Cheers, Ralph

I always have a long list of things that I want to build. Unfortunately I will have very little opportunity in the next few months to do any building. I have started a new job a few months ago and am far away from my LEGO collection most of the time. Cheers, Ralph

Just for the record, I don't do this professionaly. It's just a hobby for me too, but I have been doing it for a long time. I know the feeling of 'accidentally' finding the perfect part or place. I tend to plan my builds in advance, but there always are bits that need to be sorted out on the spot. Sometimes, after a long time of unsuccessfully fiddling with something, you get an idea all of a sudden and things just come together. Good luck with your crane. I look forward to seeing it. Cheers, Ralph

I'm glad you like the cars. the steering arms are available in light bley, but they only came in one set, so they might be hard to find. I don't really see a problem with having a few of these pieces in old grey in my models, as they are almost invisible from the outside anyway. The Technic plates were also available in black in different lengths: 4, 6 and 8 studs long. Obviously you can make a ten-stud wide mechanism by combining 4 and 6 stud long plates. I can't tell you whether adding Power functions to a model is better. As I explained before, having a vehicle that can drive under remote control is great fun, but the Power Functions do use a lot of space and depending on the scale and type of vehicle you build that may mean making other compromises. the most important thing is that you are having fun. Cheers, Ralph

My reply will pretty much echo what most other people have written. I don't particularly care whether or not other people consider what I do to be childish. I build with LEGO as a hobby and have been doing so pretty much all of my life. It's become a part of who I am and if I feel that I have to hide that from somebody, they're not the person I'd want to share my life with. I don't know whether it makes a difference in perception whether you collect or build stuff yourself. Money is a different matter. My student days are behind me. (I realised this morning that in a few days time it'll be 10 years since I graduated from university). In the years that I was in university, I didn't have much money to spend either. Most of it went into rent, food, clothes and my education. What was left went into books, music and a social life. They were far more important things to spend spare money on, so I just stopped buying LEGO (unfortunately missing out on some fantastic sets along the way). Now, ten years down the line, I've got plenty of money and while I limit my spending on LEGO somewhat, I can basically buy whatever LEGO I like. Cheers, Ralph

It is possible to incorporate some form of suspension and even moving pistons in cars that are about tens studs wide , but I personally don't see the point. I'd rather use the space to fit something that more-or-less looks like in engine instead. I do like to have some functionality. I love building details and like to have opening doors, an opening engine compartment and an opening luggage compartment so that you can look into the car. I do use the odd Technic element in the construction in much the same way as it was done in model team sets. My cars also have a steering system. It usually isn't attached to the steering wheel, but the wheels are inter-connected such that the wheels remain parallel. There are a lot of older steering systems out there that can be made much more compact than the more modern versions, by the way, with as little as six studs between the wheels (and even less if you get really creative). Check out the steering mechanism in this set from 1986 for instance: http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=8620-1 The parts for this system are still fairly cheap on bricklink. You need technic steering arms and technic plates with holes. The latter come in length of 4,6,8 and 10 studs. Including a lot of Technic functionality can mean having to give up on other things. My DAF, for instance, has a working tilting cab with a representation of an engine underneath. On the Scania recovery truck, I couldn't do that. The Technic parts underneath take up almost all the space, the cables for the IR receiver run through the back of the cab, and adding a working tilting cab would have increased the weight possibly to the point where the self-centring steering would cease to work. I felt it was worth it because having this thing drive around is a lot of fun and I imagine that if I were to take it to events, people would like to see some action as well. However, I'm thinking about building a 2nd Scania that does have a tilt cab, just for fun. Back when I didn't use bricklink and didn't buy bulk stuff, sets were my only source of parts. I build quite a lot of military models as well, for which greys and black are always very useful. However, in sets you typically get a mix of other colours as well and for a long time the leftovers (yellow, blue and red) were the colours I used for building cars. I've come to realise that colour is very important. A black truck can look classy, but add a stripe of red or orange to it and it looks a lot more interesting IMO. Kenworth W900 v.2 (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr In recent years LEGO have released a great number of colours that I never used to have as a child and I am really enjoying building things in relatively new or rare colours. It makes my collection of cars far more varied and attractive and in many cases adds an extra challenge to the builds. The parts palettes in lime green and pink, for instance, are fairly limited and building a scale model in those colours requires just a tad more creativity than building the same car in, say, red. I've got a lime green Lamborghini Miura, for instance and a pink Cadillac. Cheers, Ralph

I suspect that there are a few other things on that model that aren't completely legal. Many of the parts they used don't exist in medium blue or sand blue, as far as I know, so they either built the model in a different colour (light grey/ light bley) and modified the picture to make it look blue or they painted parts. Still, it's a nice model regardless. Their style is very different from what I normally do. Even if they do make a car with superficailly simpler shapes they go all out on the SNOT work to make it as studless as possible. They also build on a considerably larger scale. Ive never built a Ford GT (or GT40), because at the smaller scale that I use, I haven't yet been able to figure out how to add the functionality I want (opening doors and engine compartment). My use of Technic elements in my models also is very limited. I don't particulary enjoy technic building and on the scale I use, on anything smaller than a truck technic constructions like Working suspension start taking up so much space that the car's look starts to suffer/ there's very little room left for interior details. I can't really help you there. My Power Functions trucks are pretty much the only exception. Cheers, Ralph

