davee123

Back in the day ('90s), you needed to have a storefront, and I believe you needed to buy a certain cross-theme sampling of their products. So you couldn't buy JUST train sets (if you were a toy train shop), or something similar. Basically, you had to represent the LEGO brand in a certain way. That all changed in the early 2000's, though. LEGO started catering more to large chain retailers like Toys R Us, WalMart, Target, etc., and actively reduced the number of hours that sales staff worked with smaller stores (not sure if that involved cutting staff or just re-assigning staff). I'm not sure what (if any) requirements changed for retailers, but I do know that small retailers were pretty much screwed in terms of getting "new" stuff. They were forced into being a few months behind all the large-scale vendors :( DaveE

I guess without more information I'm suspicious of your communication with LEGO. Was this over the phone? Email? Were pictures provided to or from LEGO? From the sounds of it, my off-handed guess is that they may have thought you meant something like this: Or some other wacky element. Describing pieces is pretty tricky, numbers are easily transposable and typoable, not to mention bizarre confusion between LEGO "Design ID"s and "Part Number"s, and confusion between the (seemingly) 3 different types of set numberings that LEGO has (usually when it comes to promo items). Heck, it could even have been a set that LEGO canceled and never wound up producing. It seems suspicious to me that a part would be in a set from 2001, and yet continue to be "in production" until 2006 if it were never used in another set from 2002-2006. Further, between BrickLink, BrickSet, Peeron, and LUGNET, it seems unlikely that a set would slip between the cracks for so long. Sets from the past couple years occasionally surface, but generally somebody turns one up and adds it to BrickLink. Personally, from where I stand, I doubt the credibility of what LEGO told you. I expect they either misunderstood, made a mistake, or their database is technically correct, but not accurate with reality (IE, an unreleased set, or a set made exclusively at LEGOLAND (which isn't typically even in LEGO's databases), or some other bizarrity). DaveE

Longest LEGO element might be the 3-meter long 9v wire! DaveE

Using them, no. Selling them? Possibly. ... It's just that 99.99% of the time, it's probably not. The issue isn't really with the patent that LEGO has on the system product, or the re-sale of physical LEGO products, but more in regards to their trademark, and their copyright. But it's certainly not patent infringement, that's true. Say (for example) I decided to make a sexual aid out of LEGO bricks, with the LEGO studs (with their logo-displaying studs) prominently visible, and made it look like a licensed product with fancy-looking plastic packaging, and further used a similar-but-not-exact version of the LEGO logo. Effectively, the product is VERY INTENTIONALLY packaged to look like a LEGO product, similar to the digital camera that's currently on the market (which was done with LEGO's blessing). ... Except it's a sexual aid instead, which is probably morally offensive to many people. Now, is that legal? Certainly arguable in court! And you can bet that if LEGO caught wind of that, they might try to make you stop-- either by forcing you to put a disclaimer on there, forcing you to change the packaging, the product, or the similar-looking logo, or just get you to stop all together. And I expect, it's possible that they could succeed in such a lawsuit, assuming that you did everything humanly possible to make it LOOK like a LEGO product, without directly violating their copyright, and refused to budge on any request that LEGO made. The question of "is it legal?" is, unfortunately, a bad question, since this gets into things like copyright infringement and slander. There are probably a TON of products out there that COULD be forcibly removed from the market if certain copyright holders decided one day to go nuts and vehemently protect their copyright or their "good name". It's just that most of the time, companies don't care about small things like this, it would cost them lots of legal fees to pursue them, and there's a good chance they'd actually LOSE the court case in many instances, depending on the circumstances (since there's a lot of vagueries in there). And just for clarity's sake, I'm pretty sure that's a reflection of US law-- internationally it could be a different story. There are countries with very loose (if extant) copyright/trademark regulations, where it'd be perfectly legal to go right ahead and slap the LEGO logo on your product. DaveE

Unless you count train track, of course! Then it's probably some of the "Ultimate Track Sets" which are easily more than 4 feet in certain dimensions. DaveE

It's illegal if you make them look "too much" like official LEGO products, or otherwise infringe on LEGO's copyright. So, LEGO would have to demonstrate in court that your products were too much like their own product, or violated their copyrighted material. You probably DON'T look like an official LEGO product, so they most likely wouldn't win such a case to start with, and what's more, it's doubtful that they would care anyway. They MIGHT come after you if they think you're getting too much market share that they would otherwise get (not likely), or if you're doing something offensive that they think might be damaging their reputation. DaveE

