Seasider

Doc would approve Would be interested to see this as a non-tracked model too side question how do you import cad files ? And can it be done into Stud.io too as I use that as I’m on a Mac

Has anyone built a vertical stand (not wall mounted), for displaying this or the Williams? I’m thinking something mainly Technic structure using the 2 connection points of the original stand. Ideally with the nose pointing down. Not got much shelf space so want to maximise what I can display

You can get tracked “wheelbarrows” too. lots of things have tracked variants

I’m ok with the snowmobile. It’s not got wheels in contact with the ground so in my head is valid.

Oooh a new contest … unfortunately lots of busy weekends and lots of official Lego sets to build so I’ll most probably have an idea, start a thread and not finish building it. 🤣 I do still have my Power Loom in pieces on my desk, which I do want to complete at some stage. Might try and do something small and easy for this, and not post unless I get close to completion. PS already have an idea what I want to do. Also assume a few others are likely to create it too.

Well done all

So it’s been a month since my last update as I’ve been busy with lots of other stuff and not had time to work on the loom. Plus I’ve reached a head scratching moment, but more of that later. My first distraction was Bricktastic in Manchester, I go every year and it’s a great show if you get a chance. This year it had got even bigger and it was nice to see a few displays of Lego collections (classic space, ninjago, technic) and not just MOCs. There was also someone selling vintage Lego sets and I picked up this beauty. Last year I’d decided to collect the “classic cars” and I’d thought I had them all until I saw this in the technic display and luckily the seller had one! I could have spent a lot of money on that stall as he had a Space Shuttle and also a Space Monorail too! Thankfully I held off temptation. So back to the Loom. I’ve been working on the shuttle firing mechanism and my initial problem wa how to get the firing arm to return to its original position. A lot of the looms I’ve seen have a spring in tension, which we don’t have in technic. First I had this but found the shock was resisting a lot. So I simplified it and I’ve got this which primarily relies on the weight naturally pulling it back to the right. Note the rubber connector to act as a bumper too. I then tried to work on the mechanism to “activate” this. Looking at some looms I found something like this… But it’s not working as efficiently as I want so I’m back to the head scratching at the moment and taking some time out to build some F1 cars. I’ve been watching some more loom videos and the problem they often don’t linger on a part of the loom long enough to work out the mechanism. I might need a trip up to the National Trust Mill to make my own video! Also it doesn’t help when they’re poorly lit rooms and made of black cast iron! so I finished of by adjusting the frame yet again and this is the current iteration. So some progress but not as much as I’d like. Any advice on how to do the activation of the shuttle firing arm is most appreciated. Remember I’m trying to have it all linked off a single drive. @nico71 I was hoping you’d find my thread at some stage. I’ve watched your loom videos a few times for inspiration. My plan has always been to slowly add bits and get them to work and then modify and repeat. So once I’ve got a shuttle to fly across I was then going to step by step add the thread and adjust as I go. My ideal goal is to try and get something to run at a fast speed like a real loom. Who knows if it’s possible, but that’s the goal.

Just voted, some great entries. Well done all

I’m a long way off so don’t wait for me. 🤣

This weeks update … I placed a minifigure on the top to give you some scale. Most of this week has been building the axle supports in the middle for the cams and lever arms. Some idiot (me) decided to put the axle nearest the camera on a half stud offset in 2 axes ! Which caused a lot of pain. The rest of my time has been adding a few more brace pieces. Then I felt like testing it properly, up until this time I’ve only cranked the gears by hand. So here we go … Yes it works, looks like I need to do some tweaks on the amount of chain and the liftarms that connect to the lever arms. But happy to see it running at speed. No update next weekend as there’s a Lego show I’m off to on Sunday.

This weeks update … The frame on the left is basically what you saw last week (plus a minor update). On the right is where I am now … Why? Well I worked out I needed more movement in frames that go up/down, so I made them larger. Then I moved them relative to the drive cam, by moving the axle that was loose in the last update. This had to be mounted at a half stud offset vertically. Then from all this I worked out I needed to lift everything up which I could have done with just stacking some liftarms under the frame. But instead I took it all apart and moved the gear system up by 2 studs. And so I’ve ended with the right hand frame. I've since made the other side and I’ve started work on the supports for the axles that go for the arms and cams. But ran out of time today. Definitely not going to make the deadline now but will be doing regular work on this as I’d love to see it working properly.

Update from me … Might not look like much but there have been lots of little updates. Had some Bricklink orders in so tidied the frame and also changed the cams. I’ve widened the whole thing so now it’s an odd number of studs across the middle and I’ve started to add some supporting structures to stop the axles flexing too much across the the width. For the keen eyes you’ll notice there’s a loose axle as I need to remount and put supports on this as it’s flexing too much but I think that’s partially down to the new larger cams. You’ll also notice I’ve added the place holder for the fore/aft arm. Not sure when next update is due to stuff going on.

