Other Pete J's thread of Lego building (current project: Barad-dûr)

I bought this a couple of weeks back, it’s a fantastic build.

 

I have it too. It's really good.
The "operational" rumours are true. The Kickstarter launches on Tuesday

https://www.brickfanatics.com/turn-lego-game-boy-into-a-playable-console/

In other news, the Goonies set launches a week after that

(Yes, that is Ke Huy Quan who played Data in the movie)
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/ideas-21363-21363

 

I’m going to be honest… I had to read that 5 or 6 times and eventually search for “Lego enterprise D typo” to find the problem. Every time I read it I kept hearing “to boldly go where no one has gone before” in Patrick Stewart’s voice. It’s such a familiar and memorable line that’s been permanently burned into my brain that couldn’t actually see the typo!

 

Joined the Kickstarter to make the LEGO™ Game Boy work
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...e-kit-that-makes-the-lego-game-boy-come-alive
There are 16 days left, and the thing is due to ship next March

 

Uppy-datey:



Got the gearbox together, and what a complicated beastie it is. Fortunately, mirroring the build (so it can be right hand drive) has not interfered with the sequential gear order, but there was an additional complication in the form of the hard gear stop. One of the hallmarks of jb70 (the MOC creator) is having this stop that stops jumping between the highest and lowest gear: in this case, it was achieved by adding in a half bush to limit one of the gear fork's movement range. This took a fair amount of fine tuning to prevent other gears being locked out too.

I also played with swapping out the rubber band that adjusts the resistance to changing gear, and went with a stiffer white one as it just felt better. Anyway, a decent amount of effort to get the gearbox running smoothly, and I swear it felt stiffer than previous generations seen in the Ferrari, Sian etc. While the gear forks do look kinda cool, I think that unfortunately comes at additional mechanism size.



There we go: rear axle and gearbox unified, and a transparent V8 slapped on top.

Remember, the aim is to have this finished by or around the New Year...

 

It's been a while, and I've been distracted by playing computer games.

First up, P1 progress:



After some careful tweaking, I now have the gear change mechanism running smoothly. I had to go back and change the elastic band from the previous post to the recommended red one as the white one was too stiff. I also had to switch a gear round so that the gear "paddles" changed the gear correctly (i.e pulling the right side shifts up, left side down).

Also, as a combined Christmas/birthday present, I am now the proud owner of:



2026's main Lego aim will be to get this built and figure out where to put it once I can see what size it truly is.

 

Dunno if i posted this anywhere (here or in the purchases thread), but felt like sharing

Recent Lego aquisitions:

Rivendell - birthday present - to be built

BttF Delorean - birthday present - built

Cruella De Vil's Car - November Lego set - to be built

Fantastic Four vs Galactus - December Lego set - to be built

Blacktron Renegade - christmas present - built

Cobb Vanth's Speeder - i went to Bristol for work and visited the Lego shop present to me - built

 

Small update:



That's the steering done. Annoyingly, the HoG steering wouldn't allow for a perfectly aligned gear arrangement as in this model, it's more directly linked to the rack and pinion. So I set it to a 45 degree offset, which I felt was the next best thing. Perhaps with a bit of fiddling, I could've found a compromise, but it would've irked me forever knowing that. At least the steering wheel is perfectly aligned.

Also, on December 18th, the designer released an update to the design. Grr. Oh well, it didn't really add anything too significant (removed a clutch between the rear axle and the gearbox, and changed some colours), so I'm certainly not going to disassemble the whole thing to rebuild. Like I will with the Porsche and Chiron. Eventually...

I have also treated myself to two sets as I found them for a decent chunk off:





The latter, I found on eBay, and bought from someone who had the username "Jarjarmustdie69". Which made me grin.

Edit: the two sets above were roughly the same price. Which makes absolutely zero sense to me.

 

The falcon is a lovely little build; and the AT-AT is on my "buy this year" list.
In addition to the list above, I've built Cruella's car, and added these two to the backlog...

Viking Village - Christmas present from family - not built


Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine - January set - not built

 

Been a while, but only a minor update:



This is essentially the "core" of the car done: now comes the bodywork. Also, this may be the longest time I've taken to build a model - just been up to other things! Hopefully I'll do more over Easter, but have a list of stuff to do before I have a week off the week after (it seemed like a good time to have a break!).

I have also bought a fair amount of other Lego bits just as an effort to move this hobby on a bit. Got stung with a customs charge of £58 though....

 

Don't know if you've seen this but as it's SW related and randomly popped up in my feed I thought you may want a goosey.

 

Interesting, and short enough to watch!

