Walter Kovacs

I saw this one over on FBTB. Excellent work, Pete. I love the fact that you used Nute's headpiece for the nose of the speeder. Very clever.

Wait, you're not happy with the sides? I think they look incredible. Things are really coming along well, cavegod. I love the back end. I can't wait to see the finished product.

I like the improvement. Much more movie accurate. The only problem I can foresee is that Ackbar isn't fastened in in any way. It looks like he might slip out relatively easily.

Nice little tank you have there, Kirill. Were the pieces just from the Rebel battle pack, or did you add some pieces from your collection?

Thanks for the suggestions, gentlemen. I really like Tim's solution, except that I don't se an easy way to attach a tank head to it. Here's the design I think I'm going to go with. It's sort of a hybrid between two methods: The ring of 2 x 2 slopes is there for supporting the tank. It will hang by that ring through a floor. Hinckley has quite a nice micro-brewery there. But I'm thinking on a larger scale. Instead of micro-brewery, think AB-Inbev or Miller size. Should be quite the project.

You know, it never occured to me that someone might think military tank. I'm an engineer, so when someone says tank, I think vessel. Sorry for any confusion. I am planning a MOC on a truly huge scale: a minifig scale brewery, from grains receiving through packaging and warehousing. The tanks I am referring to are for the brewing process. A lot of the ideas I've already put down on paper*, but more than 75% of it is still rattling around in my head. I need to get the equipment designed first, so that I can layout the floorplans that much better. * I do all of my designing in MLCad. Technically, it's not paper, but it is recorded somewhere.

Ah, I see it now. My mistake.

I think I understand what he's asking for. Most people use a clear 4 x 4 dish and a 1 x 8 bar for their MINIs. If you need a physical attachment, a technic 1/2 pin is fairly unobtrusive, though not clear. While you can't see the dish, this photo shows the rest of the setup: Depending on the size of the model, a stack of clear 2 x 2 round bricks will also work well. It just depends on whether or not you have an area to atach the bricks to on your model. In general, I only use a stand when photographing my MINIs. Otherwise, they just lay on the shelf.

Thanks for your help, guys. Looks like the new tanker is coming in white. I was hoping for Light gray (stainless steel), but white wouldn't be too bad. Unfortunately, the 3 x 1 curved slopes end up in a 8 stud diameter cylinder (and a very nice looking one at that). Looks like the 3 x 6 x 5 cylinder you are thinking of only comes in purple for now (your link points back to the 3 x 1 curved slope, by the way). Although looking at the Curved slopes on Bricklink, I spy this 2 x 4 x 2/3 slope. It comes in Light gray, and looks like it makes a really good 6 stud diameter cylinder, if I can get the internal supports set up correctly. Thanks for your help. If it weren't for you, I would have forgotten about that piece forever.

I wasn't sure which orum this should go in. Since the final MOC probably belongs here, I thought a question on building technique should go here,too. I am planning on designing a MOC with a lot of tanks. I've found that 2 stud wide tanks are pathetically easy. 4-stud diameter tanks have several options, using macaroni bricks or the 4 x 4 round bricks. 8 stud can use the 4 x 4 macaroni brick or the 4 x 4 x 5 quarter panel. But a 6-stud diameter cylinder is giving me fits. Has anyone made one that looks good? I've tried various combinations of hinges or plates with handles and plates with clips, but I couldn't get it small enough without going to a hexagon, which isn't very round. I can do it with this slope, but that leaves a nasty ridge if you go any bigger than two studs high. I'm hoping someone has a solution out there. Thanks in advance for your help.

Going off of the pictures only, I'd go with Cad Bane. Though Boba looks excellent.

You might want to do a little research yourself. Look at the average used selling price for both sets on Bricklink.com, and compare that to the average selling price of each minifig. I would suspect that selling the complete set is worth more than the price of the minifigs, but I could be wrong. Of course, this assumes that the sets are indeed complete. Otherwise, minifigs only will be your best bet. Another consideration is whether or not you could use the bricks for your own MOCs. If you can, then selling the minifigs alone would make much more sense. I know I could always use a few hundred spare bricks in my collection.