It’s limited edition “halo” status

The problem with top 10 (etc) lists is they’re always skewed/biased. Firstly it depends on who has voted on these, if you took a review of an item off somewhere like Amazon you’d see people would either vote high or low, they either love of hate it there’s hardly ever ratings in the middle as those people can’t be bothered to rate the item. The second thing that happens is recent items are fresher in your mind, often the case with film/tv/music lists. And most importantly I’ve found by having this as a hobby for so long that people like different aspects of the Technic theme so wouldn’t have the same Top Set … I don’t have many pneumatic or motor driven sets as that’s not what I’m into. But from your lists I’d say the second is a better list as it gets rid of the anomaly of the McLaren P1, personally I think the Sian is the best “UCS” Supercar so far. But I’d have liked 8860, 41999 and 42069 to have been on there.

All I know is at least seasons 1-3 are leaving the UK in about 11-12 days time. The first 3 seasons were made by the Syfy channel and the other 3 by Amazon, some I’m hoping season 4 onwards stays. I’ve just started season 3 so need to watch at least 1 per day! back on topic … As to the chains, I thought they seemed more interesting than using string, plus also easier to get the same length

So an update from me. Haven’t been able to do much on this recently until yesterday (Sunday) when I had a solid 4 hours available to build. Work and life as usual have got in the way, and trying to watch The Expanse before it’s removed from Amazon! So this is what my productive Sunday gave me … So this is the gear set integrated into a frame and the first mechanism placed. And it works like this … https://youtube.com/shorts/-k3KDrkfLfQ?si=r08DPeFPfkxXTt9f All the red pins are just temporary place holders at the moment. Next tasks: Add the next mechanism - the “back/forth” one Add some more bracing / support The big problem is I already know I’m going to be tight to the deadline on this. This coming weekend I’m busy sorting out my car and a few other things. But this is definitely something I’ll finish even if it’s after the submission date.

2:1 gear setup worked out thanks to a video by “Technic Brick Power” on YouTube. Hopefully will have a chance to build this into a frame a position some of the cams etc.

Because I’m after maximising the space between the axles without needing more gears. So that’s why I’m looking at the larger potential gear combinations.

Just a small update from me. Work has been busy this week, first week back post Christmas and New Year, so haven’t had much build time. I’ve spent a lot of it watching various videos of looms, some full size, some desktop to understand their workings and also I’m waiting on a Bricklink order for some parts to help my progress. So todays update won’t show much. firstly a random collection of mechanisms I’ve been playing about with. and then second I’ve been trying to start on some positioning of stuff and working out how everything is linked from the videos I’ve seen and so this is very much a WIP concept to play with. one thing I’ve got from this design is the cams for both the “up/down” of the threads and the “firing” of the shuttle both run off the same shaft. And the “back/forth” of the shuttle carriage runs off at I’m guessing half the speed of the cam-shaft. I’ve done a google on how to get a 2:1 gear ratio and it gave me 2 options either using a 20/40 or a 28/56(turntable). But I can’t work out how to space the 28/56 to get it to mesh correctly. @JamiesBrickJams - any advice on where errors often occur? I’m thinking this may be a bigger challenge than I realise !

So perhaps a bit of an explanation first. I live in a small town with a lot of history in England, so as soon as I saw what @Jim was after I knew I’d want to create a historical machine. I thought about a printing press, I thought about a steam engine (without the steam of course) and then I thought about the history of where I live. The town used to have a Mill, it was originally a Corn Mill and then got converted to a Cotton Mill. It was originally powered by water but then in its later years steam. Unfortunately the mill is long gone, but it took me down the route of Mills and the Industrial Revolution. So the plan is to build a Power Loom and ideally a representation of the Lancashire Loom, see my pic below, invented by Bullough and Kenworthy in 1842. I don’t live in Lancashire before you ask, but I do live near to where these looms were used. They truly were a marvel of the industrial age, once I find a good video I’ll post a link too. My idea is to try and replicate the mechanism as closely as possible. I’m obviously not going to be able to have the same number of threads as the real loom and I think I’m going to have challenges with gear sizes so may have to use chains to connect gears if they need to be spaced apart. But the plan is to replicate the essence of the machine. I’m aware @nico71 has already created a superb example. I hope mine can at least meet my expectations. The loom has 3 basic operations: Shedding - dividing the lines of thread - an up and down motion Picking - projecting the shuttle to the other side - perhaps the most complex as I need to “fire” something from one side to the other Beating-up - compacting the cloth - a pushing motion I’ve started so far by building some of the basic mechanisms in the Loom, and hopefully once back at work a colleague has told me they have some more photos and videos to help me on top of the ones I’ve got myself and from YouTube. I’ve got a bit of the Shedding and Beating mechanisms here plus the mechanism for keeping the cloth taught once it’s formed. Once I’ve built the basic mechanisms it’s then a process of working out how they all link together to run, this runs off a single input belt! Hope to do weekly updates on this, enjoy.

I know I exactly what I want to build, something that has some relevance for where I live in the world. But I’m aware I can’t “put my towel down” and create a thread without any progress. So it won’t be till the new year for me posting here as now off visiting family for Christmas. Im also hoping a work colleague will send us some photos and videos of the device in action which will help me to work out how it all runs. Have a good Christmas everyone

I’d go with the no animal rule … save that for its own competition

Could use wheels or gears for the keys instead

So are you going to significantly change the mechanism inside ?

I’m not aware of how this set works in its standard form but if your images above are of the standard set it looks like the mechanism is already technic? And it’s just system pieces for the “box”