A Mighty Fine Mech.

Today's post covers a build of Creator set #31034 - Future Fliers.
Again, the set was part of the September  yard sale haul.  That acquisition has been keeping me quite occupied as of late.
As with most Creator sets, there are options to build three different models.
The first one to be tackled was the Car of the Future:

Next was the futuristic jet aircraft:

Finally, the Mech.:

  This is by far the coolest build of the three.  The figure features a lot of moving parts, making it quite pose-able.

This iteration will remain assembled and put on display.

All in all, a very satisfying set!

More Star Wars: Obi Wan vs.General Grievous

Greetings, LEGO Fans,
Today's  post features another great Star Wars build - set #75040 - General Grievous Wheel Bike from the Clone Wars film.

This interesting vehicle was employed by the good gen'ral during the epic battle with young Obi Wan Kenobi.  The build is very fun and utilizes a lot of unique build techniques, particularly in the wheel tread.

My favorite piece in the set, though, is the Grievous minifig.  Not bound to the highly inaccurate body proportions as with regular human minifigs, Grievous looks just as menacing and cool as his movie counterpart, quad arms, light sabers, and all.  Arguably, the best minifig rendition of all LEGO-dom.

Though not as cool, the set comes with a minifig Obi Wan, complete with double ended light "lance".

What this set needs to be truly complete is a brick rendition of 'Boga', the Varactyl ridden by Obi Wan during the big running battle sequence.
I am toying with the idea of coming up with a MOC version of the beastie...

Star Wars AT-RT (75002)

Today's post features a set that I put together a few months ago, but am just now getting around to taking pics and writing up.

This set came to me mixed into the same bag as Benny's Spaceship, so I wasn't even aware that there was another build.  Since the general color scheme is similar to the Spaceship, it was that much easier to overlook. I should have noticed that there was a random Yoda minifig in the bag.

"Hmm...very strange, it is!"

Once Benny's  ship was completed, I noticed there were a lot of blue and gray parts left over.

I had to do some serious sleuthing on the Wonderful World Wide Web to find out what I had.

Taking one of the more unusual parts, I looked it up on Bricklinks and got a list of all sets that used it.  I finally came across a picture of the AT-RT set and noted there were other pieces in the box that fit.

After downloading a set of instructions, work got underway.

This is a very enjoyable Star Wars set to build and display.

The main build is, of course. The AT-RT Walker, followed by a Sniper Droid Droideka.

Minifigs in the set include Yoda, a 501st Legion Clone Trooper, and a Commando Droid Captain.

Upward and onward....

Bad Cop's Pursuit Set Build

As a major fan of the Lego Movie, I was very delighted to find a plastic bag in my recent yard sale haul containing the parts and instructions for set 70802, Bad Cop's  Pursuit.

After cleaning and sanitizing the parts, I gleefully got busy building.  The set is quite straight forward and easy to assemble.

By far, Bad Cop's  police hover-car is the star of the set.

It's  also nice to have a Bad Cop/ Good Cop to add to the collection of LEGO Movie minifigs.

The railroad bridge section leaves a lot to be desired, but it does at least help to set the scene.

Later on, I might moc build a blue water base, but for now the set goes in the display cabinet as is.

Here are some pics:

A Great Yard Sale Find !

Early last Saturday morning, I happened to swing by a yard sale being set up in my neighborhood.
At first glance, I noted there were a lot of kids' toys.  Thinking there might be some LEGO in the mix, I stopped to have a look.
Sure enough, I spied two boxed sets: one being a LEGO City set and the other a Minecraft set.
Three dollars each.  Nice!
I didn't have quite that much cash on me at the time, so I had the lady hold them for me while I went home a block away to get the necessary funds.
When I returned, she told me they had a huge bin of LEGO in the basement, and would I be interested in that?
Absolutely.
A few moments later, I was looking at a three drawer plastic bin rack - packed full of LEGO !!!
Now the million dollar question - How much are you asking for this?
"I don't know...how about $40 ?"
SOLD  !!!!
I had to make another trip home to get the extra cash....
Here is a pic of the overall purchase:

A quick look-through revealed the bottom drawer full of loose bricks.  I estimate close to a thousand individual pieces.   The other two drawers contained plastic bags holding LEGO sets in various stages of assembly.  Set instructions were included in the bags.
I estimate there are well over a dozen complete sets the stash.
To round things off there were a couple of large baseplates included.
Not bad for $46 !

Now, it's time to get busy cleaning, sanitizing, sorting, and organizing this mess.

Stay tuned....

