Ralph_S

No problem. On LURCH we used a regular motor and it has enough oomph to do it, so I'm pretty sure one of those big boys will have no trouble whatsoever. I don't know for certain whether it hurts the motor to be turned by an outside force, but from what I know about electric motors I can't come up with any reason why it should be a problem. Ed and I put some serious mileage on LURCH (driving it through a room at a Brickish meeting) and it just kept going. Cheers, Ralph

I get asked for instructions for my models on a regular basis and I always turn down such requests. Not because I don't want to share, but because I'd basically be spending a hell of a lot lot of time and effort making something that I myself haven't got any use for and in return for nothing whatsoever. I think asking for money in return for making instructions isn't at all unreasonable. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for all the comments. I'm glad like these. I had fun building them. I always consider it a great compliment if people can't see the scale of my models right away. That tells me I've managed to hit the right level of detail. Indeed, it isn't overly big. 14 studs wide and about 50 studs long. I like to have lots of different vehicles on the same scale that I can put side-by-side. Keeping the scale in check is a necessity. I used to mainly be a lurker on Eurobricks a hot rod competition was held here less than two years ago. Part of the competition was building a driver to go with the car, which I felt was a terrible idea distracting from the actual car. However, I have since realised that the opposite is true. Adding figures to go with the cars actually makes them more interesting to look at, ceratinly when displaying the cars at public events and I've built figures for many of them since. I had a CHP Camaro a while ago with a policeman figure and somebody on flickr suggested that he needed a trooper hat and somebody else suggested I add a badge. When I came to build 'trooper version 2' I decided to take those suggestions to heart. Apart from the studs of course A funny question indeed. I look at these things as scale models and (apart from studs) try to make them look as realistic as I can. Putting a minifig in there would look really silly, unless the CHP is in the business of arresting babies. Perhaps if I were to build a people carrier... I didn't see the Transformers movie, but in my mind Optimus Prime is red and is a cab-over-engine truck rather than a conventional model, but you're not the first person to tell me that. Thanks for the suggestions. I know they have orange bulbs inside the headlight units and various LEDs on the bar and the rear-view mirrors, but I didn't add more lights is because they are barely visible when they're switched off. I'm very picky when it comes to scale. I want my cars and trucks to look good together. I think the Police Interceptor is my own favourite among these tow, simply because it's such a vast improvement over the older versions I had. As I wrote in my first message, the Kenworth is merely a rebuild in new colours. Cheers, Ralph

In the last few days I've had some fun building a few more large-scale vehicles. The first is a rebuild of a truck I built in August last year, a Kenworth W900. It's a classic American truck. The LEGO Model Team highway rig was my favourite set as a child and I've had a soft spot for US trucks ever since. My original truck was red with two orange stripes, but I was never too fond of that colour scheme and I feel like building a new fire engine so I could do with the read. Black looks far nicer IMO. More pictures, including pictures of version 1 can be found on flickr. The second model in a sense is also a rebuild. I used to have a number of different models of Ford Crown vics over the years. I took the last one apart a few months ago because I wasn't at all satisfied with it any more. Then, about a week ago, I saw Sigmeister's California Highway Patrol Dodge here on eurobricks, which made me want to give building a Crown Victoria a new try -this time a CHP Police Interceptor model. I studied pictures of my older cars to see what bits I liked and which I needed to improve on. Since I built the older models LEGO have made a lt of new parts (cheese slopes) and I have added a lot of very useful stuff to my collection that I had only few of ears ago (vast quantities of jumper plates), and using those and a few new tricks I have learned over the years I was able to build a new Crown Vic that I am happy about. As usual with my cars doors etc. can open and the vehicle has a detailed interior. I also decided to build a police officer with it, complete with trooper hat. Here too, more pictures are on flickr. Cheers, Ralph

