Lego

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MedigoFlame
Some new upcoming Speed Champions:

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lego-speed-champions-bmw-m4-gt3-m-hybrid.jpg

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lego-speed-champions-audi-s1-e-tron-quattro.jpg

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I'll definitely get the BMW and Audi ones.
 
@Jump_Ace this is supposed to be something like $80, I'd like it for my desk at work (since I work at a science museum, you know)... Might encourage me to keep it reasonably tidy.

As if.
 
New Creator 3in1 sets for 2024, a couple of must-haves for me (the helicopter truck - especially as my son is really interested in helicopters, or "acapts", now - and the astronaut) but the giraffe looks great, the peacock is nice and the hamsters are adorable!

Edit: not mentioned on this list is 30669 "Iconic red plane" which I'm obviously curious about, I'm guessing it's a Lockheed Vega...

Another edit: been thinking about parting out a ton of small builds and chucking all the pieces and instructions into a box, might be fun for my kid and his friends when they're older - kind of like a Classic bucket of bricks but better. It's surprisingly hard work, though, and unsurprisingly expensive... I guess I'll continue to think about it until I either have enough money that I can comfortably blow like £200 on loads of small models or until I have the energy to manually remove pieces I've ordered from my list so I can do it bit by bit over the course of a year or something. I am really itching to buy the pieces to make the Piper plane, Pursuit of Flight and the MBA Flight models too but because each of those would mean going to several sellers it's much more economical to have one huge list of pieces and make the carts off of that instead.
 
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Roo
I enjoy seeing how people use really common parts in unusual ways, like the spanner that every Speed Champions set comes with, or the brick separators that are included in most big sets. Last night whilst playing with second-born nephew we came up with a Speed Champions car jack.
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What do people use the spanner for?
 
I've been sleeping on eBay as a valid source for used sets, apparently. This is both good and bad news. I just paid £12 for Island Adventure and £6.50 for Daredevil Stunt Plane, only the latter has arrived but it looks almost brand new - Bricklink sellers start at £35 for the former and £20 for the latter. I haven't been able to find the next two sets I want significantly cheaper on eBay, though, so maybe I just got lucky?
 
I haven't posted any, because they're all missing at least one piece (worth it, though, for how cheaply I got them), but I've been quietly finishing off my Creator planes collection with 31117 Space Shuttle Adventure, 31094 Race Plane and 31023 Yellow Racers, which is a helicopter, but I like it.

I've got maybe four sets left and they're all a little more tenuous; a drone, a truck pulling a(nother) space shuttle, a tiny truck pulling two tiny planes and a V-22 clone which could be considered a helicopter, although not by me, it's definitely a plane.

After that collection is complete I'm not sure what to move on to, lots of ideas but not enough money or space.
 
sesselpupser
I haven't posted any, because they're all missing at least one piece (worth it, though, for how cheaply I got them), but I've been quietly finishing off my Creator planes collection with 31117 Space Shuttle Adventure, 31094 Race Plane and 31023 Yellow Racers, which is a helicopter, but I like it.

I've got maybe four sets left and they're all a little more tenuous; a drone, a truck pulling a(nother) space shuttle, a tiny truck pulling two tiny planes and a V-22 clone which could be considered a helicopter, although not by me, it's definitely a plane.

After that collection is complete I'm not sure what to move on to, lots of ideas but not enough money or space.
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What I just heard you say....
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Jerome
 
Jump_Ace
What I just heard you say....
View attachment 1313745



Jerome
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I went on to spend most of my night browsing eBay and lowballing people optimistic enough to think that my "best offer" wouldn't be, like, half their asking price. In my defence if you're going to list a set with the caveat "might be incomplete" when you have the manual with the list of parts in it, you can't expect people to just go "oh OK, here, have the full average sale price of a 100% complete set" and hit the buy it now button...

No takers yet.
 
sesselpupser
I went on to spend most of my night browsing eBay and lowballing people optimistic enough to think that my "best offer" wouldn't be, like, half their asking price. In my defence if you're going to list a set with the caveat "might be incomplete" when you have the manual with the list of parts in it, you can't expect people to just go "oh OK, here, have the full average sale price of a 100% complete set" and hit the buy it now button...

No takers yet.
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You are 100% right, they are just trying to get full price without having to do any leg work. Low ballin' must continue!


Jerome
 
Oh and I borrowed a Mac Mini from work and installed Bricklink Studio on it with the intent to start designing the hangar I wanted to make for my son, the sheer scale of it has put me way off though because to fit the plane I had in mind in (31039 Blue Power Jet, about the biggest I have) and have proper hangar doors on it it would have to be 3 32x32 baseplates wide which is MASSIVE, and then I'd need to work out how to span the door aperture with no supports anywhere without it drooping... So I'm not doing it that big anymore! I'll pick one of the smaller planes instead.

