rriggs

While I am waiting for a Bricklink order to be able to the tile the interior floors, I have been doing a bit of landscaping outside the dealership:

I prefer the yellow train for two reasons - I don't like "crocodile" style engines and in the UK (where I am) the yellow train looks more like trains I see every day. The yellow train also looks more powerful.

I know that - which is why I said "out of interest". As for "anywhere" being prosecuted - how is the US's extradition treaty with North Korea or any one of another 50 states that do not co-operate with the US? The simple answer is, of course, not to break copyright law and then nobody can prosecute you anyway! Cheers Rog

Out of interest, where is Eurobricks hosted and in which country is the hosting bill payer based? Cheers Rog

I'm enjoying watching this model grow but here's a question for you - How do you stick your decals to your bricks (like sparnord)? Are they stickers or glued paper? They look great whichever way you do it but how do you get them off again (if you do?)? Do they ruin the bricks you stick them to? Thanks Rog

I love this and think the use of the clone brand is spot on! Good job! Cheers Rog

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with as I am planning on designing a similar sized car for my dealership at the weekend. I want to try and recreate a current shape Ford Fiesta. Cheers Rog

Yeah, thanks Alasdair and Jasper for simply repeating what I wrote in the first place... Cheers Rog

Plates would be better than a baseplate as they are more rigid. Whether you use a baseplate or plates you really need to build a strong frame to support the building. Do you have any Technic beams you can use? Using these paired up and overlapped with pins securing them together you can build a strong, light frame using few pieces. Cheers Rog

Hi My next MOC is now underway. I wanted something with a bit more to it than the double decker coach I did last week. I wanted something that I could fettle and perfect over the next few weeks. As a result I knew I had to do a building and having spent an awful lot of my adult life in car dealerships thought this would be a good one to try. So far, I have finished the shell of the building to which I need to tile the floors, add furniture and equipment and staff. Then, outside I need to build up the lot and sort the signage out before, finally, adding some cars for sale. This is the progress so far (C&C welcome!): An overall view of the building. The showroom is to the right hand side and the service department the left. The sales customers get the grand entrance, the service customers slightly less so! It is based fairly heavily on a typical modern Ford dealership in the UK. This was for two reasons, one I have a lot of grey and white which are the predominate colours and because I worked for Ford for nearly 10 years so their dealerships are a home from home for me: Service customers use the white double door in the middle of the building as H&S prevents them from actually going into the workshops... There is an archway from the showroom into the service reception: A closeup of the front of the showroom with the pillars that are very typical of a UK dealership: The interior of the showroom. A nice open span with room for a couple of full size cars or up to 4 3177-sized cars. This will all be tiled eventually. Probably white in the showroom and grey in the workshop - but that kinda depends on my tiles stocks so may change...! Cheers Rog

Change the garage for spare bedroom and loft and this describes my missus relationship with LEGO perfectly! Cheers Rog

Just drive out the back - there's no wall... Cheers Rog

I missed this thread first time round so thanks for the update! These are amazing creations. Each has a different feel but they all belong together. The overall feeling is definitely that of a mid-east European town so well done! My favourite features are the church, the teardrop caravan (I nearly bought a real one last year!) and the non-civilian minifigs "at home". Cheers Rog

Nice review LT! Great photography as always. Not the best looking truck that LEGO have ever produced but then I guess there are some real ugly trucks in the real world too. What might be a worrying trend, however, is that for the 2012 City sets, LEGO seem to have introduced stickers to the front of vehicle rather than supplying interesting pieces like grilles and other modded plates. This truck has it and so does the SUV in one of the Forest Police sets... Cheers Rog PS: You built the truck in left hand drive by mistake - I know that's what the instructions said but we both know that's wrong!

I fit my train locos with two motors. This gives god traction but also adds lots of weight very low down which makes the train more stable. I often drive my trains at full speed on curves and they have never come off. Cheers Rog

Hoover and duster are OK. I also use a paintbrush and an air duster (can of compressed air). I also try and keep things covered up or boxed when I can. You have a permanent layout but you can take some vehicles/trains off and keep them stored out of harm's way and cover the rest over with cheap/old sheets. Cheers Rog

Errr... No. It isn't. Cheers Rog

Well you say that but LEGO has been through a phase of using cheaper plastic and putting holes in the lugs in the bottom of bricks so that must save weight? Also, I haven't tested gravity recently but maybe that's changed too? Cheers Rog

Well, it looks old but they look suspiciously like cowboys and indians in the pic which would make it a fort not a castle..... Cheers Rog

Exactly right! Although a lot of the common pieces have a box to themselves many of the smaller pieces are lumped together (eg 1x1 modified plates is a category that contains more than 10 different types of piece in one box). LDD is useful to establish exactly what is in a box of mixed parts. Cheers Rog

LDD helped me with some of the pieces and components that are ambiguous. I was worried that I would end up forgetting which hard to find pieces were in which category or, worse, the same pieces in one than more category. LDD helped by removing the most variable part of the sorting process - me! Cheers Rog

I'm really glad that I did it but it's not a small job. I spent some of every day during my Xmas holiday sorting and it did get very tedious at times! I estimate that I spent about 30 hours physically sorting pieces. Add to that another 2-3 hours sorting and indexing the boxes and clearing space in my office for them. Cost-wise, I had some of the 223 small boxes already as these held my smaller sets. I had to buy about 120 of them to complete the sorting. They cost £1 for 10 from the pound shop so about £23 in total. The 2.6l boxes were 99p each from a supermarket's value home care range. The very large boxes were two for £5 on offer at a different supermarket. That's a grand total of 33 hours and £54 which I don't think is a bad job! I've kept them separate from the other pieces. They are roughly sorted as small, medium and large. Cheers Rog

Well, the sorting is now all done. It took a bit longer than expected but it wasn't quite the mission I thought it might be! So, here are the stats: 43,535 pieces sorted into 248 categories 223 x 750ml plastic boxes 16 x 2.6l plastic boxes for the larger categories of pieces 5 x 32l boxes for the really large pieces one of which is for the 409 minifigs who now all live together 2 x Heidrun 16 compartment storage drums for the trans plates/tiles and for minifig tools & weapons The boxes are spread out across a small bookcase, two drawers of a filing cabinet and under desk storage so that all are out of the way day to day. I tried building my first MOC yesterday using the sorted pieces and it was great. Really easy to find the pieces I was looking for. I have also done an index of all the boxes and their contents so that I can find pieces once the sorting is not so fresh in my mind... Only thing I have left to do now is label all the boxes properly - Currently they are just numbered using black marker but I intend to print some labels for them this week. The bookcase: Drawer 1: Drawer 2: Under the desk: The 32l boxes: My build area including the two Heidrun tubs: Cheers Rog

Close up of the door mechanism It consists of a 1x1 brick with handle (inside the coach), two black space skeleton arms, a black light sword blade and a 1x1 brick with a clip (on the door). I did originally have 1x1 bricks with handles in the coach and on the door but changed to the sword blade and brick with clip as it then forms a handrail for passengers. Both doors are identical and work in a very similar way to real doors of this type. Lower deck interior Three chairs and a table. You can just make out the start of the stair case behind the seat on the right. Upper deck interior. You can see where the stair case comes up and the handrails to try and stop minifigures falling down the stairs. Close up of the driver's cab. I worked for a time as a coach driver so I paid particular attention to this area and made sure he had a better seat than the passengers (brown instead of red!), proper instruments (missing from most LEGO vehicles), plenty of space and even a nice sculpted end to the dashboard. Cheers Rog

Thanks Ralph - does mean we'll have less to argue about from now on.... Cheers Rog