Ralph_S

That's a nice idea, 'Strikeman' and nicely executed too. The four-wide trucks have a charm of their own, but your project really shows how much more mature the larger trucks look. I look forward to seeing your next one. Cheers, Ralph

This weekend I undertook another rebuild of one of my older aircraft, giving it a new canopy and making a host of other changes in the process. Before: EA-6B Prowler (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr After: EA-6B Prowler of VAQ-141 Shadowhawks (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Cheers, Ralph

Thanks everyone for the comments. Much of EB is arranged along themes that LEGO do. The theme that I think is closest to what I do is Model Team, but IMO that doesn't really fit with Technic. The scale of my models is wrong for Town (even though Town builders might like them). Creator didn't even exist when I started building cars many years ago, so I have a hard time thinking of my models as being Creator. What is Creator anyway? I see it more as the idea of a set with lots of good parts to build your own stuff with than as a design standard, as evidenced by the wide variety of sets that have been released in that theme. Minifig scale houses, microscale vehicles, walking Dinosaurs etc. All of this suggests that they might have to go in among the hodgepodge of 'special themes'. Next time I build a car, I'll post it there and see what happens. Cheers, Ralph

Splitting it up is something that was discussed in the Technic/ Model Team Forum a while ago, but the general feeling was that a Model Team forum by itself wouldn't be viable. Cheers, Ralph

Eurobricks can frustrating at times. Often I just can't figure out where to post something. Military models are obvious, but my car models? I generally post then in the Model Team/ Technic forum, but they don't get a lot of love there. Some people look at them and might get one or two comments, fortunately generally nice. Sometimes they get none and after a few days the thread sinks to page two, never to be seen again. My models do seem to gain attention if they're front-paged, which fortunately has happened a few times. I know EB is not supposed to be about views, but I wouldn't post them here if I didn't think people might be interested in seeing them. Do town builders even see things that are posted in the Technic/ Model Team forums? Aren't my models too big for the more minifig oriented Town scene and would people in the Town forum appreciate them? Some examples. UK Police Ford Focus (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr VW Samba van (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Toyota Prius (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I can't figure out where to post them and I'm interested to find out your views on where to put them. Thanks in advance, Ralph

This thread has certainly become more interesting, but I emphasise again that SNOT does not mean studless. Here's an example of something I built full of SNOT techniques, but with studs. UK Police Ford Focus (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr The front bumper uses SNOT techniques, with bits mounted with their top mounted forward or upside down. The front mudguards are built upside down. The rear bumper is also a SNOT construction, with the tops of elements pointing aft. That's SNOT. Not a bunch of tiles. The studs near the roof of the house are the result of me not bothering to cover them up. I generally don't build studless because I quite like the aesthetic that the studs give me. I do a lot of SNOT building, but I generally do have studs on top of my models. It's a conscious choice. It also allows me to make shapes that, to my eye at least, actually look rounder than stepped tile would, certainly if I combine plates with studs and tiles, like the tiles on the roof of the Police car, which give the impression that it is slightly curved towards the sides. You're welcome. I'm glad you find it useful. It's a rubbish acronym IMO. On the first page. Cheers, Ralph (aka. Mad physicist)

At the risk of being insensitive, I'm not really interested in buying somebody else's design or sets in general, so there's really not a hell of a lot of incentive for me to go voting for something. As for submitting MOCs myself: I build stuff that I enjoy. My models are not designed to be attractive to other people (even though, judging from the reactions I get on flickr, mostly, some people do enjoy them) and certainly not designed to be sets. When I found out about Cuusoo, I had a little look round my collection of models wondering if there was anything there that I might consider suitable as a set and that might have sufficient popular appeal. I found nothing. Too complicated, too many parts, old parts and mostly in a niche genre. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. In the olden days we all used to do it like this Thank you. I did consider using orange for the chevron markings in the back, as they do appear to be orange on some cars. There are plenty of them, however, where it looks more red. Perhaps it depends on the light. I looked at using lime green instead of yellow, but the colour on the real car does look more yellow than green to me. I have a minifig scale NHS Ambulance with lime green and regular green Battenburg markings and am thinking of building a larger version of that as well and will probably use lime green too. Cheers, Ralph

