Diamondback

I'm gonna be upgunning mine. Pirate ships could move cannons around easily enough, but with how big, how wide and how cramped the gun-decks on a ship of the line were, the cannons on either side were pretty much limited to a small degree of aiming and a fair amount of recoil for movement--there wouldn't be enough space to swap them across the ship while preparing for battle, or even while underway. You'd have to completely clear all personnel and supplies off the deck then move 'em one at a time--are you up for attempting an off-Broadway production once the captain calls "Battle Stations"? 'Cause I'm not, and I imagine most navies doctrines and procedures of the time weren't either...

You're playing in 10-wide now, too?! EEEEEEEEEEEK! In all seriousness, welcome to the Big Leagues...

Okay, LEGO--I am appeased, you just kept me around as a customer another couple years. Nicely done! And on top of that, historical comparison very accurate relative to BB--pirate ships were generally small, fast and maneuverable, like little 1-masted sloops. If BB equals the LEGO version of Queen Anne's Revenge (all-time record for single-ship Pirate firepower), 10210 is a good approximation of a typical warship relative to that. I missed the last round of Pirates "Legends"--there are three things going forward Q4 '09 and Q1 '10 if I have to eat Top Ramen all year to pay for it: this, a Saiga-12 and finishing my 20th Century Limited. Now all we need is a shipboard cannons six-pack to complete this and BB...

Three words: BREACH OF CONTRACT. Also, if LEGO designs are too close to Brand X's, two more: COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. Disney owns the POTC IP, but the overall engineering they did for their products is still owned by Brand X. CCA, what's your legal ed. like? I did several Law classes in college, plus a few back in [voice=El Rushbo]haaagh-screwel[/voice]. Disney may have licensed Lego to use a lot of their IP, but unless they've specifically served Brand X with a Notice of Termination, they're setting up a conflict and a breach-of-contract suit. Really, we'd have to see the contracts to know what all is or is not included, and those are probably under lock and key in Billund and LA, never to be seen by the likes of us Mere Peon Customers.

They'd have to be ccareful, though... many of these were already done by [unmentionable Competitor] when they had the POTC license, which may be grounds for a copyright-infringement suit, in addition to the legal question of whether or not that license and its doubtlessly-there exclusivity clause are still in effect. Sorry, I'm not seein' LEGO sail into shark-infested waters without making sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed first.

2009: Complete. Previous: I'll get back to you... but the biggest set I bagged in Old School was the Renegade Runner.:( ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - Imperial Starfleet Deployed - City in the Clouds via FoxyTunes

LEGO could one-up Lucas with an accurate Pan Am Clipper, either (my preference) the big Boeing 314 or the (better fit timewise) Martin M-130 as opposed to the postwar Short Solent in the film. If they release a set of the Zeppelin, I'd expect its size to be achieved by brick and plate girders and gondola with a mostly-fabric exterior and possibly SNOT endcaps. (We're cool with fabric tents, capes, sails and vehicle ragtops, why not a Zeppelin skin which also was fabric in reality?) Complication: passenger space on most of the commercial Zeppelins was in the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the "cigar", in a short area around midships. (I have a 1/720-scale Hindenburg on my workbench, and the observation deck windows look like they're about 1/4 of the way up the side.) But... It needs to be big enough to hook the bipe from Fighter Plane Attack to its belly.

Let's put it this way, with Pirates dead Indy is now the only thing keeping me from doing what my mentor the old fighter-jock called "Pulling the Loud Handle" and sending LEGO a "Dear John" letter--a thirty-year relationship's gonna be one heck of a breakup...:eek: ---------------- Now playing: John Barry - 009 Gets The Knife And Gobinda Attacks via FoxyTunes

Don't recall if it's active, lapsed or terminated, but tht other building-block company had the POTC license last I knew... so unless it's terminated, LEGO POTC would be breach-of-contract time. Classic all the way--I'm so sick of Jack Sparrow & Co. I could use the minifigs to replace pop-cans on the rail for target practice...

Usually called "Redshirts" or "Cannon Fodder". lol ---------------- Now playing: Jerry Goldsmith - The Tank via FoxyTunes

Almost?! I got Task Force 34 locked 'n' loaded out on the battle-line, with 16-inchers ready to rumble... and TF 38 carrier airstrikes ready to launch. (Sorry, I'm a WWII miniatures guy in one of my other lives, and I'm working on trying to build an accurate depiction of Admiral Halsey's entire force at Cape Engano, so I'm in major-geekout mode ATM.) I expect an exercise in futility, but add the name of the Northwestern Diamondback to the list.

[snark]Does the development team all have ADHD? Granted, a lot of consumers do, and a significant portion of the American public-education system's product couldn't focus if even just five minutes of it'd save their souls... "Ooh! ShinyThing! MeWantMeWANTMEWANTMEWANTMEWANT!!!!" two minutes later... "OMG! NewShinyThing!GottaHaveItGotaHaveItGOTTAHAVEIT!!!" *shakes head* Never underestimate the power of SPILN... [/snark]

Another question to LEGO: Why should I ever get excited about any new theme, seeing as there's at best a 50/50 chance of it being supported beyond one release?

I'm in.

