Ralph_S

Interesting to see this sort of thing in four-wide. I think you could add a lot more realism and detail by going to something a larger (I make my trucks 6 to 7 wide), but I do like this. It has a nice classic look to it. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks guys. I can understand the difficulties in building a tilting cab on a larger scale than this, because the cab will be heavier and put a lot of strain on the construction My main problem wasn't the weight of the cab (although it is quite big) but lack of space to locate the hinges and to make them strong. It all does work, but only just. I'm not sure this is radically different from the way I normally build things, although I did get creative with the front mudguards. I am glad you like the stripes. They turned building the cab into a big puzzle and cost a lot of small plate. I felt it just had to be DAF to be properly Dutch. The compartments and getting the doors to work (reasonably) well took a lot of time, so I'm glad you like them. I started adding figs to my vehicles about two years ago. They are obviously a bit blocky, but make the whole thing look more lively. I intend to build a police car to make the set complete sometime in the non-too-distant future Cheers, Ralph

A few weeks ago I completed building a Dutch ambulance. Pretty much straight away I also got the idea to build a fire engine to accompany it. It took me a while to gather enough reference images and to find the time to actually build it, but here it is: It is a DAF LF with a body built by Ziegler, a fairly typical combination in the Netherlands. It has opening doors in the cab as well as working rolling doors in the back and a working tilting cab. More pictures of both vehicles are on flickr. Cheers, Ralph

Now is probably a bad time, as stock is undoubtedly low, but the places where they'd normally have them are the Lego stores (Bluewater, Milton Keynes, Brighton) or simply lego online (that's where I bought mine). Since they are exclusives those are the only retailers where you'll find them. Cheers, Ralph

Nice MOC. The forward wheel position looks best by far. I love the use of cheese slopes to make the steps leading to the cab. Cheers, Ralph

Obviously trying to fit a figure inside seriously cramped my style. He did tell me he could only a figure with the legs removed, so I suppose I could have doe the same. Since all my other minifig scale cars can seat at least one figure without having to amputate bits, I wanted the same for my Beetle. I have built larger models of them before, including a green one. That was a pretty difficult thing to pull off, but making it good on minifig scale is probably harder. I was never too keen on most of the minifig scale ones that I know from brickshelf and flickr. I decided to ignore all of the ones that I know and simply do my own thing. Thank you. Beetlemania! We could call it the "Frankenbeetle" The thought to use curves mounted at an angle like that would have never occurred to me and as I mentioned in a comment on his VW I don't like how the they are integrated into the rest of the car. They do look very good from the front. I did consider using curves for the 'nose' of the car, but had colour issues. I wanted to use the small brackets to mount the headlights and only have those in light and dark bley, dark red and green. I do have large curves in dark bley, but not the hinge parts I needed for the windscreen. Unfortunately these curve don't exist in green (at least according to bricklink). The brackets do exist in white, but I couldn't get them in time. I was so happy when those finally came out. I was even happier when I was able to get my hands on a large enough number to use them with reckless abandon. I just counted them and realised that this model uses 12 of them! Thanks Chris. The back is probably my favourite part of this too. Cheers, Ralph

I fiddled with the front a bit, but with the headlights and everything and the limitations in the sort of parts I have in green I couldn't make it happen. I could probably make a VW Beetle model that is rounder, but indeed would have to give up on it having enough space inside to fit a figure. Thank you. My father used to have a '69 Beetle in dark green. The regular green indeed is a bit bright. I had a hard time choosing a suitable colour to build this thing in and this was the only colour in which I had both the brackets for the headlights and the hinge part to attach the front window. I agree about the superbug look, with the very straight headlights and the big rear lights as well. I think that if I wanted to go for a really early version I should have chosen different wheels for it too. He has definitely been more creative in his parts usage, while mine is more conventional. I agree that the middle section is a bit long, but when I tried to make it shorter the distance between the mudguards looked too short and I had trouble fitting the figure. Building a car that is this curvy and that can seat a minifigure obviously requires a lot of compromises. I think that the must fun about this has been how different our solutions were. Merry Christmas to all of you too. Ralph

Thank you. I'm not totally convinced by the front, but couldn't get it to look rounder without a total redesign. I would love to finally see that type 2 of yours. It's been months Perhaps we should, although I take part in so many challenges (on the flickr military group and LUGNuts) that I sometimes have a hard time finding things to build that are my own idea This one was attractive because I liked Beetles. edit: I forgot to answer your question about the road. I built a road section to go with my Routemaster bus a little while ago, because I wanted to use it to mimic Firas' photo style and decided to hang on to it. I'm glad you like it. He is driving on the wrong side of the road because I want the car to fit into my little Lego part of London. Cheers, Ralph