I then decided to make instructions for a little plane I made for him a while ago:

Screenshot_20231223-200427.png

I know it's only 9 steps and about 20 pieces but this took me about 15 minutes from start to finish, the hard part was working out what the plate was called. It seems like really good software! Very easy to pick up. Does anyone else use it? Any advice?
 
sesselpupser
Oh and I borrowed a Mac Mini from work and installed Bricklink Studio on it with the intent to start designing the hangar I wanted to make for my son, the sheer scale of it has put me way off though because to fit the plane I had in mind in (31039 Blue Power Jet, about the biggest I have) and have proper hangar doors on it it would have to be 3 32x32 baseplates wide which is MASSIVE, and then I'd need to work out how to span the door aperture with no supports anywhere without it drooping... So I'm not doing it that big anymore! I'll pick one of the smaller planes instead.

I then decided to make instructions for a little plane I made for him a while ago:

View attachment 1313945

I know it's only 9 steps and about 20 pieces but this took me about 15 minutes from start to finish, the hard part was working out what the plate was called. It seems like really good software! Very easy to pick up. Does anyone else use it? Any advice?
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Oh man! You gotta let me know how you made those steps! I'm clueless in that part. However, I did build my NES, SNES and N64 consoles with games and controllers in Stud.io. It does have an option to spit out a parts list for easy Bricklink.com ordering. I love the software personally. I just want to know how to make instructions

:dunce:


Jerome
 
Jump_Ace
Oh man! You gotta let me know how you made those steps! I'm clueless in that part. However, I did build my NES, SNES and N64 consoles with games and controllers in Stud.io. It does have an option to spit out a parts list for easy Bricklink.com ordering. I love the software personally. I just want to know how to make instructions

:dunce:


Jerome
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Well, it helped that I had the model in front of me and it really is only 20 pieces, but what I did was I assembled the virtual model and coloured it, that automatically puts all your pieces on the first step. Then I used the Steps pane on the right to add a new step, selected all the relevant pieces in the 3D model that I wanted in that step, then back over in the pane on the right I dragged and dropped the highlighted pieces into the new step until the first step only contained the first step pieces, you can also hide pieces from the step pane which was handy to see what hadn't been moved out of the first step yet.

Once that was done I used the Instructions button in the menu bar to view the steps first as a 3D model to verify, then the page view to see how it would look in the "manual", and then I broke the real model down and followed the steps to check that they made sense and resulted in the same model being built. The page view doesn't automatically rotate the model though so you have to click the model on the page, then click something like "edit view" and then you can rotate it. The default position of the image on the page was also a bit dumb for me, I had to move it down on almost every page. If there were more than 9 that might've been tedious. Then when it's done you can export it as a PDF, there might've been other options too.

I was able to figure it out just by looking at it for a minute though, I'm sure you will too! Even just making the instructions was fun so I think I'll search for a few rare and unusual sets that Lego doesn't have the instructions for and make my own for the practice.

Like, all the research I did on this guy, for instance:

s-l1200.jpg
 
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@Awong124 I do really like this set, not only does it look faithful to the car (even though I heard it's somehow anachronistic, something to do with some minor details that were never seen together on any model that was produced?) but the options you get for how to display it are great. I'm not a big fan of Lego cars generally but the Icons ones are really well done.
 
So I've started on replicating the Piper... This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be! All the good, clear, high res photos I have are wrong one way or another and all the genuine photos of the actual set are low res. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not really, but, yeah, kind of hard to tell what's genuine and what isn't. I think the photos of the replica are also a mix of tests and the builder's finished model.

That said, what I've got so far looks right, to my eye at least:
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(I think this is a photo of a replica, note the flat back wall of the cabin behind the passenger*)

Lots of obvious gaps to fill, but for some reason the palette I've created using the Brickset inventory doesn't have any 1 x anything red plates to plug the gap you can see in front of the wing and below the windscreen. Then I guess I just have to bulk up the internal structure and I'll call it good - it's not as if I'll EVER know if it's accurate or not internally so the best I can do is make it look right and feel like a Lego set rather than a MOC in the build.

Edit: Here's an example of the photos being wrong.
1703719314124.png

This is a photo of the manual, see how there's one pair of studs between the vertical stabiliser and the curved piece between it and the cabin roof? *The curved piece is the inside rear wall of the cabin too so it being too far forward would reduce the available space inside.

1703719380260.png

Then I have this razor sharp photo that shows that piece in the wrong place, I mean this is easily fixed but it does mean I can't have much confidence in what they're telling me, which makes it difficult. I've also got some photos that show a 1x2 cheese slope where that 1x2 tile is between the cabin roof and the slope, it does look better but it isn't right!