Yeah, the smart bricks are a weird one. I'm curious to see what the MOC crowd do with them (if anything) for more advanced models. What happens when you have two or more interacting? Could they be linked to a more advanced central unit later?

Whether or not it's the "right" direction is a question I can't answer. I'm just glad that I come from a time when I can remember Lego was still quite simple and I had a chance of making the models even without the instructions.

 

I totally get the concerns with it, I’m right there with everyone else in that regard, especially in the “current climate” (as it were).

But I don’t think this is that new of an idea, to be honest. We had Lego Mindstorms stuff when I was in school, back in the mid-to-late 90s. I remember my friends in a different IT class got to use the Mindstorms kits as part of an assignment. (My class got LOGO, and not even the fancy little robot - I had the gall to want to do lots of optional subjects at GCSE, and the vagaries of school class scheduling meant I got lumped in with the ones who weren’t trusted with the fancy kit, the ones who took IT because they thought it would be a total doss…)

 

finally built a set i was gifted for Christmas 2024

Quite a nice build, with a lot of weird angling, and offset connections.
My son had loads of fun driving it round the kitchen/family room of the holiday house.

EDIT: having forgotten about it, and found whilst sorting a pile in the home office. I also found this set id forgotten i had picked up from Amazon on a >50% discount...


EDIT2: to save a double post, i also won this at a work event/raffle...

 

It's been a very slow year so far for Lego and it's been a while since I've done any meaningful update, so:

CURRENT PROJECTS

42172 McLaren P1



A bit more work on the P1. I found that I was missing a part for the MOC, plus two parts weren't up to my standards, so put in a large order to move other projects along. There's been a bit more progress since this photo: doors are complete and I started the bonnet.

I decided to use the bank holiday weekend to build the following:

76344 Iron Man Mark 3 Collectors' Edition



I bought this off eBay from Argos' official account for 20% off. What I didn't know (and I don't remember it being on the listing) is that it was a refurb: this meant it didn't come in its official packaging. I was a bit annoyed and if I had known, I probably wouldn't have bought it. So, to see if anything was missing, I decided to build it ASAP. Fortunately, it's worked out fine and was a good build. Nice to actually complete a model this year! Here it is in its resting place (though Robocop felt the need to photobomb):



FUTURE PROJECTS

• 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr™
  • I'll be getting on with this after completing the P1. However, I have a very first world problem: I've run out of space for it! I'm going to have to have a real think about moving things round or putting up a (large) shelf. Either way, a Lazy Susan will be going underneath.
• 11373 The Lord of the Rings: Sauron's Helmet
  
  • I managed to pick this up off eBay for ~26% off.
• UCS Falcon MKII
  • After completing a large order recently, I had a look at what parts I had left to get for this: it turns out I almost have everything! After Barad Dur, I think I need to start this as the shelf it's going on has been vacant for a few years in anticipation.
• Razor Crest Upgrade
  • I need two pieces to complete the MOC - and it turns out nobody in the UK has them! This have to be bolted on to another order...

FUTURE PURCHASES

Here's wot I got me eye on for the near future:

75439 Darth Vader Bust



Up-Scaled Darth Vader™ Minifigure

 

Is a ‘scaled up mini-figure’ just a… figure?

 

I was not aware of this bad boy, adding to the "to buy" list!

 

A biggie-fig.

 

P1 complete!





I noticed that I put the bendy rubber bit on the doors wrong, so corrected that. Here she is with some of her siblings:



THE GOOD:

• One of the more technical builds I've done - it feels complex without being frustrating.
• Lovely shape.
• Gearbox mechanism is cool and works smoothly (after a fair bit of fiddling) but...see bad points.
• I really like the new wheel design.

THE BAD:

• Although I went to great lengths to ensure the gear train was running smoothly during assembly, when finished, the system backlash was so severe that the clutch connecting the wheels to the gearbox kept slipping, especially on gears 1 and 2. The next day, I decided to replace the clutch with a straight axle (which was awkward and I did have to force a couple of bit into position). Whilst nothing slipped anymore, the aforementioned backlash was still severe and I wouldn't like to subject it to a lot of "driving". Fortunately, the car will live as a display queen, so I can live with that. I should point out that this is a modification of the original set, so may not be indicative of the base model.
• The doors while cool in the way they open, do sag a bit and don't really glide smoothly over the roof.

So, overall, somewhat mixed emotions. See the white 720S? That's a better model.

And now, on to the next project:



However, I did treat myself to a small distraction project:



I got this for about £10 off (~20% off) and personally think it's a fantastic little diorama for the price. Anyone who's a Marvel fan should pick this up - the Hulk figure alone is a good investment as it's unique to this set.