Just as a reminder to myself how annoying the forums were, I posted yesterday, answering someone about ZNAP. Of course, my original reply was around 900 characters, which I then had to annoyingly pair down to 600 characters before it was accepted. There were no replies when I posted, but now my reply shows up, along with replies from the 16th. So, ballpark 3-day turnaround time before a message is moderated? And FWIW, how my post's content was moderated: Before I paired it down to under 600 from 900, I also had a quick comment about when ZNAP was active, an extra sentence about how the line was axed by LEGO, and another line about how BrickLink works. I find it interesting that they removed the URL to BrickLink, but left in the actual word "BrickLink". I expect they probably don't want any links to outside URLs, but don't mind a textural reference to other sites (since I was allowed to say both "eBay" and "BrickLink"). I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they took out the line referring to the fact that ZNAP wasn't well received by the market, but I did try to sound at least somewhat less harsh than one might otherwise have expected. DaveE

The purpose is to get kids to buy LEGO. Essentially, it's for kids to develop a closer association with the LEGO brand. Kids *want* to interact with other kids-- they want to talk about the latest sets and what ideas they want to see LEGO do, as well as all the things they're doing at home with their LEGO. So, the LEGO forums give them a LEGO-branded environment in which to do this. If they didn't have the LEGO.com boards, where else are they going to post? Most fan-operated boards don't allow kids under 13, thanks to COPPA regulations, so your typical 10-year-old kid is left without a place to chat up the fact that he'd like to see a LEGO Iron Man set or something. The thinking is that the fact that they're on the LEGO website makes kids: 1) feel a closer connection to the brand 2) more likely to explore other areas of the site, increasing their desire for other LEGO products 3) more likely to share the experience with their friends, drawing a larger audience LEGO isn't really interested in meaningful content or anything-- that's totally secondary. And as such, there's a bigger focus on stripping out or toning down anything negative, so as to avoid potential negative association with the brand. So it's not really a place for hobbyists. It's for kids. What I think is more annoying is the fact that they even *have* a "Parents" discussion area. It's moderated MUCH more slowly (or, it was the last time I tried to use it), and if it similarly strips off many iffy-or-negative replies, it's doing a pretty big disservice to anyone that's actually using it for informational purposes (IE real parents). Plus the fact that you're limited to a pathetic 600 characters per post, which forces potentially informative replies to absurd brevity. That's in contrast to the kids' areas, where the purpose is fun, not information. DaveE

Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Pilgrim Type of headgear: Classic buckle hat Type of facial expression: Stern, flat Color on torso/legs: Black, dark brown Accessory: Turkey leg? Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Organ Grinder Type of headgear: Bowler? Type of facial expression: Happy Color on torso/legs: Bright Colors Accessory: Organ & Monkey? Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Train Conductor Type of headgear: Kepi or Cop hat Type of facial expression: Happy Color on torso/legs: Blue Accessory: Bell? ("All aboard!") Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Farmer Type of headgear: Cowboy/Fedora Type of facial expression: Hick-ishly happy Color on torso/legs: Drab Accessory: Pitchfork! Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Chef Type of headgear: Chef hat Type of facial expression: Pleasant Color on torso/legs: White Accessory: Rolling pin, spoon, or otherwise Gender: Male Occupation/print on torso: Barber Type of headgear: Trim male hair Type of facial expression: Devilishly happy Color on torso/legs: White Accessory: Scissors Gender: Female Occupation/print on torso: Waitress Type of headgear: Ponytail Type of facial expression: Happy Color on torso/legs: Dark Accessory: Platter, mugs Gender: Female Occupation/print on torso: Princess Type of headgear: Tall princess hat Type of facial expression: Condescending Color on torso/legs: Pastel-- pink, green, blue Accessory: ? Gender: Female Occupation/print on torso: Veterinarian Type of headgear: Ponytail Type of facial expression: Happy Color on torso/legs: White Accessory: Cat, dog Gender: Female Occupation/print on torso: Amazon Warrior Type of headgear: Ponytail Type of facial expression: Teeth Gritted-Angry Color on torso/legs: Gold or metallic Accessory: Spear, Shield DaveE

My point is basically is that it's not necessarily the fault of some lazy programmer (though it could be). In my time as a web developer, I have fought hard against various mandates from above because they're stupid-- but sometimes, even though you tell management adamantly "No, that's a terrible idea, here's a better one", they go ahead and command you to do the terrible thing instead, and then you have no choice but to do it. Anyway, I wouldn't go blaming the programmers right away-- unless there's reason to believe that they're the ones who actually came up with the idea. More realistically, blame whoever is in charge of the LEGO website, for letting this happen. EXACTLY. If you've GOT moderators, use them. If you want to invent some hair-brained scheme to prevent swears from getting into usernames, you're going to have problems. It's VERY hard to make this smart enough to be 99% effective and at the same time be subtle enough to mostly just affect people trying to abuse the system. DaveE