Greetings, LEGO fans,

Today's offering is a quick build of an older set -  Bat man: Man-Bat Attack (76011)

The main build is Batman's Bat-copter, followed by Nightwing's glider. The included minifigs are Nightwing, Man-Bat, and, of course, Batman himself.

I nice little display grouping!

Benny's Spaceship!

Hi, All,
I just finished up re-building this large model from the LEGO Movie.  This set came to me in the same way as the recently completed 'MetalBeard's Sea Cow' set - pieces and sub assemblies dumped into a large plastic bag.
For this build, I opted to take all the sub-assemblies completely apart and virtually start the set from scratch.  This worked out much better, as I had a little less difficulty in finding the parts for each step of construction.
In addition, the set was missing the instruction books. Who needs those, anyhow??
Me, for one...
I ended up finding the PDFs of these books online and printed them out.
All in all, this was a very fun build that produced a very cool retro spaceship model.

The Neanderthal Parts Seperator

This MOC dates back to 2015 when I first became an AFOL...and didn't have the large collection of parts that I have now.

Anyway, who needs a bunch of those little orange thingies that come with the bigger LEGO sets when you can have this guy hanging around?

Arachni- LEGO-Phobia.

I recently purchased the Harry Potter Aragog set (75950), and had a bit of time this past week to sit down and knock it together.
The set was actually obtained for the sole purpose of acquiring this one element:

A spider web piece.  There is a MOC build that has been banging around in my brain for some time that requires this part, but I have had difficulty locating one without resorting to going online to buy it seperately.

Anyway, the Aragog spider that comes in this set is actually pretty cool with a number of unique building techniques to make the beastie quite pose-able.  It's about the size of a real-life tarantula, making it worth the price of the set by itself.

I have no use for the section of a tree with a web projectile.  It will likely get broken down and the parts added to general inventory.

The two child-size minifigs of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley...meh.... I'm not that much into HP, so these will get added to the general collection of random mini-figs.

The five little spiders that come with the set....these are a different story....they will likely be used to enhance some future MOCs as well.

Kit Bashing (Alternate Builds) of the CREATOR #31027 Blue Racer

Whenever I get a small LEGO set, I like to sit around during a spare hour and see what else can be built from the set parts.

Recently, this exercise was performed on the Blue Racer CREATOR set.

Here is the main build....

 

The two set alternates as shown in the instructions.....

 

 

....and finally, a few MOC alternates that I knocked together....

 

....a playful puppy....

 

 

...a Maryland blue crab.....

 

 

...and a dentist's chair  (ouch!).

 

Cool Car... !

I happen to drive a Volvo XC90.

Recently, I was perusing the Wonderful World Wide Web seeking out all things
LEGO, when I ran across this....

A full size XC90 made entirely of.. guess what?

Awesome!  Very impressive.

Granted, whoever built this won't be able to drive it, but at least they don't have to worry about the very expensive oil changes and maintenance costs, like the real thing.

Off To The Races

Today's post is a pic of a LEGO model I built back in 2017 - the Technic Record Breaker, set # 42033.

A very cool model with the added feature of playability via a powerful pull-back motor. 

Looks great in the display cabinet!

"We All Live In A Yellow Submarine..."

I have had this LEGO Ideas Yellow Submarine set # 21306 for a couple of years now, but never got around to taking photos of it.

This brick rendition of the "Fab Four's" iconic underwater vessel is well done and a very fun build, indeed.

The top of the sub is removable for access and display of the interior details and enough seating to accommodate our musical heroes. 

When not occupying the submarine, John, Paul, George, and Ringo can be mounted on a special display stand.

A minifig 'Jeremy' is also included, just for fun.

The only shortcoming of this set is that it should have included a "Blue Meanie" figure, as well.

But, I'm not complaining....

LEGO Star Wars BB8 Android Build

This past week, I built the BB8, set #75187.

As LEGO kits go, this was an easy build, much less intense than the Saturn V model I finished last winter.

Spread over 6 bags of parts, the set is a good model for learning how to build a globe out of bricks.

The completed model features a movable 'head', facilitated by a knob mechanism on the left side of the main body.  The head turns a full 360 degrees and has some forward-backward motion as well.

Turning the knob mechanism on the right side of the body activates a retractable welding torch which pops out of the front panel and moves via a clever rack and pinion gear system. 

Overall, the BB8 is a pretty cool model, though a bit smaller than I had imagined.  It measures roughly 9 inches in height, and the body globe measures 6 inches in diameter.

A nice final touch is a display stand that nicely supports the model, and includes a BB8 information panel and a miniature version of the BB8.

I am quite pleased with this set, and it makes a welcome addition to the LEGO display cabinet.

Cheers!