Edit again: Actually, after I stopped caring about keeping an accurate bill of materials (thinking about it, the guy whose replica I've used as a guide said he had a handful of leftover pieces and Brickset also says the piece count on the box is considerably higher than the inventory they have, so I think everyone is just guessing anyway) it was pretty easy to finish this up. I have doubts it'll balance with the amount of infill I have - there's maybe one 1x2 tile's worth of free space somewhere in the back - but I can just remove the 2x4 and 2x3 brick I put in below the misplaced curved piece shown above if it tips backwards on its landing gear, I guess.


Instructions will have to wait for another night though. Also I've done instructions for 7807 (an unreleased polybag that there is, for whatever reason, a photo of) and the first two Hong Kong Cities of Wonders promo sets, if anyone is interested I'd be happy to share them, though I need to redo the latter because I forgot to add the bill of materials to the end. They aren't especially good models or anything, I just wanted to practice on some sets that didn't have instructions available online.
 
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sesselpupser
So I've started on replicating the Piper... This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be! All the good, clear, high res photos I have are wrong one way or another and all the genuine photos of the actual set are low res. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not really, but, yeah, kind of hard to tell what's genuine and what isn't. I think the photos of the replica are also a mix of tests and the builder's finished model.

That said, what I've got so far looks right, to my eye at least:
View attachment 1314725
View attachment 1314727
(I think this is a photo of a replica, note the flat back wall of the cabin behind the passenger*)

Lots of obvious gaps to fill, but for some reason the palette I've created using the Brickset inventory doesn't have any 1 x anything red plates to plug the gap you can see in front of the wing and below the windscreen. Then I guess I just have to bulk up the internal structure and I'll call it good - it's not as if I'll EVER know if it's accurate or not internally so the best I can do is make it look right and feel like a Lego set rather than a MOC in the build.

Edit: Here's an example of the photos being wrong.
View attachment 1314731
This is a photo of the manual, see how there's one pair of studs between the vertical stabiliser and the curved piece between it and the cabin roof? *The curved piece is the inside rear wall of the cabin too so it being too far forward would reduce the available space inside.

View attachment 1314738
Then I have this razor sharp photo that shows that piece in the wrong place, I mean this is easily fixed but it does mean I can't have much confidence in what they're telling me, which makes it difficult. I've also got some photos that show a 1x2 cheese slope where that 1x2 tile is between the cabin roof and the slope, it does look better but it isn't right!

Edit again: Actually, after I stopped caring about keeping an accurate bill of materials (thinking about it, the guy whose replica I've used as a guide said he had a handful of leftover pieces and Brickset also says the piece count on the box is considerably higher than the inventory they have, so I think everyone is just guessing anyway) it was pretty easy to finish this up. I have doubts it'll balance with the amount of infill I have - there's maybe one 1x2 tile's worth of free space somewhere in the back - but I can just remove the 2x4 and 2x3 brick I put in below the misplaced curved piece shown above if it tips backwards on its landing gear, I guess.


Instructions will have to wait for another night though. Also I've done instructions for 7807 (an unreleased polybag that there is, for whatever reason, a photo of) and the first two Hong Kong Cities of Wonders promo sets, if anyone is interested I'd be happy to share them, though I need to redo the latter because I forgot to add the bill of materials to the end. They aren't especially good models or anything, I just wanted to practice on some sets that didn't have instructions available online.
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Is that plane a MOC or an actual set?
 
Awong124
Is that plane a MOC or an actual set?
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It's part of 40000012, a Lego Inside Tour set that was limited to 53 copies. The genuine instructions are therefore impossible to find without buying one for about £2,500...

Edit: spent my son's nap today finalising the instructions and it occurred to me that I could probably save some money by minimising the number of different parts used to hopefully reduce the number of suppliers I need to use, although having said that when I checked yesterday I only needed to buy from two. Also it's less than £20 including shipping so probably not really worth doing.

Next up, apart from the other two Cities of Wonders sets, I think I'll try the DC-3 from Peril in Peru, see what that costs to build instead of buy. That'll be largely contingent on being able to get knock offs of the sticker sheet and a trans brown half cylinder thing, not sure how common that is.
 
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Visiting my parents today, they reminded me I had a couple of deliveries from months back (just checked the invoices, the earlier one is from May so I'm not surprised I forgot):

17038188917958177874422715021907.jpg

I don't think today's the day to open any of these, though, the Galaxy Explorer box is just too pretty. Heavy, too - I think it's the biggest set I have by piece count now, unless the UCS Slave I is still bigger? I would LOVE to keep it sealed until my son is old enough to build it with me but all it'll take is one moment of weakness in all those years, he's only just turned 2...
 

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