As a programmer, I have to disagree. It's a lot more difficult to verify that something, when seen by humans, will be interpreted in a particular way. In order to notice that "icumonyou" is bad versus "cucumber", which is good, you'd have to recognize that "cucubmer" is a word, and "icumonyou" is not. Now, while that might be feasible, what about someone who tries to use "cucumbor" or some other misspelling? Or other "innocent" things like "FinnishIthican", or people's names which don't have to be words at all? In short, it's REALLY difficult to do this task automatically-- I can't blame LEGO's programmers. I blame management. As a programmer, I would try to explain how ludicrously impossible it is to filter out bad words AT ALL. But when management doesn't get it, they may still force you to do it anyway. I'm sure some higher-up DEMANDED that they disallow a list of swear words from usernames, and the grunt programmers had to do exactly that. The better solution would have been to accept pretty much ANY username at all. Then, behind the scenes, red-flag any and all new usernames containing a HUGE list of buzzwords, which are passed off to a team of moderators that can spot innocent versus malicious usernames. If they're malicious, force them to change their username the next time they log in or visit the site. Most sites probably couldn't do this, since they don't have teams of moderators (they cost money!), but LEGO already HAS a bunch of moderators that spend their time evaluating LEGO's message boards, LEGO Factory content, and probably more. Put them to work! DaveE

Generally, I find that people don't build sets because: 1) No time, and/or "I'll build it later". Some people want to savor the experience of building a really cool set, or they simply don't have the time right then and there to build whatever they bought. Other times, people buy so many sets that they just don't open them all right away. I recall buying about 20 copies of 4731 for about $1.50 each-- I didn't build them right away because I didn't need the pieces, although when I was buying them I knew I might want those parts "someday". I probably opened a few, and left the rest for later. My wife would buy old sets MISB, with the intent of opening them "someday" when she could fully enjoy the moment-- but that day hasn't rolled around for a lot of those sets. 2) Forgot about it! I know a lot of people buy for the future, but then forget about them. Our club ran into someone that purchased about $2000 worth of LEGO train sets for his nephew, thinking that he'd be into trains someday. But alas, the nephew never was, so the sets just sat there until the uncle decided to sell them. Similarly, I've known some mom-and-pop sized retailers that have had LEGO that they ordered a long time ago, but that was moved into a warehouse rather than their shelves because it was so old. Hence, a lot just sits there-- not really intended to be sitting around, but forgotten in the back of a warehouse for a long time! 3) Investment. This has been pretty common starting in the late 90's, ever since online second-hand sales have been more prominent. Back in 1982, you'd be stupid to buy a set and save it in order to sell later-- it would be ludicrously hard to fathom that you'd ever meet anyone who'd be willing to buy it from you! But when eBay started gaining popularity in the late 1990's, and BrickLink started in 2000 (I think it was 2000?), there's now a forum for hobbyists to buy things, so it's more common for people to buy sets and save them for investment later. 4) Collecting. A lot of people are collectors through-and-through. They don't want to open sets, because they want to preserve them exactly as they were. There are these kinds of people in many hobbies, and LEGO is no exception. Some people just want to collect MISB sets. Whatever the reason for keeping them MISB, some people wind up selling them anyway. They might decide one day that the $1200 that their MISB Airport Shuttle is worth on the market is actually worth selling, or that they need the money. Or that it's taking up too much space in their house, so they'll sell a portion of it. As for what makes a valuable future set? That's tough to predict. A) Licensed things! Things like Star Wars have HUGE fanbases, with many non-LEGO buyers. They're itching to get something not because it was a LEGO set, or because it had great parts, but because it's branded with a license that they love. Anything Star Wars is a good bet, especially the original trilogy. Other licenses haven't seemed to be as lucrative on the LEGO front, but they might be someday. B) Limited edition items. Obviously, if something's only around for a short time, that adds to the value. Red Sox minifigs? Limited edition Santa Fe's? Those will be worth more. C) Cool stuff. This is very hard to predict. Why is the UCS X-Wing worth so much more today than the UCS-TIE Interceptor? It's just awesomer, that's why. Some sets are just so well constructed and have such broad appeal that they're very memorable and worth lots more. D) Rare parts. Again, hard to predict, especially at the time of release. Who could have predicted back in the early 1990's that the pitchfork would go out of production after only a few short years? Who would have thought that the euro-style armor would return with Harry Potter in the early 2000's? But sure enough, rare parts make for expensive sets. Another thing to think about is how long it takes before something's valuable. Bionicle may not be overly valuable now, but it might be highly profitable when the kids who were raised on it grow up and have money to burn! In that capacity, waiting 5 years is a pretty paltry length of time to wait-- you might want to save something for a good 10 years or more before it starts to get really coveted! DaveE