Late model Beetles did come with some pretty snazzy chrome rims as an option. I considered using dark bley for the running boards, but they were pretty dark on the real car. Thanks for this challenge. It was difficult, but fun and I'm happy to have a Beetle in my collection. Cheers, Ralph

What strikes me most about this is how despite the very different ways in which we built our Beetles, both look recognisably like the real thing. Yours looks really nice from the front -nicer than mine- and very nice from the back as well. The curved bricks you used for the front mudguards are a nice idea, but are very hard to blend into the rest of the car. I'm amazed you managed to put a steering wheel into it. I had no room whatsoever. Nice Merry Christmas Ralph

Last week fellow Eurobricks member Dennimator challenged me to building a minifig scale Volkswagen Beetle. Normally I don't really respond to challenges like this, but Dennis is a nice guy and perhaps more importantly I have a thing for VW Beetles. I also do not like other people's minifig scale Beetles much, but then again, this is not an easy sort of thing to build! We agreed to post them more or less simultaneously, without having seen each other's efforts first. Cheers, Ralph

Nice truck. It has a good level of detail and the bright colours work really well for a truck like this. It has a nice and clean look to it that might make it look a bit simple, but that is hard to achieve in practice. The front loader looks good too, certainly for its scale. I love how you;ve mounted the grille plates at the back at an angle to follow the slope, for instance. Have you tried adding (things that look like) hydraulic rams to it? Cheers, Ralph

Looks like you managed to loose two plates in height! Excellent. I hope you agree that it looks a lot better now. Cheers, Ralph

You can fiddle with the number of wheels and play around with what sort of plate you use for the tray, but I think lowering it will really improve the look, even if it means getting rid of the vehicle base. The large vehicle base used in the set makes the set easy to build by children and sturdy enough to play with, but indeed limit what you can do, which is why I never use them for any of my vehicles. The chassis on my truck is indeed built with one-wide plates so that part of the mechanism can drop between it. Thanks for taking the criticism well. I look forward to seeing what you'll come up with. Feel free to drop me a line if there's anything I can do to help you. Cheers, Ralph edit: Indeed, Ralph and madphysicist are one and the same person Ralph_S was the name I used back when I joined Eurobricks more than four years ago. Mad Physicist is a nickname given to me by some people in Brickish, so that's what I use for flickr.

I love this sort of vehicle and getting the sliding and tilting mechanism to work is no mean feat. However, when I saw this thread yesterday I had the same idea Jim has. You can fiddle around with the bed as much as you like, but it sits very high. If I count correctly the top of the tile on the edge of the bed sits 14 plates above the ground. Moving it lower whilst maintaining the ability for it to slide back will can definitely be done. I know because I built a similar vehicle a few months ago. http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/3857208370/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/3857204690/ The height from the top of the tile at the edge of my bed to the ground corresponds to 11 plates or a full brick height less than on your truck. Looking at yout truck I feel you should actually be able to gain at least two plates without having to completely rebuild it yet again, although I suggest that you get rid of the white frame around the back as well. Most of these trucks have the moving flatbed and mechanism bolted directly onto the chassis. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for all the comments guys. I really appreciate them. Thank you.I've been building aircraft (and cars) for a long time, much before there were all kinds of curved elements available. The only option I had to create complicated shapes was by sculpting them out of basic plates and the odd slope here and there. It works for me, so I've stuck with it. Curved bits might make the model look smoother, but they're not necessarily more accurate. I actually had some even rare parts in mind for the canopy. 1x4 trans clear tiles. They would have looked smoother, but the canopy would also have been too long. If only there were trans clear 1x3 tiles Indeed. This is the project I was working on. If you want to protect your town against your sister you might consider somewhat heavier weaponry. Perhaps something nuclear? The 'fence pieces' are 'train signal masts' and I'm sure mine come from old train sets. They apparently did appear in red in a single set, a race car transporter. Looks like a pretty rare part! I do have a lot of fun building cars and trucks and have plans to build quite a few more, but aircraft are really my thing. Generally speaking they are more challenging builds. The shapes are more complicated and they tend to have lots of fiddly bits. I also love adding working features, even though they tend to complicate things (or possibly because they complicate things). I'm not familiar with the game, but I googled for it and found that the plane in the game was a Grumman Hellcat. This was a larger and more powerful development of the Wildcat that indeed looks similar. By the way, I found that there's an on-line flash version of the game http://www.rastaduck.org/games/WingsOfFury/WingsOfFury.html FW190. Nice. I'm not sure I can manage that on this scale though. There are reasons why I want for a little chubby fighter rather than a really sleek one. I do have the intention of building a German WW-II aircraft, but it is most likely going to be a twin-engined night fighter. Thank you. The landing gear sealed the deal on my decision to build a Wildcat rather than either the P-47 or the F6F, because they have gears that retract into the wings. The F4F's gear retracting into the fuselage made it possible. Cheers, Ralph

