Rijkvv

6679-1: Dark Shark [Town, 1991] 6679.mpd Errors: -Stickers on hull sides aren't shown in LDView, but are present.

Great work Tony! While I don't have any American equipment, this locomotive is awesome, both in real as in your model. So maybe I'll buy instructions as well and start building an American layout. There are plenty of pictures at Flickr, just look at the techniques used and use them to make your own British design. In that way, I was able to convert one of Tony's designs into a small Dutch-design freight engine. The fact that it's still a WIP says more about my lack of motivation I guess, but the running gear and overall looks are done.

While it suffered from too many stickers, many of them STAMPs and questionable quality, I have special memories of 8440 Formula Flash. It was my first larger Technic set, and as a Ferrari supporter I was very happy with the red colour scheme. I saw it in the catalog (couldn't figure where the steering was), and a local supermarket had more Technic sets than the toy shops, including this set. After a while I forgot it, but was very happy this turned out to be my birthday present when I got 9. The steering system was a big surprise, and this was the set that teached me how a differential works. Even without the childhood memories, I think this set is good in functions for its size (diff, V6, Flex steering) but also in terms of looks. The Flex looks realistic to me, the idea of using pneumatic tubes as exhausts is great and I think the shape is pretty accurate, better than 8445 and maybe even better than the 8880 alternate. As a Studded lover, in my opinion it's also better in looks than every studless car of course.

The (instructions for the) models from Jennifer will make me bankrupt... these models are too awesome not to build and even if I'm not sure if I will build it (haven't build the Skid Steer loader so far) I have to get the instructions. I consider myself a purist, but I think I can make an exception here. Some parts are simply to complete Lego, not to replace it. The same goes for the BBB train wheels for example.

The recent red passenger train is aimed at children. It has a brick-built nose, and proves IMHO that a modern, realistic-looking train can be built without using big pieces with very little usability. The same for the planes and helicopters. It doesn't even look like LEGO nowadays. Sure, it's what the majority of the customers want, but it's not what I would expect from a building toy. That's an exclusive set. I don't think it's fair to compare a ready to run train with an incomplete train without tracks or motor. The Horizon Express is aimed at AFOLs and, when ready to run, has a much higher price tag. Just my 2 cents.

For some years now I'm not impressed with the typical train sets. LEGO used to release far better stations. The 4554 and 2150 were excellent, as pointed out by nesquik, but I also think the World City one (4513 if I'm correct) was still well-designed, although I prefer the looks of 4554. The passenger train is the worst design since, well, perhaps ever. I was happy the red passenger train had a brick-built nose, but LEGO has to use a prefab nose. And of course it has to be a new mold, the RC train wasn't ugly enough. The platform gets smaller and smaller. On the other hand, I'm somewhat positive about the cargo train. I'm not specially into American trains, but it seems most of the regular available trains are based on European prototypes and it's nice to see a change. The blue colour is something rarely used, so that's great as well. The crane is a nice addition and as mentioned before brings back memories to the 4555 crane. Here it could have been sold seperately, thus reducing the price of the cargo train set, especially since the set has enough play value with the truck and the forklift truck as add-ons. Cargo train sets have been released with less equipment. Three very nice freight cars, but I still don't like the fact that there are no longer seperate cars available. Long blue train baseplates, I don't think they existed in blue until now. Nice!

I can be wrong, but it looks like he modified the switches.

Welcome to Eurobricks Redimus. I can only access my bricks in the weekend. Just looking at the distance of the driver wheels I think it should work, but I think the pony truck needs more clearance. One option is to place it more to the front. Something else you might consider to change is the use of a standard train motor. They are designed for the small wheels, using it for large steam engine wheels will make the engine probably very fast but not very powerful. It can be used with the small wheels in a tender for example.

Just an idea: Use the 2 x 2 turntable on top of the bogie instead of the bogie plate with pin.