I think you got my comment about cargo trains being pulled by the same engines as passenger trains the wrong way around, oddly enough, considering what it was a reply to. The Dutch railways had a range of electric engines built for pulling passenger trains, but they are increasingly used to pull cargo trains. I'm pretty sure I've seen German cargo trains being pulled by engines they also use for their passenger trains. The reason why I don't care about whether it's ugly or not -I don't think it is by the way- is that I rarely build stuff from instructions anyway. My return to building trains started with building MOCs. I bought my cargo train to get the parts I need to make my MOCs run on some actual track -not to run it as is. I kind of assumed that that the original poster was looking at building MOCs too. That's also why I don't really see it as a problem if I were to think that the engine doesn't look right for the train. It's LEGO. If you don't like it, turn it into something else! hear, hear. Cheers, Ralph

Who cares what it looks like? It's a great parts pack that gives you all the trainy bits you need. By the way, things may be different where you're from, but in my country many of the engines that are used to pull cargo trains are the same ones as are/were used for pulling passenger trains. Cheers, Ralph

I've had models of Police cars from the US, Germany and the Netherlands for a while, but until now the only British Police cars I had were minifig scale. Now that has changed :-) UK Police Ford Focus (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr British police seem to favor five-door hatchbacks as their patrol cars. The Vauxhall Astra is common (known as the Saturn Astra in the US and the Opel Astra in much of Europe), but the Ford Focus, which has been Britain's best selling car for years, is also a popular choice as a patrol car. UK Police Ford Focus (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr My model represents the second iteration of the Focus, produced from 2004 to 2008. The Policeman wears the traditional `Bobby hat', although in real life a constable driving a patrol car would be more likely to wear a cap. He also wears a typical high-visibility jacket, complete with `Battenburg' markings. UK Police Ford Focus (3) by Mad physicist, on Flickr As usual on my larger scale car models, everything opens. For the rear hatch this was a bit tricky, as the bottom is seven studs wide and the top is six. It slides aft a bit (with the hinge moving in the roof) before it hinges up. UK Police Ford Focus (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I struggled with this one. I started it more than a week ago, making very little progress for several days. Yesterday it was finally more-or-less complete, but I didn't like it much. I came very close to giving up and taking it apart. However, after a good night's sleep, I had another look at it this morning and realised that a few minor relatively minor tweaks. It's a problem with these modern cars. You can mess up a lot of stuff on, say, a '57 Cadillac Eldorado, but it'll still look like an Eldorado. Mess up on some of the shapes and details on a modern car and it'll look like nothing in particular. I'm glad I didn't wreck it. I think the end result is a nice addition to my fleet of Police cars. I hope you'll agree. Cheers, Ralph

I agree with eliminator. I'm not exactly new to trains (I had a 4.5 V one as a child) and I've actually bought several train sets in recent years for the parts (Western Train, Hobby Train, Emerald Knight, Maersk Train). They are nice sets, but don't get you anywhere. They've got the parts to build trains -not to run them. Until recently I didn't have any of the new tracks, because I had no interest in running trains. I only had the old ones from when I was a kid. Two weeks ago I came across the yellow cargo train in a local toy store, as part of larger pack with extra rails, two more switches and the current station. The whole thing was discounted to 150 Euros and that week they had an addition 10% discount. I couldn't resist and bought it. By itself the cargo train already has pretty much everything you need: the motor, a battery box, a remote, a decent collection of tracks and two switches and plenty of parts to build yourself a nice train. It's the set I would recommend too. Cheers, Ralph

I'm planning to build it in dark grey, which is a fairly close match for the gunship grey that B-52s have been painted in for the last 15 years or so. The one I have mind specifically is 'Cajun Fear', a B-52H that serves with the 2nd BW from Barksdale AFB, Louisiana and that has seen service during the Kosovo war, flying missions from the UK. I like its noseart (an alligator) and it is one of the few machines that can carry the AGM-142A Have Nap missile. I'd like to have those as an option, as well as JDAMs. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you very much. As I wrote before, I quite like the studs. I was never completely happy with the non-LEGO canopies, but it was the best I could do for a long time. I've always maintained that if I could come up with a viable purist alternative that would look good and that would allow me to still have an interior and a canopy that opens the right way (which rules out Star Wars canopies on pretty much anything but the F-16) I'd prefer to use that instead. I attended Brickfair in DC in August and decided to take my Su-27 there. Because I was pretty sure that some people there would needle me for being 'non-purist' I decided to have a crack at building a canopy out of trans clear parts instead. I was positively surprised by the result. Brick-built canopies are not as transparent as the old ones and are a lot heavier, which makes it harder to come up with mechanisms to open them, but IMO they actually look nicer. Replacing all of them is going to be a pain though! Cheers, Ralph