I'll try to explain it. A steering system that works well is one where if you have the motor that drives it go in one direction that car goes to the left, if you have it going in the other direction the car goes to the right and if the motor is off it drives in a straight line. That's what this 'thingy' makes possible, because if you mount it to the axle connected to the motor the spring inside it will centre the axle when the motor is off, centring the steering. I suggest you try building the arrangement in the diagram on brickshelf and try it out yourself. It probably makes more sense if you can see it in action. Cheers, Ralph

I can answer the questions under 1. I have a six-wheeled fire engine with PF remote control. You can see a short video on youtube of the thing in action. Only one of the rear axles is powered, but it drives fine. Ed Diment -a friend of mine- and myself also built a six-wheeled Power Functions space vehicle called L.U.R.C.H. I did al the technic bits for it. I have a video on flickr. It has steering and drive on the front wheels. In short it can be done! You'll have to think of a better way of doing the steering than what you describe now. You really don't want the whole axle to rotate. It'll be a complete bastard to control and will probably look terrible. You'll need to build a more conventional steering set-up and drive that using a motor -an regular one will do the trick fine. I'd also recommend either using a torque gear or a spring from a hockey set. The fomer will prevent the system from wrecking itself once the steering reaches its maximum angle. The latter bit self-centres the steering set-up. It's not my idea, unfortunately, but I did it on L.U.R.C.H. and it made the vehicle far more controllable. Somebody has put a little graphic of it on brickshelf. I still intend to modify the fire engine accordingly. I'm not a particularly experienced technic builder myself and both of these were pretty complicated projects. L.U.R.C.H. took about three rebuilds to get right. The drive on the fire engine was also rebuilt a few times. The truck is heavy and the XL motor gives so much torque that when driving it would break apart the gearing I built for it. I finally did solve the issue, but not without a few headaches. Be prepared for some trial and error. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. Good to know it wasn't serious. Thank you. Building convincing figures on this scale obviously isn't particularly easy, so I'm glad you recognise the crew's uniforms. I used pearlescent grey for the reflective stripes. In the last half year or so I've built around 30 minifig scale vehicles for a large layout and I was getting a bit fed up with them. It is fun to build vehicles to a larger scale. Some of my minifig scale vehicles have opening doors, but adding functionality is much easier on something bigger. I also don't think I could have done anything remotely like the stripe pattern on a smaller scale. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks guys. I already have a copy of it somewhere on my harddrive. Unfortunately the techniques in it for diagonal stripes aren't suitable for this vehicle for a combination of reasons. The stripes are narrow and there are lots of them side-by-side and that pretty much rules out making them using slope bricks. Another issue is that there's a half-stud wide step running all along the side of the van and the fact that much of the striping runs across the doors, which rules out complicated structures to mount SNOT work. Fortunately I have never been inside an ambulance either. It's best avoided! However, I did a lot of searching on the internet and found quite a few pictures of the interior of this type of ambulance which helped with building the interior of my model. Thanks Ralph

I bought mine mainly for the parts. I did build it and actually left it together for a few months before taking it apart (which is pretty rare), but it's got great parts. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for all the comments. Obviously I must have done something right to the shape of the female paramedic. At least most of you seem to have recognised her as such. There were three bits of this van that gave me trouble. -The half stud offsets on the front bumper. They're not very visible on the pictures I posted here, but you can see them a bit better on some of the other pictures I took (such as this one). -The sloped area above the windscreen. Because I chose to build the extended roof of the van using half-stud offsets, I couldn't simply use sloped bricks for the front of it -certainly not with a thin red stripe running through it- and instead decided to built it using regular bricks attached to the windscreen and set at an angle. Getting all of it to fit wasn't easy and in this there still are a few gaps here and there. -The stripes. I really only considered two ways of making them. By stacking plates or by building the panels in yellow and applying stripes of red and blue adhesive tape over them in the right pattern. I'm pretty sure the latter would have looked more like the real deal. However, although I do use some stickers on this vehicle, I did want it to be mostly purist. I also liked the challenge of making the pattern work using a purely Lego solution. I was quite happy with the overall effect I achieved and I'm glad most of you agree. Cheers, Ralph

