davidroberts01341

Thank you both. I think that these curved structures might be a theme for me for this summer. I'm still working out what I can do with them and have just bought a load more 1x2 bricks! Hitchhikers is a constant theme in my backstories. I love Douglas Adams' absurd view of sci-fi, which is a genre that can take itself far too seriously at times.

I like this because it reminds me of the sort of machines that featured on the covers of sci-fi books and things like the Terran Trade Authority in the 1970s. I can imaging it streaking across alien deserts at high speed, though perhaps not being too good at turning I like the details, such as the fold out steps at each doorway and how you've made the front and back tracks different configurations. This looks strongly built and fun to play with, as well as being an interesting and unusual machine: nice one!

Thank you! I'm often inspired by 1970s book cover art by artist such as Angus McKie, Peter Elson and Chris Foss. In this case, the pattern of the stripes was partly dictated by slope bricks I had to make the edge of the saucer. I like opening panels too and wish that I could have fitted more into this ship, without compromising its structure.

Y Soser Hedfan by David Roberts, on Flickr Y Soser Hedfan translates into English as The Flying Saucer. It was used as a single-seat space racer, suitable for operating in planets' atmospheres and deep space. Millennia after alien space pirates had terrorised the galaxy in ships such as The Jaws of Death, their blue and yellow striped spacecraft were famous as some of the fastest space racers. These ships would race both in and out of planets' atmospheres at incredible speeds. In those days, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. The requirement for atmospheric performance led ships in this category to be streamlined and have lifting bodies and/or wings. Other examples included ships such as the Furias and the Tangerine Dream. This led to vessels being very smooth and free of the "greebles" much beloved of spaceship spotters, floating around in their zero-g anoraks. Y Soser Hedfan by David Roberts, on Flickr By the time of , the aliens had been in contact with the spacemen of Classic Space for many years. They had begun to adopt many of the spacemen's habits, including a love of tea and biscuits. Inevitably this led to the consumption of items such as rich teas, custard creams and even garibaldis in the cockpit. After a terrible crumb triggered pilot induced oscillation, it became normal to hoover out the pilot's position after each flight.This last photo shows a dejected Crumb Removal Operative (Vacuum 2nd Class), setting off for his second task of the day: cleaning out the stalls of the kidnapped cows. The high suction power of the hoovering machines often led to horrific accidents, with the mangled bovines being returned to Earth. FOURTH WALL This is the first MOC that I've posted onto Eurobricks. I think that I've read the various posting rules and tutorials but I've committed any faux pas, please do let me know.

I really like this ship. Classic black Blacktron, with just right amount of yellow. I like how long and graceful it looks too. In the thread, you mentioned that you don't like the engines much. I'd say that they're basic but that is very faithful to the original theme and keep them. I like the texture, made of wing plates, behind the cockpit.

Doing what I did places no more stress on the bricks than using the 1x2 "log" bricks that you mention. The amount of stress in the system is a function of how tightly you bend/curve it. If you define "legal" as being anything that LDD will allow you to do, then this technique is "legal". Have a look at this excellent example of a spaceship that uses the technique: http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/385783 which went on to be built in real bricks: Michael has made other ships using this technique. In terms of the precision of the curve, brickbending curves are pretty fixed. Curves made using multiple hinges are essentially 4 or 5 or 6 or 7... bar linkages. Unless you use stiff hinges, they will deform/sag with load (especially if you want to swoosh your spaceship!). This is also true of brickbending type structures, with the 1x2 bricks essentially forming a whole series of hinges. However, their range of movement is very limited and each "hinge" is very stiff. As you can tell, I'm quite a fan of the technique. I just wish that I had more bricks, as it's a technique which gobbles up pieces at an alarming rate. Thinking of the maximum bending that you can produce, the answer is a lot tighter than in the prototype that I built for illustration. You could tighten the curve by either making the props longer or by removing bricks from the arc or by doing both. There are loads of examples on this blog: http://www.brickbending.com/ This is an example of something I made using the technique, though here the arcs aren't very tight: https://flic.kr/p/yrM7fo This discussion has made me think. I like the eye shape and would have liked to have made a "Ulysses" ship (was the cartoon called different things in different countries? I'm in the UK.) before but couldn't work out how to get the shape. Thank you for inspiring me to experiment! Unfortunately, nearly every white 1x2 brick I have went into that prototype, so I'd need to buy a few more bricks first and I'm trying to stay away from Bricklink for a while...

Your reply set me thinking. I've been playing with brick building techniques as a way to incorporate curves into panels on spaceships. I made a prototype to better explain my comments about your ship. I've tried doing brick bending in LDD, without success but I've seen LDD builds which use it, so it is possible. I hope that this is useful food for thought! I'm new to this forum and haven't been able to include the photo in this comment, so here's a link to it: http://imgur.com/HIsVfLA or http://imgur.com/a/B3NUX

Instantly recognisable and a beautiful image too. I think that you're right about how structurally sound it might be in real bricks. Another problem might be getting those nice, smooth curves. Have you thought about using the "brick bending" technique to get the curve, with hinges at each end? There'd still be the same problem of propping the arcs apart but they'd potentially be smoother and stronger.

What an excellent ship, base and lighting in the photography. I like your use of X-Pods for the cockpit and the Death Star 1/2 for the belly of the craft.

Hi, My name is David Roberts. I've been active on MOCpages ( http://www.mocpages.com/home.php/90763 ) for few years, including running the Classic Space Pocket Money Contests with David Alexander Smith. You can find me on ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidroberts01341/ ) Flickr too. I tend to build colourful spacecraft and Classic Space MOCs, though I've experimented with Technic Power Functions too. My MOCs have been featured on The Lego Car Blog, The Brothers Brick and Bricknerd, amongst other blogs. I'm not quite sure how Eurobricks works but I suppose that the journey of discovery starts here! If anybody can point me towards a thread that explains how to format comments on these forums, I'd be very grateful. I've tried using the link button but it just crashes my browser!