Depends on how sturdy you want it, I suppose-- as well as how much space you have to play with. I would stay away from the basic hinge design with these: That tends to be pretty flimsy, and is difficult to attach. The "most sturdy" way of doing it would be to build up perfectly right-triangles with technic beams, and then attach the plates to the tops of the beams. They'll be VERY rigid (no risk of flopping around), and will take a lot of force (weight and/or bumping). But, of course, it takes up a lot of space where you probably want to build walls and so forth. Plus, there are only a few specific angles that this will work with. After that, there are a ton of ways to do it. As suggested, you can use: Or, again, as suggested, some of these (I would recommend this one, probably, with the hinges towards the top of the peak): Or these guys in combination (ok, but not great): Or these: Or a kazillion other ways. In fact, for my medieval village that I made back in 2000 or so, I didn't even actually attach the roofs. I just laid them flat on top of a lip, and it worked just fine. It all depends on what elements you have available, how sturdy you need it to be, how exact of an angle you need, and how much space you have in which to build the connection. DaveE

I've never heard of anyone repairing bent pieces successfully. In theory, I suppose it would be possible (warm the plastic up and then effectively re-position it in the correct position), but in practice this would be nigh on impossible-- especially considering the VERY high tolerances that LEGO has (actually, they used to have much higher tolerances than they do now). Pieces that are broken in two can be re-assembled with glue sometimes, although it's not generally quite as good as it was initially. I've repaired a couple elements with glue before, but they've always re-broken. BrickLink. It's basically eBay, but exclusively for LEGO. You can buy individual elements that you're missing from different sellers across the world-- some in the UK. You can also get an exact list of what a particular set came with (just search in the BrickLink Catalog, and then view the "inventory" for the set). DaveE

Honestly, my guess is that it's the fault of the early LEGO online community, which was predominantly from the USA. The Pause guide (which turned into the LUGNET guide, which in turn fed the Peeron guide), Fibblesnork Guide, and BrickLink guides were all written by people living in the USA, who probably simply used the US set names because that's how they knew the sets. If Huw's BrickSet had come first, then perhaps we would have seen the British names take precedence. But for that matter, the "real" set names would be the Danish ones, not the US or British ones. Probably cost vs. return. They used to take the time to come up with alternate models for each set, and do photo sessions both with the primary model and the alternate ones, which takes a lot of development and approvals up and down the chain of command. Nowadays, it's easier to throw something together with Photoshop. I remember looking at the Viking "diorama" (which featured a lot of detail), and noticing that they re-used a lot of elements, probably because it was cheaper than actually constructing and photographing such an elaborate setup. And of course I don't know, but I expect that the current thinking is that kids don't spend as much time fawning over large images as they used to, but are instead spending their time with interactive things (like online Flash games), or things like TV spots. So those probably are deemed a better return on investment than dioramas. But that's just a guess. DaveE

What's the process for "contacting" customer service? Since it still doesn't work, I can only assume that you sent an e-mail (or something similarly not real-time), and received the same type of communication back? I would advise contacting them again and asking that they phone you, and/or phone them. Plus, be sure to get the name of the person that you talk to-- it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get them fired or anything, but operators often "perk up" when you ask for their name. I'm surprised, actually. I don't remember having to match my details, but it's been a while since I did it. I would think they'd just give you the physical card, and then let YOU enter whatever-the-hell-name you wanted when you registered it. OR, enter it in-store (so that there's less chance of people submitting fake names), but then just let you register it without entering your name. Either way, so long as you didn't have to have conflicting text fields match up "precisely", which is just ASKING for trouble. DaveE

