Lead Sled

The Lead Sled got as ready as it could ever be (ok, I did not realize the missing piece on the front bumper when I took the photos). There is a longer story in Hungarian on lego.blog.hu. And there are new photos too.

Updated: Almost Lead Sled

The Lead Sled project has made progress but I am not entirely happy with the results so far. The packets ordered on Bricklink have arrived one by one each day. The final order was UK, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand - I have ordered them all with a few minutes difference.

The first obvious problem is that some parts arrived in the wrong color. Unfortunately both of them are at visible places, one is the hinge of the doors and the other is part of the rear seat. One of the merchants was very kind to send the piece in the right color in a follow-up mail.

There are other problems too. The most obvious one is that the very front of the car gets detached from the rest very very easily as it is held in place by two studs only. I did not realize this when I designed it in LDD - it will need a redesign and it is far from trivial. The rest of the front is not very strong either but I have managed to get it up to an almost acceptable level by adding more stiffeners.

One more issue is that when opening the hood there is an obvious tension between the hood and the chassis. As I could judge from the photos this is exactly the same on the original model built by Mad Physicist, so I am not sure if that one is any better.

The studs at the upside down pieces near the front wheels make contact with the wheels. This can be only realized once I start pushing the model. I have also not figured out how to attach the chrome parts to the wheel either.

All in all it does not feel as a total success yet, but on the photos it looks good.

Updated: seeing my enthusiasm Mad Physicist has provided me more details about the internal structure of his car here and here. Looking at the photos I quickly started to wonder why I was not able to figure it out by myself :) Anyway the tips should be enough to make the front a bit more rigid, have a proper cover on the wheels and avoid the contact between the front wheels and the body.

The Old Lady is ready

I have finally completed it! Not only I have managed to assemble my Christmas present completely, I also have taken photos so there is nothing that stops me blogging about it.

So what is it? The most aged member of the Big Car series, the "Auto Chassis" from 1977. It was missing some parts but the seller was so kind that he sent all of them to me. By the way I am very happy with it. It feels like new, I did not find any broken or yellowish parts. My old Technic playing sets from the 80s are in a much worse shape by now.

After putting it all together I found comparison against the other Big Cars natural. Some numbers to start with:

• this is the oldest of all, sold from 1979
• this has the fewest pieces, 610

This is also the one to contain the fewest special parts. For example the front suspension is made of bricks and rotating plates. There are no springs but there are nonetheless interesting details. For example the suspension has a hole in the middle to accommodate the power train from above. The gear rack moves only sideways, not back and forth with steering. Unlike most other Technic models from the age it has an intermediate arm that makes this possible. Another interesting property of the steering is that it is impossible to fit the gears together such a way that the steering wheel is completely horizontal when the wheels are parallel to the chassis.

The power train makes a very massive impression, the four big cylinders after each other would be enough to drive a boat. The gearbox has two gears, in first gear the pistons literally "fly" - I am not sure that this lasts long under heavy playing. In the rear there is no differential. Instead, there is an universal joint keeping the two sides together. I think this can be really easily broken by the torque of the large wheels.

Besides the relatively simple basics there are a couple of interesting details. The first seats can be adjusted forward or rearward with a rack mechanism. The middle part of the rear seat can act as an arm support or can be hidden.

Until I saw it from photos only I did not realize that the engine is shifted one stud right from the centerline - I believe this gave more room to the exhaust and the gearbox. The proportions of the car are also somewhat surprising, it is not wide but very long, probably longer than any of the sportier subsequent models.

One more thing: the assembly instructions come on both sides of a single foldable sheet in 10 main and 27 secondary steps. For comparison, the instructions for the 8448 have more than 150 steps (and pages).



Now if only I would get an 8860... More photos in the album as usual.

Always behind

There is so much happening that I never manage to catch up. First of all, 2010 is now here, Happy New Year to all our readers! I could summarize what happened in 2009 but I am a bit lazy, do not want to make anything appear bigger than it is and it is anyway too late for it. Perhaps in 2011.

Meanwhile some hints about what to expect in 2010 and the near future:

• First, I still owe you the review of the 853 Very Old Big Technic Car that I got for Christmas. Of course it is completely done by now, the only reason I have not blogged about it yet is because I did not have time to make photos showing the complete state (photos about the almost complete state are here if you are interested).

