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zephyr1934

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Everything posted by zephyr1934

  1. zephyr1934
    Could you peruse the other space sets of that era and find a nice door mechanism that is also period accurate?
  2. zephyr1934
    Yeah, sadly Lego tends to keep the unofficial parts off of LDD. That's cool beans though about the comments at shows.
  3. zephyr1934
    As you likely know, I have been fabricating custom rods for lego steam locomotives. Now I have great news for the digitally inclined steam engine builders, I have just added LDraw files for most of the common custom rods listed in my store. Ronald 'Duq' Vallenduuk developed the LDraw part design and subparts for his own use (e.g., here) based on the physical rods. He has graciously allowed me to share these files. I've merely expanded his template to use my own naming scheme and include many of the rod designs I've fabricated. You can find examples of the physical rods here and the LDraw files here. I'm planning on adding less common rods soon and then eventually the valve gear bars. Make beautiful virtual models and be sure to visit Duq's Flickr page or Bricklink store.
  4. zephyr1934
    That is a great build.
  5. zephyr1934
    A nice MOD, there are a few parts that came out in the past year or so that will make the fenders over the wheels look better too, e.g., 93273
  6. zephyr1934
    Great build!
  7. zephyr1934
    It is starting to look a little like 4561, which always had that space look to me. I THINK that set had a specialized plate for the nose too... yes, here it is.
  8. zephyr1934
    Fantastic build. Looks great, works great, and a great job hiding everything too.
  9. zephyr1934
    Wow! These locomotives do not even look like they are made out of lego... well... okay, I recognize all of the constituent parts, but the collective whole looks more like a conventional model railroad locomotive... and that was before I saw the videos. You will have a hard time convincing the general public that these are actually lego. Very well done.
  10. zephyr1934
    A brilliant car. The only problem you might have is if this car is so wide that it makes your other cars look too skinny. If that does happen, the quick fix is to have a 7 wide transition car between the 6 wide and 8 wide (I often do that with 7 wide steam engine tenders between an 8 wide locomotive cab and 6 wide cars). As for any problems you may have had with the ghost train, what you hit was mechanical. Steam engines are probably the toughest trains to get working well on lego track. Even the best builders out there have to make several prototypes before they find something that works. The one secret is to build a simple mocup that has the final dimensions you are looking for, but uses mostly common bricks you have on hand, without any detailing. So it is easy to update quickly without the need to purchase many bricks that you do not have.
  11. zephyr1934
    What a simple and eloquent sliding mechanism with the pair of 2x8 plates with door rail to allow the crane to move laterally.
  12. zephyr1934
    Ah good point, I was not familiar with the history of this design. Yes, scratch "sell" from my earlier post.
  13. zephyr1934
    Search through the archives in this forum, there was a very good thread 6-9 months back that both identifies a good replacement motor and provides a tutorial on how to replace it.
  14. zephyr1934
    Looking fantastic! And you know, having lines running from the tender to the locomotive is actually prototypical. At a minimum there should be two large water lines and at least two air lines. So you you are just being more accurate than most (grin). The tan axle pins was the thing that drove me nuts about the EN from the time I first saw a leaked picture (and the feature that told me it was not a hoax). The lego of old would have molded those parts in black to make the model cohesive. Ah well. I built my repaint with gray axles throughout. Just be careful with the black non-friction pins. Some sellers are great and list perfectly, some do not realize the subtle difference between similar parts. Make sure you verify with the seller the parts are as listed to save both of you some angst. Fortunately the non-friction black pins do exist though. If you are a set purist, I'd suggest buying a nice quality used set, it probably will not be much more than the cost of collecting the parts on their own and you will more than make that back in saved time. Otherwise, if you just like the design, to save money download the instructions and build a repaint of the EN.