Remember also that not everyone that buys LEGO as an adult is an AFOL. With products like the UCS Star Wars sets, LEGO Architecture, and other "Model Team" quality sets, some adults buy LEGO as one-off purchases because they're cool. Not because they're as hopelessly addicted to LEGO as we AFOLs are. Also, you've got other hobbyists like Star Wars geeks who will just buy ANYTHING Star Wars, or anything Batman, or anything Indiana Jones, etc. It's a self-reinforcing cycle to some extent. In 2000 or so, when LEGO really started catering to adult fans (you could make a case for earlier), it also started creating a market for other adults who weren't LEGO fans, and broadening the market share that's taken by adults versus kids. So what's about 5% now probably was NOT 5% back in 1995-- it's probably been a growing percentage, which is likely still on the rise! DaveE

LEGO did the initial releases with the light-up minifigures, but they were horrifically expensive to produce, because they were assembled by hand, as I recall. I expect that customers didn't really care about them all that much-- they were neat and all, but nobody wanted to pay the overhead that was necessary for production. I also would guess that the error rate is pretty high-- small connections like that may have a tendency to break easily, although I don't honestly know. So there may have been a high number of returns or replacements that LEGO had to issue. Anyway, indeed, after a short while on the market these disappeared, and were replaced by non-light-up versions of the same figures. DaveE

So, it had to have happened prior to August 24th 1999 (since that's when I posted about it), but after thinking about it, the friend that gave it to me moved out of our apartment in (I believe) June of 1999. So I'm pretty sure the date of the game would've been a home game for the Red Sox in April, May, or early June. I would guess it was probably a weekend game, since I would expect those are the days that are more likely to be promo days where LEGO would want to do more advertising, but I'm not sure. DaveE

Yes, it was a real promo-- My friend went to a Red Sox game in August of 1999 (I don't recall the exact date) and made sure to get one for me when he saw it. These are EXTREMELY rare, and were done in conjunction with the DUPLO Red Sox 1x2x2 promo bricks. The promotion did not appear to be done with any other MLB team, just the Red Sox. Here's my post about it on LUGNET, shortly after I got it: http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=6955 I've seen people who had one or two of these, but 90 is absolutely amazing. If you decide to start selling them, keep the price high. These have been sought after by collectors for nearly 11 years now-- I very much doubt that any other large caches of them will ever appear again. And given that it requires a license deal with the Red Sox, it's unlikely that LEGO will do these again, unless they make the logo a sticker rather than a printing. Congratulations on such a huge find! DaveE

Yeah, I have to agree with the sentiment that you're going about this the wrong way. To be totally honest, and I apologize if this sounds harsh-- it sounds to me like there's this particular model that you want to build, and the only way you can build it is if you get money from people to build it. You don't care about keeping the model, so you're happy to give the excess money and the model to charity, but what's most important to you is that you can build this super-huge thing. Maybe it's because you want to have something for a resume or college application, or maybe it's for some other purpose. But the impression overall is that this project is more about what YOU want than what would be good for the charity. Anyway, sorry if that sounds rude, but that's the impression I get. Most models that are built for charity serve two purposes. They're often put forward by companies-- so they're a form of publicity and advertising as well as for the charity itself. LEGO did that (for instance) by building Fenway Park and the "Green Monster" in conjunction with the Red Sox, each of which were put on auction for charity. But the models and auctions themselves served to advertise the Red Sox. Otherwise, why not just take the money that was used on bricks and Master Builders' time, and put that money towards the charity? The real first step is to find a sponsor. Find a local event, company, charity, or otherwise that's interested in the project. They don't have to front all the cash, but they can easily give you both credibility and a start on money. If it's an event, it also gives you a venue to display your creation, as well as further exposure (the event's attendees) for more donations. Otherwise, if you go on the path you're going on now, I think the response will largely be skepticism. Legally? You may have to look into taxable donations. Donations beyond a certain amount may need to be tracked, since if you're making a private donation, that means that you, as a private entity, took in some amount of money, which may be taxable otherwise. Hence, if you've got exclusive control over the donations, that may technically be regarded as income. You should check with an attorney or accountant to see whether or not you'd need to set up a separate entity to accept such funds (like an LLC or non-profit group). Again, having a corporate sponsor REALLY would make this a lot easier. Anyway, I do think your heart is in the right place-- I just think you're probably going about this in the wrong way. DaveE

Where did you find that measurement? The vertical stud spacing is supposed to be 9.6mm for a brick height, and 3.2mm for a plate height. The ACTUAL measurement of a 2x4 brick has a small bit "chopped off" from each direction so that there's room for the bricks to easily go on and off, but I don't know what that measurement is. At first I thought maybe you were accounting for that, giving 0.02mm for the vertical allowance, but then why wouldn't you have done the same thing for the horizontal allowances with 15.98mm and 31.98mm? Anyway, for some more detail on studs and so forth: width: 16mm length: 32mm height: 9.6mm stud diameter: 5mm stud height: 2mm shortest distance from outside edge to stud edge: 1.5mm shortest distance between studs: 3mm DaveE