It's hard to find something round that has the right diameter I suppose, but I don't like those wheels for the tank because their diameter isn't constant. It gives you ridges running along the tank that I don't think look nice at all. I'd prefer a tank built using some SNOT work with macaroni bricks or cylinder () However, I love the aft part with the pump control panels and the cab is great. I'm impressed that you managed to make it look recogisably like a Scania on this small scale Cheers, Ralph

It is no secret that I like emergencey vehicles. Ever since I moved back to the Netherlandsa few months ago I've been thinking about building an ambulance in the colours typically seen in the Netherlands: yellow with red and blue diagonal stripes. In part because I couldn't imagine this working on minifig scale I decided to build it on the scale I use for my larger vehicles (1/22). This halso had the advantage of enabling me to add a detailed interior and working features such as opening doors. Because I already had an older model of a Chevrolet van that I quite liked and this model is a fairly common choice as Ambulance in the Netherlands I chose to make my Ambulance a Chevrolet. Photos are links to flickr (as usual), but here's a link to the whole photo set, including more pictures. Cheers, Ralph

I missed this at first. Nice truck and a nice construction. It looks very much like the real deal. The only thing that I think is missing is a bit more detail on the chassis aft of the cab. Cheers Ralph

Thanks for the advice on CHP Crown Vics. I used to have a model of an LASD vehicle, but wasn't too happy about it. I hope to do a more satisfactory job this time around. The CHP colours somehow strike me as more attractive than LAPD or LASD -probably because only the front doors and the very top of the roof are white and their lightbar looks cool. Lego building is not my career (although I did get an offer that would have seen me designing LEGO models for a living a while ago). It's strictly a hobby. I've accumulated parts over a long period of time. In the last three years in particular I've had money to spare and have been able to buy a lot of LEGO. A lot of it comes from sets. Since I'm mainly after parts, I tend to wait until sets are discounted before buying them. I also used to live pretty close to Legoland Windsor and have used their Pick-a-Brick. I also picked up a lot of very cheap LEGO from Windsor that they were selling from surplus production as well as sets with damaged boxes. I buy specific parts through bricklink. I tend to buy pretty much the stuff I need with little extra, because I tend to plan ahead and have a pretty good idea of what parts I need many of even if I haven't got a particular idea in mind at the time. Cheers, Ralph

I think it would be better if the front axle where mounted one stud further forward, but it's an excellent vehicle. I love all the details, such as the computer in the front and the 'shotgun' rack. That light bar is absolutely spot on and is undoubtedly something that I'll copy for one of my own vehicles. (I'm thinking about a CHP Ford Crown Vic). Excellent Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. It certainly is one of the more difficult cars I've built in a while, but great fun. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. The answer to your question is twofold: I'm taking an extended break from work and I build pretty quickly. Thanks. The tyres are old technic tyres: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3634 They're not particularly useful for most vehicles, but they have just the right appearance for HumVees IMO. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I have built flames a few times previously, albeit never in colours quite this wild. We had a Hotrod competition on Eurobricks about two years ago for which I built a hot rod and ever since I figured out how to build its flame job doing it again was comparatively easy. Thanks. I only have tow of those chrome pieces, so if there ever was a car for which I was going to use them, this was it! Thanks. The grille was very tricky. I struggled with the windscreen. It should have a little kink in the middle and that was terribly difficult to get right. I'm not 100% happy with it, but am unsure how to improve it. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. I'm not really familiar with the game, but I know they deal with US special forces, so that would be fitting. The forest camouflaged HumVee is an older model that I upgraded a few weeks ago. I replaced regular LEGo green with dark green and to accommodate that I had to shuffle around a lot of the other parts. I also added the windows. I already wanted to build the special forces version, but I figured I should first upgrade the one I had. Cheers, Ralph

