Lego

  • Thread starter Thread starter LoudMusic
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While my lighthouse is still in its box, as is the Bonsai tree, the old crown jewel 8285 is... getting out of hand to put it mildly. Having discovered the chance to buy bricks one by one it seems I'll finally build it how I want it, not how I've been able to within the limits of my parts bin. This may escalate "a bit".
 
I bought something accidentally - made an offer almost 30% below the asking price and assumed it'd never be accepted, until it was - and decided to actually build it:

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For something I wasn't initially all that interested in it's actually pretty nice, albeit with a few issues. I think my favourite thing might be the dog, not because the rest isn't good, but because for something comprised of 13 pieces it's just a really nice, recognisable, somewhat characterful representation of the thing it's meant to be.

The van itself is good, the roof comes off, it has doors and good interior detail for its size, but the stairs are slippery and they slope downward so they're extremely dangerous, there's no ladder for the cook so good luck to him if he ever has a grease fire and the suspension, while clever, only allows for pitching back and forth.

Also, this was the cheapest used copy I've seen in months, it's clean, came with the box and manual, fully complete, pieces in numbered bags, stickers so perfect I thought they were prints... But every single piece with a clip, with two exceptions, has a cracked clip! Cheap, easy fix, just annoying. I would still choose this over the one I had on my wishlist for months that was over twice the price, though.
 
In addition to going over the top with the 8285, my current situation led to some drastic action. I bought a house this summer and with an entirely different room arrangement the models on display needed changing. Of course 8285 will always be there, as will its "sister model" 8258 but a couple of others faced the scrapman's axe so to speak. The first one to go was 8454 Rescue Truck, to be honest it had never been as impressive as I had hoped for when buying it. It got disassembled and sorted into ziplock bags, probably never to surface again. In hindsight I should never have bought it in the first place but it has an important role in my Lego timeline as being the first model I got after a long hiatus and it paved the way for 8041 Race Truck which then led directly into getting 8285 and eventually 8258, both at the very last moments possible. My 8285 is probably the last one sold as new in Finland as it disappeared from the only store that still had it in stock after I had placed the order and the 8258 had to be shipped from Germany as it was out of stock from everywhere by the time I decided to want it too.

The second one to go was 9397 Logging Truck, really another disappointment that under different circumstances could have been so much better. Designed by Uwe Wabra, the mastermind also behind 8285 and 8258, but its main downfall is just those two. While it might look impressive on its own, after being used to the imposing presence of the four studs wider and overall much more massive 8285 as well as the sturdy crane of the 8258 it really looks like a cheap and flimsy Chinese knockoff copy. It's understandable though, it was clearly made to fit a budget with Power Functions instead of being an all-out open check design like its flagship predecessors. I took it apart and began building it into the B model, a container truck with a snowplow. It'll probably work much better as a smaller cabover instead of a conventional with awkward proportions due to being far too narrow for its height.
 
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