See you again in three years time. By then I might be halfway done Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Some people collect sets. I basically collect aircraft models. I've got most of them on shelves in my LEGO room, my home office and in my living room. I completely agree. Flankers are nice, but Tomcats are nicer. It's a shame they are retired, even though I do understand the reasons for it. The B-52 has been on my wish list for at least two years now, believe it or not, and I have been buying parts for it too. I just haven't found the drive to finally start building. I can spend years planning something, but if the takes more than a week or two to build, I lose interest. Cheers, Ralph

Sorry, I missed your reply a few days ago. Thanks. For a long time I've been using non-LEGO plastic for the canopies: pieces of plastic sheet cut into the right shape and held in place using adhesive tape. However, for a few years now I've also been using more and more brick-built solutions. Trans clear cheese slopes, for instance, have made that more feasible. Lately I've started replacing non-LEGO canopies on existing models with brick built ones. I still have about two dozen aircraft to retrofit, so it'll be a while before I'm done, but the non-LEGO will go eventually. I started a thread about it a few weeks ago. Here's a picture showing how the undercarriage retracts on the Osprey. MV-22B Osprey (13) by Mad physicist, on Flickr The scale is 1/36. I personally think that this is too big for minifigs -which is why I don't use them with these models, but a lot of military builders seem to build at similar of even larger scales and do use figs with their models, so it's largely a matter of personal preference. There are a lot of people who have asked for instructions or have offered me money if I were to make them. Unfortunately making instructions is an awful lot of work, certainly for my larger and more complex models such as this one. I'd estimate that for the Osprey it would take between 30 and 40 hours of solid work. I could be spending the free time I'd normally spend building new stuff doing something that I don't particularly enjoy instead in order to make some money that I don't particularly need and I might not even break even financially. It's not a viable option. THank you. One brilliant would have done

I tend to go for adult LEGO builder and don't use an abbreviation. I'm not just an enthusiast. I use the stuff to build ! I don't like the sound of 'user' either. It sounds too much like having a substance abuse problem. Then again, perhaps we do have that Ralph

It's been a fair few years since I built it (I think I built it in 2006/2007), so I don't remember quite how long it took me. I do remember that the build was spread out over a several weeks, with the unfinished MOC sitting in my LEGO room while I tried to solves some problems with it now and then in between building other stuff. Thank you. Much appreciated. I always liked the look of Chrysler's cab-forward models in particular. However, my brickshelf gallery hasn't been updated in a long time. Quite a few of these models have been taken apart by now, although I still have plenty left and plenty of new ones. Here's a montage of the large-scale car collection as it appeared about a year ago. LEGO vehicle models by Mad physicist, on Flickr It has grown a bit since. ETA. That's funny. I'm glad you enjoy looking at them. I have moved to flickr and have continued building. I made a similar montage of my aircraft models about a year ago as I did for the cars. LEGO aircraft and helicopter models by Mad physicist, on Flickr My collection of aircraft has grown a bit too, since I made it. I am a physicist, worked for an aeronautical engineering department of a university and now work for the department of defense, so you're not far off with your assessment that I should be an aeronautical engineer Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. It is much appreciated. Thank you. I know a lot of people seem to prefer studless models, but I like them, so I can't be bothered to cover them up making the wings even thicker than they already are. Cheers, Ralph

Here's a size comparison between the Osprey and one of the helicopters that it is replacing, the CH-46E Sea Knight. MV-22B Osprey size comparison (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Cheers, Ralph

