Technic Torture

I'm typing this with something of a heavy heart as I'm fully aware that I'm about to antagonise a lot of people. I mean no offence, but I have something I want to get off my chest.

And here it is : where's the fun in LEGO Technic ? There, I've said it. I know for a fact that there are millions of people around the world who derive enormous enjoyment from it, it's just that I'm not one of them.

Set 8880 Super Car - revered by many, baffling to me

Sure, I can fully appreciate how clever it all is, and I can see how some of the sets have real educational value. I'm also occasionally amazed by some of the finished models, be they official sets or some of the magnificent MOCs out there. But it's just such a total pain to actually make things with LEGO technic elements - threading axles through gears and making sure everything's perfectly aligned in order for it to work properly, putting rubber bands around little pulleys, slipping bushes onto axles, fiddling around with hundreds of Technic pins and those tiny little 1/2 bushes. Honestly, it's just not LEGO building in my eyes.

And that's just for starters. Taking models apart is even worse. During my quest to complete my LEGO Star Wars collection, I bought a number of used LEGO Star Wars Technic sets. These invariably arrived half-built, so I had to first fully disassemble them to ensure that all the pieces were there. Oh my, the miserable hours I spent trying desperately to pull all the pieces apart without breaking them, or indeed without ripping my fingernails out. Brick Separators are just no use in this situation. It felt like an all-new form of torture, and my fingers have never been more sore than after a session trying to take a LEGO Star Wars Technic set apart. I still have nightmares about it now. I just thank God that I now have all the LEGO Star Wars Technic sets and will never again have to disassemble one, unless I choose for some incomprehensible reason to punish myself at some point.

Technic C-3PO - nice and shiny, but murder to take apart.....

Except I will have to disassemble LEGO Technic again..... Because pretty much regardless of what your favourite LEGO theme is, Technic is among us - hidden and silent, like a secret agent behind enemy lines. OK, so perhaps less so in the City sets, but it's all pervasive across the Star Wars theme, particularly the big sets. While recently building Set 10212 UCS Imperial Shuttle, for example, I seem to have spent half the time joining large Technic beams together with various types of Technic pins to construct the wings and tail of the ship. OK, I have to concede that without the use of Technic elements the model would probably just fall apart like crumbly bread, but even so, that aspect of the build wasn't much fun at all, just a bit tedious.

Another downside of Technic is that many of the Technic elements are just useless if you want to build anything, well, non-Technic. You can use standard, system LEGO pieces if you're in to Technic, but what on earth am I suppose to do with all the Technic pins, bushes and studless beams when I'm done with a Technic model and want to build something else ?

OK, OK - I have to admit that I'm playing Devil's Advocate somewhat here. While my moans above are entirely genuine, Technic is really not all bad.... For instance, one of my favourite older sets is Set 851 Tractor from 1977, which is in fact a Technic set (and indeed the first Technic set I ever owned).

Set 851 Technic Tractor - the acceptable face of Technic ?

This set skilfully melded Technic elements with an outer shell of 'proper' LEGO pieces so that the model actually looked like a tractor while also having some neat moving parts, such as a working steering rack. I also picked up and built Set 8480 Technic Space Shuttle quite recently and it looks awesome, although I have to confess that I've so far been unable to get any of the powered functions to work, likely due to an issue with one of the connecting wires. Either that or I'm just too dumb to be let loose on LEGO Technic....

Set 8480 Technic Space Shuttle - Stunning

Also, as I stated earlier, Technic elements play a critical role in ensuring the structural rigidity of many of the huge sets that I love. Put simply, no Technic = no UCS Millenium Falcon, no UCS Imperial Star Destroyer etc. etc., and that would be (very very) bad.

So, I guess you could summarise it as follows : LEGO Technic - loved by some, and a necessary evil for the rest of us.

Discuss.......

Love letter

And so, behold probably my favourite LEGO set of all time.....

Set 10188 Death Star - a work of utter genius

Put simply, Set 10188 Death Star is like a love letter from the LEGO company to Star Wars fans around the world. It's miraculous to me the way that the designers of this set have managed to squeeze so much detail, and so many references to Star Wars, into just one set. Basically, the model is split into multiple compartments, each of which references a particular Death Star-related scene or location from the original Star Wars movie (plus one scene from Return of the Jedi, for good measure). I must warn you that I could eulogise about this set for hours, but for the sake of anybody reading this I'll force myself to just try and call out some of the highlights so that the length of this posting remains manageable.