  15. zephyr1934
    Yeah, no matter what, make a digital version first. You might be able to come up with a few cost saving parts substitutions that do not degrade the appearance. If you are not looking to be period purist, you might be able to save even more by substituting modern equivalents, e.g., 1x4x3 windows. Meanwhile, I'm partial to the older blue and yellow space colors, so if you are going to cad up a white one, why not go all the way and do blue too (grin). [if you are looking for someone to tell you this is a bad idea, you've come to the wrong place]
  16. zephyr1934
    A great looking build! And you know, you should talk one of the fine ldraw experts around here to create instructions for you from the LDD file (either to sell or to post to railbricks).
  17. zephyr1934
    Even a simple circle can be fantastic if you detail it nicely (of course you should also either use a short train or an "infinite train" in this case). Depending on your interests, you could make a two or three tier layout, e.g., a mountain tunnel on the bottom, "ground level" in the middle and a smaller elevated loop up top. If you are more into running trains than the scenery, you might be able to run a loop of track on the floor around the perimeter of a room (that's what I've done). Or have a small permanent layout and a much larger set of track for a layout that only comes out when you want to run and goes away before you have company over.
  18. zephyr1934
    Excellent work! I bet the kids will love them at the next show (memo to myself, I should try this some day too). So how did you rig the actual receiver, is it completely covered? In the back side of Thomas I think I see the channel switch but not the actual receiver. Kudos to you! I grew up with a few of the original books myself.
  19. zephyr1934
    Great looking work with way too many details (and the BttF license plate is a goofy touch)
  20. zephyr1934
    Wow, very nice, and definitely looks better as a pair. A couple of questions about the prototype (which you may or may not know the answers to), when they operated as a pair would they have had the same road number? Also, would they have had headlights on the semi-permanently coupled end? Meanwhile, back to your build, that is a great touch adding in the centenary line.
  21. zephyr1934
    I've never tried the Enlighten stuff, but I THINK some of the comments in the clone brick thread said that the wheels are low quality and high friction. So just be careful until you know for sure what you are getting. Meanwhile, the track looks like a very attractive alternative if I were just starting out.
  22. zephyr1934
    Generally looks good. The freight train looks like a redo on the concept of the 4565 set (all the freight on flat cars). I personally like the open stock car, while not prototypical, it is still more so than some of the train sets from the 90's. If anything, it looks like the may have borrowed the idea from TheBrickster, though lego has been making similar cars since the 70's, e.g., While it does not look like a real cattle car, it does look a lot like the open top passenger cars (converted from flat cars or gondolas) found at many tourist railroads in the US. Not to say you have to like it, just that there is precedence. The station in the video has stickers, and looks a lot better with them, also, as they pan past the station box, you can see that those curved bits on the winged roof appear to be roughly 6x8. The passenger train looks better than I thought it would. While it is nice to see the old train windows back in the freight train, that set is crying for a 2x2 wedge plate (notice the yellow stripe under the windshield of the engine, just a 2x2 corner plate) ah well, still good to see new train sets coming.
  23. zephyr1934
    Looks like it is pretty much a train of all flatcars. So that truck in the background is likely carrying a load that can be put on the train. While the stock car is very minimalistic, I think it works. Perhaps most importantly, like the passenger train notice that there is no flex track in the freight train either.
  24. zephyr1934
    Very nice! Though you've got to be careful, at this rate your toys will get so good at playing on their own that you'll soon be out of a hobby (grin).
  25. zephyr1934
    Heh heh heh, a bunch of the HE fans around here have been going the other direction. I would agree that as designed it is a little cumbersome to deal with. My solution was even simpler than yours, I pulled out one of the technic pins from the bogie and replaced it with an axle pin. So the bogie is physically attached to only one of the cars, and slips in to the other. The way I have it the axle pin is attached to the bogie, but as I type this, I suspect flipping it over and attaching it to the car instead would be easier to work with. As for the magnets, you have to listen for the "click" when you bring two couplers together. That sound tells you the magnet inside the shell popped in to the correct orientation. If you don't here it, try pulling the cars apart. Either it will be hard to do and every thing is already fine, or you'll just bring them together a second time.
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