Color me cynical... I've played the "battered wife" way too many times before (WizKids Games, US Republican Party, Wizards of the Coast) to be anything else. I'm starting to ask myself if LEGO really wants my continued business as an "all-in", multi-thousand-dollar-per-year customer/revenue-stream... I'm sure I could put the money just as easily into my gun collection (have my eye on a couple really nice WWII Garands) or model railroading... or even that R/C model of Jake's A-6 from Flight of the Intruder. Pity, they were doing some neat stuff too: this Pirates, the minifig Venator and Imperial star destroyers, the Flying Wing... unfortunately, no matter what the business, it seems almost all eventually take their longtime customers for granted. Believe me, this is not easy to say, as someone who's spent three decades involved with LEGO... just thinking it hurts.

Yeah, if we're talkin' my 10-wide, true scale length 70-to-85-stud-long four- or six-axles I'm designing (details vary by individual car), I'd be surprised if two 9v motors would even move ONE.

True, Mark, but when you have light rails that can only take so much weight, the A1A-A1A distributes its weight over more rail area. The increased tractive weight, IIRC, was part of why GM recommended steam-generator-equipped F-units rather than E-units for mountain operations like in the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada. (And the only reason Great Northern and Milwaukee Road got by with E's was they had electrics pulling the E's and their attached trains over the worst of the Rockies...)

So, I just finished building 7198, and I'm looking at the German fighter (which is more realistic than the bird in the movie, this one looks like it's trying to be a semi-scale Me109), and something doesn't look quite right. Examining what I know of WWII aircraft indicates no swept-wing tractor-propellor planes aside from the pushme-pullyou Do335, only straight or tapered, with the taper being typically either similar front/back like the Spitfire, or all-in-back like the Me109 and SB2C Helldiver. Checking drawings of an Me109, the wings are too far back--most WWII front-engine birds had most of their weight way upfront in that engine-block, which means a forward center of gravity, which means the center of lift and thus the wings must be similarly forward on the airframe. Solution: reverse and relocate the wings, but keep the existing attach-points for that great Indy explodey goodness. Step one: remove wing from weapons-rack and mounting-block; step two: move weapons-rack two studs forward; step three: mount former right wing on left rack/block assembly, aligning rear of 6x12 plate with rear of rack (yes, this leaves a two-stud by one-plate hole at the rear of the block); step four: repeat with right block, right rack and former left wing. MLCAD rendering, since I don't have my camera ATM: Old left wing with LEGO-designed incorrect backsweep in back, MOD'ed wing with correct straight leading-edge in front/on the right. (Note: cannon and flick-missiles not shown.) You might like it, you might not, either way posted for your consideration.

Advantages: more pulling power, longer motor life. Disadvantages: slower speed, less juice to each motor. (Even if you firewall it to WOT, a power-pack can only pump so much volt-amperage into the rails--unless you build your own, and that could get dangerous playing with high voltage.) That said, all my big 10-wide designs for 9v are at least 2-motor (some steamers 3, 8-axle diesels like DD35's, C855s and DD40AX's have 4).

Sorry about the double-tap, but here it is: Two Technic bricks with half-pins along the roof and frame join the SNOT to the otherwise-conventional carbody. Door slides over a SNOT plate/tile recess, and is held at either end by the bricks of the surrounding carbody. A prototype, tested off-car: Final version, partial-exploded view: On this view, I've raised the upper track relative to the structure, and slid the door off the lower track into where the left-side bodywork would be. (Rest of 10-wide 40' boxcar omitted for visibility.) Note: I still need to work out details like latches.

Suggestion: should we maybe note in the registry who's using what scales? As in: ->6-wide ->8-wide ->10-wide ->~1/40 exact (10-wide and longer-length)

Possible--around Seattle, though, almost all I see are fives and spines--typically also in fives IIRC. Although I see that both NSC and Gunderson have triples in the catalog... As a matter of fact, I reverse-engineered the existing sections to come up with mid-units shortly after it released. Gimme a little time and I'll screencap the new center-units and complete string in MLCAD, once I finish screenie-ing a boxcar door...

The entire door and top/bottom-tracks are SNOT, using railed plates top and bottom and slotted bricks. If you saw the lateral-motion bolster I posted for SavatheAggie's consideration in "Registry", it's kinda like a bigger, on-its-side version of the center of that. Gimme a couple days, and I'll see about coming up with an exploded view of just the door system.

Still in progress and 10-wide, but inspired by Cale's reefer I took this stab at an NYC 174xxx-series Pacemaker Freight Service boxcar: Design notes: I try to use a few big pieces rather than a lot of little ones wherever I can to save weight, and the "panel" sections are where the NYC herald, "Pacemaker" logo and the reporting marks would be placed. If anyone wants to offer feedback, I'd love to have it; if you want the (unfinished) LDraw file, PM and I'll get it to ya.

Sign me up, too, even though all I have are the Super Chief F7A and the TTX Doublestack (which is really incomplete, the shortest TTX articulated I know of is a five-unit--I have an MLCAD design for this, PM if interested). My game, though, is designing near-scale, 10-wide models of the great "name trains" from America's "Golden Age" of passenger Rail. SavatheAggie, I actually have a 10-wide Dreyfuss Hudson (digital, with some placeholders as LDraw doesn't have full 6-wide discs and I don't know how to custom-paint parts in it yet, nor does it have a "chrome" color that I need) in the pipeline, and if I can find a Zip drive for a decent price a 10-wide T1 was in the works during my college days. (Helpful hint: in addition to articulation and pivot-points, you might also consider lateral-motion devices*, things that let each wheelset move across the frame as it takes a curve.) *Like, say, this little gizmo allowing lateral-motion on a 9v power-truck: ---------------- Now playing: John Williams - The German Sub/To The Nazi Hideout via FoxyTunes