I realise that I can take a small motor and gear it down such that the drivetrain delivers enough torque to accelerate a heavy vehicle, but with the same motor there is nothing you can do to increase the power and the resulting vehicle will be slow. Fortunately your video shows that the M-motor has sufficient power to give even a relatively large vehicle enough speed. I'm curious what you're getting at with your last comment. Cheers, Ralph

I more-or-less suspected that by DAF LF concept you were thinking of something similar to a concept car and it certainly has elements remeniscent of DAFs I noticed that it is an odd number of studs wide. The cab is 14 studs wide, but the mudguards stick out half a stud on each side, giving a total width of 15. (on my fire engine it's 12 studs wide with half a stud sticking out on either side as well, giving a grand total of 13 studs). I didn't realise you used a driving ring to swicth from one motor to the other, but looking at the chassis again I see where it's located. I'm not much of a Technic builder, so it wasn't immediately obvious to me. I understand why you used a worm gear in the steering. If you don't have self-centring steering the steering needs to be geared down quite a bit in order to make it possible to drive in a straight line. You've done an excellent job fitting all these elements inside. In any case, it's good to know that an M-motor does have enough power. That means that if I want to build anier poer-functions truck on the same scale as the Scania, I might be able to get away with using an M-motor for that as well. I've built two Poer Functions trucks and both were fairly heavy beasts. I chose fairly big trucks so that I would be able to find enough space for an XL engine in the chassis and a large batter box somewhere in the body. If I would want to build a somewhat smaller truck or just a tractor, I feared I wouldn't find space for the XL motor such that it wouldn't be too visible from the outside. Being able to use an M-motor instead will make things a bit easier. I look forward to seeing more of your work. I think we indeed like the same style of building Cheers, Ralph

It's not really a new style windscreen. This part in trans clear was used as a truck windscreen in Model Team sets in the late 'eighties/early 'nineties. It is great that the part is in production again. When I saw the grand emporium, it's one of the first things I noticed. I'm not yet sure whether I'll buy the grand Emporium, but I'd love to get my hands on a few of these parts for use in trucks as well. The trans clear ones are ridiculously expensive on bricklink. It's a very nice truck and I am very impressed by the functionality you've managed to shoe-horn in there. I've been building power functions trucks on a similar scale and struggle to fit everything in them, so Ive got some idea of how hard it is. The cab is very nice with impressive techniques, but I do have a point of criticism. It doesn't really look like a DAF LF to me. I've got a fair idea of what they look like, as a fire engine I built a few months ago uses a DAF LF cab. Some things are excellent (the lower radiator and front bumper), but the upper part of the radiator seems too narrow, the mudguards are too symmetric (the rear part of the mudguard on the real truck is very different from the front part) and the sleeper cab looks too big. I also have a couple of questions. I'm guessing you've had to use three motors: one for steering, one for drive and one to power a compressor for the pneumatics. Looking at the picture of the chassis I can see two M-motors. What motors have you used for what function? Is one of those M-motors for the drive or is there an XL motor in there somewhere as well? The reason why I ask is because on my Scania I had some difficulty finding space for the XL motor. It is a rather heavy beast and it would be interersting to be able to build a more compact truck (on a similar scale) and if an M-motor has enough power to move your truck at a decent pace, that would make life easier for me as well. My second question has to do with the steering. It's a subject that has come up a few times in the past here on EB, Why did you choose your current steering set-up (with a worm-gear) over a self-centring steering mechanism? Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I think you've got your work cut out for you trying to build a Ford GT on a similarly small scale. I have built a new car since I finished the Ferrari. It's a current model Volkswagen Passat in dark blue. It's not the most spectacular or glamorous car to build. I have built rather a few sportscars and classic cars lately and I felt it was time for something a bit more normal, also because it presents a somewhat different challenge. Many modern cars are very similar-looking at a first glance and I wondered whether I'd be able to build a fairly normal car and still have it look recognisably like the real thing. This was surprisingly difficult. I think I've pulled it off, but haven't had the time to take photographs. You deserve some credit here, by the way, because I used your little 'griddy' program and a blueprints to help out. When I post the pictures, I'll be sure to mention that as well. I haven't yet decided whether I'll build more cars soon, but if I do they will likely also be cars that you are likely to frequently see on European roads. Currently I'm thinking of a Fiat Panda or Renault Megane. My recovery truck has also made me look at building more European trucks. I'd love to build a DAF XF105, for instance, in a nice colour. Dark red with a tan stripe, for instance. LEGO have made trans clear jumper plates, but they were never available in sets. I do have a few dozen and used several on this model. Cheers, Ralph

No problem. The issues you raised are obviously valid, but going over them again seemed a bit pointless. Using it for backgrounds for stop-motion video is an application I never considered, but it makes sense. It's easier to move a model on the computer over a small and properly defined distance than it is to do the same with a physical model. No doubt about it. This whole thread makes me wonder how different people go about designing and building a model. Perhaps I'll pick one of my model that is more-or-less typical and write a post about the planning process for it someday. Might be fun. Come to think of it, that's pretty much what I did a while ago on my blog. Cheers, Ralph