I really like the movie Rush, but of these two most recent models the Williams is my favourite. I really like how you manage to make the colour scheme. Besides, the Williams is the closest to how I remember Forula 1 cars from when I grew up. Too bas those rear wheels aren't available in black. But so far, my favourite of all your cars is the McLaren MP 4/4. 1988 was my year of birth, and the year of Ayrton Senna's first world title. Today it's exactly 20 years after his death, in a horrible race weekend which also claimed the life of Roland Ratzenberger. If I don't collect too many sets for my collection and parts for MOCs, I might start collecting parts for this awesome car. Anyhow, to keep up good memories, heres a picture I found: ^This is from the season before RoscoPC's Williams.

One thing you can consider is using slopes (like this one) and build a front panel which is hinged against those slopes. Like Brickshelf user Lostcarpark did here. If you build it that way, it might be easier to create the curve sideways in the front windows.

Do you have pictures?

My deepest condolences and symphaties. God bless, Rijk

Awesome loader and better looking and I think better working than the official LEGO Volvo set! I had to buy instructions for this but I'm not sure which remotes to use, the bigger one for driving and perhaps steering but I think raising and lowering the bucket can be achieved with the smaller remote. I think I prefer the old rims and to me they look nice enough with the yellow wheels. Another solution might be the big yellow sprocket wheel, not sure if it fits on this rim but I've seen them before mounted in this way.

You can't. The Brickshelf staff needs some time to check the pics I guess. You can either wait till they are public, or use the URL from the images themselves (an URL that ends on .jpg or something like that).

Nice work on both functions and looks. This version is an improvement in every way. I would love to see instructions, for some reason I can't comment on Youtube. I was surprised with the receiver, being able to still work well no matter which side of the truck was turned to you.

In addition to that, it also has to do something with the driveshafts. In most tanks, the engine is mount in the rear. When it is front-driven, the driveshafts force the turret to be mount higher, something that can be seen at German and American WW2 designs. Note the difference in height between the front-driven Sherman and rear-driven Pershing for example.

I'm fuzzling about building a tank as well. Something I might try in the future is one of the tracked vehicles from the Thunderbirds, and due to limited space it can be useful to divide the motors to the front left and rear right sprocket. It's not realistic however. If I'm correct the Russian BT tanks were all-wheel driven and if a track was lost could change between skid-steer and regular steering. Sariel, maybe a nice challenge to you?

Aaand it's finished: I had the intention to make some more pictures during the building progress, but couldn't stop building. Wow. The most complicated official sets are reduced to simple starter sets by this creation. I checked the drivelines if everything moved well, but I couldn't check the pneumatic connections since the remote wasn't finished. And if I had to change something underneath... But now everything works as it should. Connecting the flex tube to the slopes and hinge, at the driver's cabin, was a pain in the a**, but it's fixed now. The connections at the controller were not immediately clear to me. By try and error, or what's it called, I managed to fix the pneumatic tubes to the right connectors (due to the complexity inside the model, I only labeled them 1-6, not functions) and then the electric cable from the battery box was left. I couldn't figure out where it was meant to go, but it works where I put it (on top of the white electric plate, as can be seen in the first picture). Thanks for the tip. I used a similar tool, it was really useful. Many thanks to Jennifer and Eric. This thing is marvellous, both in terms of functions and looks.

(bump) As a fan of the old studded approach I had to buy instructions for this. I didn't immediately collect the parts needed, but every now and then I took a look at Bricklink to see if there was a shop that had more than a few of the rare black 40t gears to offer. About a month ago I found a shop that had eight of them, and I realized this would be the best opportunity if I ever wanted to build the model. It turned out to be the shop of Jennifer herself, and as a result I could reduce the number of necessary orders to a few. Yesterday was a rainy day, the perfect weather to build LEGO. So I took a start, and this is the result so far: What I like about the building process is that a fair number of parts is included in every step, just like how I remember it from the official TECHNIC sets from the 90s.

You need to give your address, does that mean a bill is sent?

What do you mean with Model Team scale? The 5580 would be roughly at scale 1:25, the 5571 is obviously built at a larger scale.

The smoke deflectors are great indeed. The fire seems strange, but watching the trailer it makes sense. Never watched the movie, perhaps I should. Wat did yoju use as buffers?

"This project has been removed for not following the Guidelines." As one of the supporters, I'm curious which guideline it violated.

I'm glad to hear that. Few MOCs these days lack power functions, but a good MOC don't need those. I think this looks good enough.