Sea Cow Re-Build Finished

 

 

This set build was quite a challenge, but well worth the time spent.

The overall design and incredible amount of detail makes for a very satisfying and show-worthy model!

 

 

 

 

A Smaller Metal Beard Build

Since I'm on a little bit of a MetalBeard 'kick' as of late, I was delighted to find this small polybag kit at the local Walmart...

The Master Builder MetalBeard 3 in 1 (30528)

This is a fun little set to tinker around with given  a few spare minutes.    It builds into a fairly cool little crab mech., with alternate builds of a tiny pirate ship or a small motor trike. 

The instructions for the latter two builds are not included in the polybag, but can be found online.

Of the three iterations, I think the little ship is the coolest, and most humorous.

Not quite the Sea Cow, but it will do in a pinch.

I'll probably end up buying two more of this set just to have all three versions for display simultaneously.

A New Project: "Holy Sea Cow !!!"

My son-in-law is a card-carrying AFOL, just like myself.

A couple of weeks ago, he visited my home, carrying a couple of large trash bags containing nearly a ton of LEGO parts, each.

The bags contained two large sets from the first LEGO Movie:  Metalbeard's Sea Cow, and Benny's SPACESHIP!

During a recent move across the U.S.,  the previously-built models had been hastily dismantled and dumped into the bags.  The sets had been reduced to mostly single parts intermixed with a number of random built-up sub-assemblies.

After dumping the bag of parts for the Sea Cow on the work bench, the bigger built sections were placed in a box, while smaller sub-assemblies and piece parts were put into a couple of large compartmented trays which I had hanging around.

This was going to prove quite a challenge piecing this large model back together. Thankfully, he still had the instruction book to go along with the model.

We set to work.

The first parts to be reconstructed were the Metalbeard figure, the Double Decker Couch (this is the very one that graces the header of this blog), and the Micro-Managers included with the set.  All of the associated minifigs were also rounded up and reconstructed where necessary.

That first afternoon, the two of us made a little bit of progress on the ship itself, but it was very slow going.  Finding the necessary parts for each step of the build in that big unsorted mess is quite a daunting task.  Many of the needed parts have been found randomly stuck on the bottom sides of some of the sub-assemblies.

My son-in-law's work schedule prevents him from coming by very often, so I have been going solo on the build over the past couple of weeks.

Again pawing through the massive amount of parts has been the most time-consuming facet of this project.  On several occasions, I had to give up on finding that certain plate or SNOT brick to complete a build step, and ended up raiding my own parts stash to locate a substitute for the needed piece.  On several occasions, I've later found the original parts, usually stuck in an odd place on a sub-assembly.

Anyway, this is quite a fun project.  Progress is being made - slowly but surely.

IDEAS NASA Apollo Saturn V, Part 8 - DONE!

What a gorgeous model!   LEGO really did this one right.  I believe it could arguably be the finest, most true-to-scale set ever produced by the company. 

And it was an extremely enjoyable build.

Nuff sed, here are the pics:

 

IDEAS NASA Apollo Saturn V, Part 7 - Bags 8 Through 11

This weekend, I had a bit more time to close in on completing this most excellent LEGO build.
Parts bag 8 contains the elements necessary for constructing the highly complex internal structure of the 2nd stage booster.  Bags  9 and 10 completed the outer skin, detailing, and engine nozzles.

Here is the 2nd stage mated to the main booster section.....

 

Bag 11 contained the parts to build up the complete 3rd stage.....

 

 

The third stage can now be attached to the reduction shroud atop the 2nd stage....

 

 

This has been an incredibly fun and satisfying build project, in which I've learned a lot of new and innovative SNOT techniques!

Tonight, I will likely tackle parts bag #12, which completes the model.

Cheers....

IDEAS NASA Apollo Saturn V, Part 6 - Parts Bag #7

Following a short hiatus from the Saturn V build, I pulled out Bag 7 last evening to continue onward.

Bag 7 contains all of the parts necessary for completing the internal support structure for the  upper main booster.

As with the lower booster build, this one uses a similar amount of complex bracing and SNOT connectors for later attaching the outer skin components.

It never ceases to amaze me at how the experienced designers are able to select and put the various parts together to make everything line up and fit, at the same time providing a sturdy framework.

The really amazing stuff are those small three or four part sub-assemblies that incorporate clips that eventually snap on to bars or handles in the main framework. When the sub-assemblies are turned a certain direction per the instructions, it is discovered that the outer studs line up perfectly with other parts further down the model.  How do they come up with this stuff?

Anyway, here are some progress pics, including a couple close-ups of the sheer complexity of the internal structure...