That's the most amazing thing to me-- All the other parts that we've seen in vintage sets have been existing parts or re-done parts (the space helmets). This looks like the first pack where they either brought a mold out of retirement or re-tooled an old mold. Does this mean we might see more retro molds? Will this one be as good as the original? Very interesting! DaveE

I think the problem may be that you seem to think that everyone "ought" to accept a particular standard, and I don't think that's something many people would feel comfortable doing, and is unrealistic because people won't know about such a standard, and will disagree about the details. A standard of scale is helpful for certain things that need consistency-- like if you're organizing a display with many builders, arranging rules for a contest, or perhaps organizing a project similar to the Moonbase project. Otherwise, I would encourage you not to attempt to convince people that their scales are wrong, unless there's some factual difficulties in their scale derivation. For instance, if someone claims that they want to establish a scale based on minifigs being 6 feet tall, you can dispute their particular scale and cite standard human height and so forth. But when someone says they use "1 foot = 1 stud" because it's easy for reference, or they use selective compression for aesthetic reasons, you'll just have to let them be. If you continue to tout your particular scale as preferable or superior, you'll probably encounter some resistance. Anyway, you can argue in favor of a wide variety of scales that could be "correct" for minifigures-- so it's generally nice just to know what are the most useful or common scales available, or what range is a good ballpark. DaveE

Hi, I'm DaveE, and I wrote that scale converter years ago, because I was constantly checking what appropriate "minifig scale" ought to be. Minifig Height A minifig is approximately 42mm tall. I think above, you're assuming that they're 5 studs tall, which would be 40mm, but that doesn't account for the stud on the top of their head, or on any headgear. I based the 42mm height on a normal minifig with the "standard" male hair. You can also modify your minifig's height by doing one or more of: - Using stubby legs - Using 2x2x2 slopes (or otherwise) for minifig dresses (or other legs in general) - Adding footwear (skis, flippers, snowshoes, etc) - Adding neckwear (capes, epaulettes, armor, jetpacks) - Changing headgear (different hair, helmets, caps) - Adding Waistgear? (I think there are some official waistgears now in Star Wars? I'm ashamed that I don't actually know) Anyway, this gives quite a variance in minifig heights, but I found that 42mm was a pretty good generalization. Implied Minifig Height How tall is a minifig supposed to be? 6 feet? 5.5 feet? Meh, this is difficult. It depends on gender, nationality, time period, age, and a whole mess of other factors. Any value from 5.5 feet to 6.0 feet is probably pretty good. Building To Scale If you're building a MODEL that you want to be realistic, it's important to pick a scale and stick with it. This will make your model look more like the real thing, and more likely to be confused with non-LEGO. As in, "Wow, that's made out of LEGO?!" If you're building a MOC that's intended to work with minifigures as the focus (or as a functional element), then scale is out the window. You need to study up on "selective compression". That's where you build in a way that captures the FEELING of what you're building without necessarily being accurate. Sort of like making a caricature rather than a scale model. That's the way most LEGO sets are made, of course-- buildings that are only 12 studs wide, cars that only fit one person, and so forth. Popular Scales Generally, I find that people here in the USA build about 1 stud = 1 foot. They don't do this "1:44" or "1:35.6" stuff. They just use the stud as a rough guess for 1 foot. I don't know enough Europeans (and other non-Americans) to say for sure, but it seems like the rule of thumb for them is 3 studs = 1 meter. Back when I wrote the scale converter, part of my motivation was to try and make MORE people use MY estimation of 42mm = 6 minifig feet. So that was the default value I used, hoping that everyone would soon come to use that as the "de facto" standard. Didn't work, needless to say. I gave in and just added a little link to set your desired scale from one of the popular ones instead. All This Research is Secretly Fun Ever since maybe 2000 or 2001, I've done tons of research on statistics comparing minifigs and actual humans. Demographics for different countries, average human height, width, and "depth", even comparing "average" minifig height variation to actual human height variation. I think back when I started investigating, I told myself that I was doing it because it was somehow important to know what the "best" scales really might be, and what strengths and weaknesses they had. But really, just between us, it's just fun to do that kind of research and stats gathering. Go figure, considering that I'm the son of an actuary. It's just fun to be anal! DaveE