First, cast your mind back to the scene in Star Wars where Luke and Han dress as stormtroopers and escort Chewie to the prison block restrained in 'binders' to rescue Leia, who was scheduled for 'termination'. The shoot out in the prison block is neatly recreated within this set, both in terms of the imposing design of the prison block itself, and also the inclusion of the key characters from the scene in minifig form (click the pics to enlarge). Han and Luke are even wearing stormtrooper uniforms, and Chewie's wearing binders !

Prison Block

Leia herself is hidden behind the black walls of her cell above but can be released from the clutches of the IT-O interrogator droid (included in the set) by popping the bars of her cell; the cell block also features a moveable CCTV camera (the blue object in the picture above) and a cog which you rotate in order to open a secret trapdoor to the Garbage Compactor beneath.

Garbage Compactor

Pinned down in the cell block, Luke, Leia, Chewie and Han leap through the blasted drainage grating and fall headlong down the garbage chute into fetid depths of the Garbage Compactor below - Han to Chewie : "I don't care what you smell". As in the movie, the LEGO walls close in on our heroes (just push the red lever, shown at the top of the picture above), while a monster (the dianoga) lurks amongst the debris ready to pull Luke under.....

Meanwhile, Ben Kenobi is on a mission to disable the tractor beam which is preventing the Millenium Falcon from escaping. Having distracted a guard with a Jedi Mind Trick, he creeps up to the controls and deactivates the beam while a black R2 unit goes about its business below.

Disabling the Tractor Beam

Elsewhere, having now escaped from the Garbage Compactor, Leia and Luke get separated from Han and Chewie, and they arrive at a dead end, more specifically the edge of a deep chasm. With stormtroopers behind them, they have no option but to swing across....

Swinging Across the Chasm

Honestly, I could just go on. And on. And on. As well as recreating the iconic Star Wars scenes above, the set also features a number of other compartments including a TIE hanger containing Vader's TIE Advanced, Grand Moff Tarkin's conference room, a cargo loading bay, a couple of turbo lasers modelled on those which were supposed to protect the Death Star trench, the Emperor's Throne Room, a control room for the Death Star's primary weapon, and of course the primary weapon itself, caught in the moment of firing (at Alderaan, presumably). Half a movie, then, lovingly crammed into one magnificent LEGO set.

Death Star Primary Weapon - bye bye, Alderaan

And there are also a host of 'play features' as the LEGO company might call them - a working central lift, blast doors which slide open and shut, a launch cradle for Vader's TIE Advanced, a working cargo lift and crane, controls to aim the Death Star primary weapon - the list goes on and on. I doubt that any LEGO set in history has managed to cram in as many features as this one.

Vader's TIE Advanced ready for launch

And if that wasn't enough, the set also contains 24 minifigs - more than almost any other set ever. These include some rarities such as a black protocol droid and R2-Q5, as well as Luke and Han in stormtrooper outfits, Grand Moff Tarkin, Vader and the Emperor himself - a minifig collector's dream.

All these minifigs in just one set...

If you're a fan of LEGO and a fan of Star Wars then this is the nearest you'll get to a no-brainer for as long as you live. Just buy it. Trust me - you will not regret it. It's even still available direct from LEGO despite having been around for a few years now so there's really no excuse not to.

Seriously - it's utterly, utterly brilliant.

Balancing act

I was reminded of the sometimes fine balancing act between being a LEGO builder and a LEGO collector this past week. The launch of Set 10214 Tower Bridge, together with double VIP points from LEGO stores during October, prompted me to put in an order for the Tower Bridge set plus a number of other sets I'd been meaning to get for a while. It was the biggest order I'd put in for a long time, and I was obviously eager for my bounty to arrive. My excitement turned to dismay, however, when the doorbell rang a few days later and I saw the state of one of the large packing boxes that had arrived - dented and battered, with a large tear down the side. The good news was that Tower Bridge had survived the pummelling pretty much intact, but some of the other sets were just too bashed for me to accept them and they'll have to go back to the mothership in Billund.

Winter Village Bakery - wish mine had arrived looking this good....

These things happen, and if you're going to shop online you just have to accept that your items, whatever they are, may not always arrive in tip-top condition. It also has to be said that ordering direct from LEGO is generally low-risk as they send the sets out in quite robust boxes, and also usually throw in a few of those air-filled bags which look like individual monster bubble wrap for good measure. Nothing can protect sets against the most determined of destructive courier companies, however, and it got me thinking about why it matters so much to me when the boxes of my LEGO sets aren't pristine.