Over on LUGNuts, the Flickr group for Lego car nuts we have monthly challenges. This month the challenge was to build something in a style of another member. Lino Martins, one of LUGNuts' founders is very fond of American hot rods and custom cars. I decided to honour him by having a go at building something in that direction: a customised 1951 Mercury. It has lowered suspecsion, a chopped roof and an outrageous paint job. What more can you want? As usual with my car, doors, boot (trunk) and bonnet (hood) can open and it has poseable front wheels. It's very different from cars I'd normally build, but I had great fun building this thing. Cheers, Ralph

In the last week or two several people have posted versions of HumVees/ HUmmers/ HMMWVs on eurobricks. As coincidence would have it, I recently completed a version of the HumVee too. My model is on a slightly larger scale than most people's, scale 1/22. I'd been planning to build it for weeks, but I had litle time and had to wait for a bricklink order to come in before I could complete it. The version I chose to build is called a GMV, for Ground Mobility Vehicle. This is a version of the HumVee modified for US special forces. The vehicles are used for long range missions behind enemy lines and to provide fire support for the troops. They are typically heavily armed. In case of mine with two M240 machine guns and a Mk.19 grenade launcher. the vehicle also comes equipped with smoke grenade launchers and extensive communications gear, including a satellite link. Part of the fun of building one on this relatively large scale is that it allowed me to add a lot equipment that these vehicles tend to carry in real life. The picture below shows my GMV next to a more common armament carrier version. Finally, as an encore, one of my 1/22 scale HumVees next to my minifigscale (6-wide) model of a HumVee armament carrier. Enjoy. Cheers, Ralph

I'm not going to argue about scale. To each their own. What strikes me about this bus first and foremost os how nicely proportioned it is. Well done Cheers, Ralph

I'm sorry I didn't see your reply sooner. I can understand that you want your vehicle to fit well together with other vehicles you already have. I tend to build my minifig scale stuff quite small (well, smaller than many other people anyway), so my HumVee had to be 6 wide to fit into my collection. Brickshelf has been a bit iffy in the last few years. Part of the reason why I use flickr. When building a model of a real vehicle you always have to strike a balance between accuracy and complexity. I'm pretty sure it is possible to find a design for a hatch that doesn't stick out and that doesn't take up valuable internal space. Lego have done us a big favour by introducing the plate 1x2 with handle on end and the plate 1x2 with handle. In combination with the plate 1x1 with clip horizontal they make for excellent hinges. I have no idea whether these are available in digital designer, however. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I tenc to only use fancy techniques if I feel they offer a clear advantage over basic old-fashioned studs-up building. IMO often they don't. You won't hear me complaining Thanks for blogging it. Much appreciated. Cheers, Ralph

Having lived in the UK I can tell you that in The Netherlands we are comparatively spoiled for choice when it comes to where to buy LEGO. The toy stores may be owned by a relatively small group of companies, but there are lots of them and they tend to have a good selection. It help to shop around a bit, because there can be a considerable price difference from one chain to another. Unfortunately it's hard to pick one that is the cheapest all round. There is one exception. I live in the South, about 25 km away from Vaals. A toystore there (Schmets in The tentstraat) is part of the Top1Toys chain, but generally sells sets much more cheaply than you'll find them most everywhere else in The Netherlands. They're easily 25% cheaper. They are pretty popular though, so I reckon that this close to Sinterklaas and Christmas they might not have everything you might want. Giving them a call might be a good idea. You ought to be able to find their phone-number through google. Unfortunately it may be quite a drive from where you live. The LEGO shop in Cologne (Keulen) is pretty good and not too far away from the border with the Netherlands. I have recently found another way of buying LEGO comparatively cheaply. With the exchange rate of the Pound relative to the Euro being rather low buying in the UK can be attractive. www.amazon.co.uk sell LEGO for UK prices and ship to addresses in the Netherlands. Depending on the set the difference can be as much as 30% even when they are not on sale and despite shipping costs. I recently bough the Agents helicopter for £38 (and a few CDs) and paid about £6 for the shipping of the lot. That set is about €60 in The Netherlands. Cheers, Ralph