The sedan is certainly the most recognisable version. My parents used to own one when I was a child and I used to love it. I haven't yet had time to build the minifig Beetle, although I have been thinking about how to do it quite a bit. It should have something in a few days time. I'll keep you posted. That's difficult. I'm no Harry Potter fan and haven't seen any of the movies, but from what I found on the internet I've seen that it's not based on a Routemaster. It's an AEC regent instead. The body is obviously very similar, but the front isn't. I'm surprised at the number of parts you can get in purple, although I'm sure they are pretty expensive and some of the stuff I used for my bus isn't available. Of course I wouldn't mind you using my bus as a template, but it sounds like a pretty steep challenge. I have no idea how to recreate purple bricks. You're the one with the 'customiser' flag under your name Cheers, Ralph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEC_Regent_III_RT

Thanks. I think you may be confusing 'studless' and studs-not-on-top building here. My model obviously isn't studless, but it's full of SNOT techniques. Never mind. I don't swoosh my models any more, but it holds together reasonably well. The construction of the wings is fairly sturdy and I have used the stiffest technic pins I could find to hold the hinges together. Thank you. I obviously don't care about showing studs. It's LEGO after all. Cheers, Ralph

Lately you may have seen mainly car models and a few buildings by my hand. but I still tend to think of myself as a military aircraft builder first and foremost. It's been a while since I last built one, mainly because I couldn't work out how to chose and build the aircraft I wanted I've had the intention of building a minifig scale WW-II fighter aircraft. I started thinking about it when there was a build contest on the flickr military group. I couldn't figure out how to do it at the time, so I built a twin engined B-26B bomber instead. It ended up winning, so I had nothing to complain about, but I hadn't given up on the idea to build a fighter. It would need to be a model with a fairly chubby fuselage to provide enough space for the pilot. In the months since I also worked out a way to make an aft-sliding cockpit canopy. I narrowed down my choices to three possible aircraft models: an early 'Razorback' P-47 Thunderbolt, a Grumman F4F Wildcat or a Grumman F6F Hellcat. When I worked out how to do the landing gear for the Wildcat my choice was made. It isn't as famous as the other two aircraft, but it has charisma! The specific model I built is an FM-1 Wildcat, built by General Motors. When Grumman, the company that designed the Wildcat switched their production line to building Hellcats, General Motors took over production of the Wildcat. The model has a number of working features: the already mentioned sliding cockpit canopy and retractable undercarriage, as well as folding wings (for stowage aboard aircraft carriers) and a retractable arrestor hook for landing aboard carriers. The pictures are links to flickr, as usual, but you'll find all 12 pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/tags/wildcat/ Cheers, Ralph

Only serves them right, I suppose, to have their own clones cloned. It's still a pretty poor design though, irrespective of whether it's by Sluban or Oxford. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for posting this. I didn't really need a reminder why I prefer LEGO, but some clone brands manage to produce models that have a reasonably attractive design. As much as I dislike them, MegaBloks for instance, have produced models of military aircraft that weren't half bad, even if you do know that the finished product will never look as good as the picture on the box. Even apart from the fact that this was produced by a clone-brand, I have to say that I feel this thing is a piece of rubbish. There's not a single angle from which it looks good. I understand that they want to limit the parts number, but there are a few pretty important bits missing too. Where the hell are the jet intakes and exhausts? If they're in the habit of producing specialised parts anyway they could have come up with a decent nose! Ralph

I've been a beetle fan for much of my life and have built several, but always on a larger scale. I never figured out how to build a proper minifig scale one and don't really like any of the minifig scale ones I've seen so far built by other people. I'm game for having try. I'd prefer to build one that can seat at least one figure. I'd also prefer to build a sedan rather than a convertible, although the convertible avoids having to build the curved roof. I'll need some time though. I'm still working on something else at the moment and want to finish it before I try anything else. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. I would have loved to use chrome rims. I have suitable ones for the rear wheels (from a Ferrari Enzo). Lego has also made suitable ones for the front wheels (from a Power Puller set), but they're rather expensive. Grey will have to do. Cheers, Ralph

That's OK. The taxi is small indeed, five studs wide and about 14 long. It is buildable. A fellow Brickish member built a copy of it based on my pictures, so it is buildable. He was pretty shocked at the amount of jumper plates it took him though. I just counted them: it has 18! Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. 5580 was my favourite set when I was a child. I remember getting the catalogue early in 1986 with it on the back page. I already built trucks back then, but surpassed anything I had come up with at the time, so I was very excited and at the same time disappointed because I'd have to wait until summer before it came out. I also remember having a poster of it on my wall. I've built (and taken apart) many trucks since, but I still have a soft spot for trucks like this and every once in a while feel like building a new one. I'm glad you feel the Crown Victoria wouldn't look out of place in Legoland. Legoland cars are a massive inspiration for my car models. Cheers, Ralph