While I'd certainly describe myself as a LEGO collector, I only actively collect Star Wars sets and a couple of other themes; generally, I just buy sets I like the look of. And none of the damaged sets that I'll be requesting replacements of are Star Wars sets or other themes that I'm collecting. Furthermore, looking over my collection with an objective eye, even a number of my Star Wars sets are far from 'mint', so it's not as if I have the kind of collection that I'd be able to sell to the most discerning of buyers for a huge amount of cash anyway. And that's assuming I'd even sell my LEGO. In fact, I can't really envision a situation other than utter destitution where this would happen; almost certainly I'll cherish my LEGO until I snuff it and then hopefully my boy will take up the baton.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that it really doesn't do any good to analyse any of this too closely because it's fraught with illogical behaviour and inconsistencies. For instance, given that I'll realistically never own all the Star Wars sets in MISB condition, why am I so reluctant to crack open some of my sets which ARE sealed and build them ? The obvious answer is that the value will  diminish, but as I've already stated, I have no intention of selling anyway. Ever. It just doesn't make sense. Similarly, I go through phases of picking up sealed duplicates of used Star Wars sets that I already have, and also used copies of sealed sets that I already have, which all points to me trying to amass 2 complete collections - one sealed for the MISB collection, and one used for building. And that's even though I'm fully aware that I'm not willing to commit the kind of funds necessary to complete a sealed collection. Honestly, Freud would have a field day. It does however suggest that I'm at times uncomfortably straddling the fence between being primarily a collector and primarily a builder, and that life would be easier (and perhaps cheaper) if I could just make my mind up which I really am.....

The UCS X-Wing - worth a fortune sealed, but great to build....

It's a strange beast, LEGO. There can't be many other toys which can consistently be sold for as much, if not more, than they were bought for, and if left unopened can not infrequently fetch 2 times, 3 times, 4 times or even more times their purchase price within just a few years of buying them - just look at how much MISB LEGO Batman sets are selling for on eBay if you are in any doubt. Perhaps it's this which can at times result in an uncomfortable tension between the impulse to collect and hoard, and the need to open the sets and build. For me, the compulsion to build generally wins out in the end, regardless of how much a set is worth, but it can be a close-run thing sometimes.....

Flavour of the Month

And the flavour of the month is.....cheese. Honestly, they say you can't get enough of a good thing, but I'm beginning to wonder whether that's actually true.

I can remember how excited I was when I first caught sight of them, and I wasn't the only one. Part number 50746, with the catchy name of "Slope 30 1 x 1 x 2/3" but thankfully nicknamed the "Cheese Slope" on account of it's wedge-like profile, first appeared in a couple of sets as early as 2004, but has really exploded onto the LEGO scene big-time over the past few years.

Cheese Slopes - coming to a set near you.....

I mean, what's not to like ? Thanks to the Cheese Slope, jagged edges are a thing of the past. The skilled builder can seemingly use them to smooth off literally any irregularity, and they have been an absolute God-send for those builders who crave realism and aesthetic beauty in their LEGO creations. Seldom can a piece have been taken to builders' hearts so quickly. It's gone from being available in just 3 colours (Orange, Dark Green and Trans-Orange, according to Bricklink) in 2004 to at least 27 colours including the mythical "Glow In Dark Trans" in just 6 years. I've never actually seen "Glow In Dark Trans", but just typing it has made me want a Cheese Slope in that colour so badly I can almost taste it.

Spot the Cheese Slope - one of the first sets to include them....

But in the midst of all this adulation, I'm wondering whether the first signs of a backlash have begun. These things seem to be turning up everywhere right now - I don't remember the last time I bought a set at retail which didn't have a whole bunch of them in different colours cheerfully rattling about within. And I was frankly shocked to learn that the much anticipated Set 10214 Tower Bridge contains 585 of them. Yep, you read that right - there are five hundred and eighty five Cheese Slopes in the Tower Bridge set, including a mind-boggling 556 Tan Cheese Slopes. This is not only remarkable due to the sheer number, but also because prior to the launch of this set, Tan Cheese Slopes had never appeared in any set at all. Talk about going from one extreme to another. At this rate, the world will soon be taken over by Cheese Slopes - we'll be picking them out of our breakfast cereal and from between our toes, finding them blocking up the plughole when we've taken a shower, and tossing and turning awkwardly in our beds as we inadvertently lie on top of them - if left unchecked it's potentially a recipe for global misery and disaster.

I also suspect that the LEGO purist, that dying breed for whom use of pretty much anything other than 2 x 4 bricks is blasphemy, might also have something to say about the overuse of the Cheese Slope in modern day models, be they official sets or MOCs. There's certainly an argument that the combination of SNOT building techniques (which hide the studs), together with liberal use of Cheese Slopes to smooth off all the rough edges, means that LEGO models look increasingly sanitised and un-LEGO-like in appearance. I'm actually not sure that this particularly bothers me, but I guess there is some truth to it.