• The Lead Sled project has made some progress too, I have ordered the bricks on Bricklink today. I have spent an awful lot of time with loading the list into Bricklink, checking that I have everything and ordering it from shops actually having it. In short: 700 parts from 130 kinds from New Zealand, the UK, the Netherlands and France, for about 80 bucks.

• I also have some spare sets like this excellent old 8422 race bike and an 8435 4WD.

• Meanwhile we got a Tantive IV-es Corelian Corvette at work, that will take some too.

Until I manage to get along with all this I would like to recommend some reading. The first offer is Sariel's summary of his year 2009 creations with baggers, tanks and other vehicles, the pictures speak for themselves. Those interested in even more details should definitely read Sariels' scaling tutorial as well.

Finally for the fans of mini models this Unimog is a real gem. Like a real Unimog it has a lot of ground clearance and on the photo with the internals you can grab all the tricks used to make it happen.

Stay tuned for more.

Analyzing a masterpiece

Now that I have built the Lead Sled myself I discovered many tricks. This post is about some of them.

The original car is riding very low, the oversized body is as close to the road as possible. To achieve this all the wheels should sit as deeply embedded in the body as possible. This is not simple with Lego bricks. For the front wheels Mad Physicist has used a panel with an L cross-section – built in upside down. There is no hanging version of the piece, only a standing one. The image below shows that this piece with all the other pieces upside down fit perfectly into the contour of the bodywork.

The width of the car is 11 studs without mirrors but it gets narrower towards the rear of the car. The even-width parts (rear bodywork) fit seamlessly with the odd-width parts (front, roof).

One example how to mix even-width with odd-width is the trunk: the cover is 8 studs wide but its holder has an odd width. The closeup below shows the three small plates with a clip that connect to an even-width plate with a handle.

One more detail that I have only recognized while building: the upper row of slope bricks in the rear windshield are half a plate higher than all the other plates in the car. Having these slope bricks  halfway between other plates results in a smooth roof line. The small step at the bottom of the curved bricks above disappears as well as the other small step in the sloped bricks.

Yet another tricky part is the windshield. It looks good but I kept thinking about what keeps it in place. Finally the creator himself let me know that at the bottom of the transparent bricks there is a plate with a clip, attached to a tap that is completely hidden inside the bodywork.

The car is made of approximately 700 bricks. This is a lot for its size. For comparison the similarly sized Lego 5867 car has only 278 pieces! The Lead Sled contains only a few classic Lego bricks, most of the pieces are plates or special parts.

Because I travel a lot during Christmas I did not order the parts yet but it will not be long before I do so. Until then, Merry Christmas to everyone!

Lead Sled reverse engineer

I am a big fan of miniscale cars like the ones built by Mad Physicist or the Arvo brothers. The challenge is entirely different compared to building large cars: instead of simply putting bricks on top of each other they require a lot of attention to the details to put everything in place. A special piece or a tricky solution has great impact to the model but it may need a lot of experimentation.

I considered building a replica for myself several times, for example one of the cars made by the Mad Physicist or the Porsche from the Arvos. Our friend the reverse engineer who helps to build the whole thing by looking at the end result only. From Lego bricks, of course.

So far I never got past a couple of thought experiments because apart from obvious details I had no clue how to continue building. But now I have decided to go on with the matter. Mad Physicist has built his '51 Mercury Lead Sled. On one hand looks very desirable, on the other hand it has several detailed photos so that I can have some hope. On top of this Ralph is very helpful and did not object and even gave some clues when I had questions about the details.

I started with Lego Digital Designer. Some bricks are unavailable and even more so some colors, but at least I have infinite supplies. Compared to other virtual building tools it is an important advantage that it models the physics of the bricks and does not let me build stupid things. This is how far I got (click on the album):

The colors are not quite right and some other details like the wheels are different too. But it looks promising. I am truly uncertain about some invisible areas but the external feels right.

When I am done with all details the next step will be Bricklink in the New Year.

'51 Mercury Lead Sled

This time out favorite Mad Physicist created a classic hot-rod from bricks. I think it looks great.