They're big for propellers, but really not all that large for helicopter rotors. This weekend I'll see that I take a picture of it together with the helicopter that it is replacing, the Sea Knight, to give you a size comparison. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you for all the comments. I am happy that you guys like the model. Thank you. I always try to combine the looks with a degree of functionality, certainly when I feel I can get the latter without compromising too much on the former. For this model I knew I could probably get the look more-or-less right without too much difficulty -I've built more complicated shapes in the past- but the functionality would be the real challenge. Thanks for the compliment. The dihedral was essential, obviously for the looks, but also for the wing stow mechanism. When the wing lies on top of the fuselage the starboard engine needs to sit above the aft fuselage, and as you can see there's not a lot of space. MV-22B Osprey (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I too quite like the F-111, but lacking one of my own, I'll share the one my friend Ed Diment built a few years ago. F111 Quarter Extended by Lego Monster, on Flickr Thanks for plugging the blog :-) I've got plenty of ideas, but unfortunately I have a hard time finding the time to write anything for it. I spend a fair bit of time writing stuff at work and in the evenings I simply run out of steam. Thank you very much. I occasionally get criticized for using 'old-fashioned' build techniques, but I don't mind seeing studs and still find stepped plate a very attractive way to create slopes and compound curves. If I;d have forced myself to go for a studless look, I doubt it wold have ended up looking as accurate as it does. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for the comments everyone. They are much appreciated. The colours are based on the colours of real Ospreys, many of which are a fairly dark bluish grey on top. It really should have three colours, with parts of the sides being a slightly darker grey than what I've used, but there are only so many things yo can do with LEGO. The rotors are synchronized with an axle running through the whole wing. You can see it in a work-in-progress picture I took about two weeks ago. MV-22B Osprey Work In Progress 30-11 by Mad physicist, on Flickr I made a few changes to it between then and now (moving the hinges inboard by one stud each, for instance), but it does show the basic idea. There is no mechanism to have both propellers/ engines tilt together, but the hinges I used are of a type that sticks at several intermediate positions, making it easy to set both at the same angle. The hinges also had the advantage of having a hole at the location of their axis of rotation, allowing the axle connecting the rotors to run though it. The idea to use them came to me about two weeks ago on my way to work Thanks. It's always nice to be front-paged and I'm glad you like it. I'd still like to think that my B-1B Lancer is my best creation (it's certainly the biggest), but I'm happy with how the Osprey turned out. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for the comments everyone. Tiltrotors are fascinating. I think the Osprey is a bit bloated-looking compared to the earlier XV-15, but it is an interesting bit of kit and was a fun and challenging build. I may build the odd car now and then, but military models is what I like to do best. Whenever I do I always try to put in just a bit more effort. I feel that if I don't think I can do a better job of recreating an existing vehicle (on a given scale) than what is already out there, I might as well not bother. Obviously what is better or not is largely subjective -some people would consider my model let down badly by the studs- but I am well pleased with the result. Cheers, Ralph

In the last two weeks I've been building a new military model: a US Marine Corps Bell-Boeing MV-22B Osprey. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's the world's first opertional tiltrotor aircraft, a vehicle that can hover like a helicopter for take-offs and landings with its rotors pointing up and, in flight, point them forward and fly like an aircraft. I've been thinking about building it for years, but there were a few difficult bits that I could never quite figure out how to do until now. One of those is the wing. It has dihedral (it points up at the wingtips) and is swept slightly forward. Normally I'd build something like that by playing around with wegde plates and hinges, but because the engines are mounted at the tips of the wings, on the Osprey that wasn't possible. I chose to build the wings using stepped plates and half-stud offsets instead. Here it is in helicopter mode. MV-22B Osprey (9) by Mad physicist, on Flickr and here it is in aircraft mode with the rotors pointing forward. MV-22B Osprey (3) by Mad physicist, on Flickr For rolling take-offs the rotors (and engines) can be set to intermediate positions. MV-22B Osprey (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr The Osprey was designed to operate from the decks of ships. For compact stowage the aircraft has a complicated wing folding arrangement. This was the second big challenge, but also fun. MV-22B Osprey (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I've seen a fair few LEGO tiltrotor aircraft, but few people seem to have modelled the actual Osprey. I hope you agree that mine looks like the real deal. Cheers, Ralph