My first train set was 4708 - The Hogwort's Express. I've since modded it to run on the 9V track I got with 10132 (also the Hogwort's Express). Seems my Mother-in-Law knew I liked Harry Potter.

A very nice scene, indeed. I love the effect with the green flame. It really makes the scene, in my opinion. If you end up doing an aftermath scen, the CIS has to win. They had to win some battles, or else the wouldn't have lasted 3 years.

What can I say. This is simply incredible. All I know is that if I tried to make anything remotely similar, it'd look like crap. The walls next tot he hanger bay door are phenomenal. Really great job.

Irony at its best, I think I'm going to clear out my target and then help out some EB members and sell them at actual cost plus shipping, because my target had a bunch. Crisis averted. I found both sets at the second Target I visited this morning. They had plenty of the X-Wings, but I had to hunt to find this one.

Ask and you shall receive: Top View Side View Looking at them side by side, it's pretty clear that 30051 is a great improvement. The original (this one happens to be set #6963) does have the printed tiles, which is a plus. And I like the clear 1 x 2 plate for the windscreen better than the smoke colored cheese slope. Aside from that, the newer version is beyond excellent. R2 is in a more correct location, the wings have that slope along the back edge, the engines look better, there is some greebling on the back and the nose cone is better defined. The wings stay in place better, thanks to the dual clip piece used. As for a color shift, the original versions (6963 & 4484) both used dark red parts.

I usually upload my instructions as .pdf files to the approporiate Brickshelf folder. For some reason I haven't been able to do that this time around. The files, while large, are smaller than previous instruction files, so I don't think that's it.

If you look closely, you can see a ball near the feet of the row of five stormies. It's brown. Perhaps it's a basketball or possibly a zamor sphere? There's only one more thing to say: ME WANTS!

That tank is fantastic looking. And I for one like the clown. Yes, it's not very Star Warsy (OK, not at all). But it still looks like a clown. The snowspeeder looks good, but that spoiler bothers me a little. Still, an excellent build from such a limited pallet.

Thanks, legolandia. I'm glad you like it. And as tempting as selling the instructions is, I could never in good conscience sell my instructions. I've made all previous ones free to use, and I would like to keep that tradition going. Besides, better MOCers than I have produced instructions and they are free for use. The big problem right now is how to make them available.

Personally, I'd never buy a set just for the minifigures. Then again, I'm a collector, so I try to get one of every set anyway. As for the Venator, I think it is one of the weakest sets from last August's wave. The minifigs are probably the best part of the set. The good news is that if you do buy it just for the minifigs, the rest of the set should make a nice parts pack. Lots of pieces to use in your MOCs, assuming you like to make some (and really, who here doesn't).

Overall I like the design. As the good Colenol said, I like the backpacks off the side. My biggest beef is the grey set of wheels inside the tracks. I think it would look better if they were all grey or all white (white would probably look better, in my opinion). I understand completely if you have a limited brick supply, though.

Neither Flickr or Photobucket allow .pdf file uploads Yeah, I need to do some re-thinking on the TIE Defender. Overall it looks good, but the pylons aren't working at all. I'm just going to crank out a couple more TIEs, then come back to the Defender. I'll get a working design eventually.

I hate bumping a topic of mine that is sliding towards obscurity, but I felt it necessary to let those waiting for the instructions upload know what is going on. I have tried several times to get the instructions uploaded to Brickshelf. I'm not sure if it's a size issue (the first file is large, but the others are "small"), or if Brickshelf doesn't allow the .pdf extension anymore, but I haven't been able to get them to upload at all. If anyone has an alternate file upload solution, feel free to let me know. I'd like to get them out there for anyone to look at. They are definitely too large to be e-mailing around, so some sort of net based arrangement is required. Sorry I haven't been able to get this done.