So, Cheese Slopes - a blessing or a curse ? Well, right now I'm a fan, but I might have a change of heart if they start appearing in my beer.

Buyer beware....

If like me you like to collect LEGO sets, you'll no doubt have spent time watching items on eBay to see how much they sell for, not to mention buying the occasional item now and then.....

There are a few things that never cease to amaze me when I watch LEGO-related buying and selling activity on eBay. One of them is how some people just openly lie on their listings, for instance by describing an item as "Rare !" when it's actually available in pretty much every single toy store in the civilised world, and when there are hundreds listed at that moment on eBay alone. Worse is when an item is listed at well above the RRP (Recommended Retail Price) but when the listing nonetheless states "Less than RRP !". Naughty, naughty. I sometimes wonder if there's an eBay "cheat line" where we can report listings like this, and whether or not it's my civic duty to point out such "inaccuracies". I'm well aware I shouldn't get all exercised about stuff like this, but it's just so blatant that I find it hard to control myself - nurse, my medication please.

Then there's the description of used sets as "100% complete". Yeah, right - 100% complete apart from the 20 pieces which were the wrong piece altogether, the wrong colour, or just completely missing..... I once bought a set that was "100% complete" and I swear almost a third of the pieces were missing or just plain wrong. As I argued in a previous blog entry, I suspect that most of the time this isn't actually a deliberate attempt to con the buyer, it's just what happens when people who don't know anything about LEGO ask their kid if the LEGO set they want to sell is complete and the kid says yes they think it is. So not really dishonest, then, but still pretty rubbish. I just thank goodness for Bricklink, through which I've sourced an untold number of replacement pieces. Here's a quick tip - in my experience, used Harry Potter sets seem to be the worst offenders when it comes to missing or substituted parts. You have been warned.....

Used Harry Potter sets - 100% complete ?

Obviously not strictly dishonest but still an affront to decency are those sellers who list new, currently available sets at well over the RRP, particularly if they have the temerity to describe their overpriced items as a "Bargain !". Clearly this is a use of the word "bargain" that I've not previously encountered. I do often wonder if anyone actually falls for it and buys from these people; presumably someone must, otherwise the sellers wouldn't waste their time with such listings. Dear oh dear. I just took a quick look on eBay and within moments found someone selling Set 4842 Hogwarts Castle for £145 + postage. That's close to a 50% mark-up on the RRP - shame on you ! Still, at least it wasn't described as a "bargain" I suppose....... Or perhaps you'd prefer Set 10199 Winter Toy Shop for £62.99 + postage, which is a whopping 40% over the the RRP. And this set is apparently "Sold Out and Unavailable" which is news to me since it was very much in stock through LEGO shop@home about 5 minutes ago..... The moral of the story ? Do your research ! I have to add that there are at least a couple of extremely well known high street retailers who also put extortionate mark-ups on some sets, so always check the RRP before you buy.


Related to this is why some people are willing to pay close to, or even above, the RRP for used sets that they could actually buy brand new direct from LEGO or elsewhere at a lower price. I know people do this - I've sometimes followed auctions and shaken my head in bemusement as the price goes up and over the RRP. I just don't get it. All I can think of is that perhaps there are lots of people shopping on eBay.co.uk who live outside the U.K. and who don't have access to a reasonably-priced source of new LEGO. How awful must that be ? So for them perhaps it still looks like a bargain. This of course doesn't explain why they don't just wait for someone to list a brand new set as a "Buy It Now" at the RRP or below, which will invariably happen sooner or later. Whatever, there must be a credible reason why people are willing to pay £180 or more plus postage for a used Grand Carousel set at auction when they could get one direct from LEGO shop@home for £179.99 plus about 3-4 quid shipping instead. Don't get me wrong - it's a lovely set, just not quite so lovely when bought used for more than the RRP. Especially if it's described as a "Bargain !". And even worse if it's "100% complete"......

OMG

Every now and then during the course of my LEGO life I have one of those jaw-dropping moments when I can't quite believe what I'm seeing. I had one the first time I saw Set 10030 UCS Imperial Star Destroyer on display, and also when I emerged from my LEGO dark ages and found someone selling a sealed UCS X-Wing Fighter like mine, which had been bought for £50 in the sales and then stuffed in a cupboard unopened for a decade, for $1500 on Bricklink.

Anyway, I had another of those 'moments' yesterday. I decided to get in the car and go down to STEAM to check out the Great Western LEGO Show. I'm pleased to report that it was absolutely packed - LEGO love is clearly alive and well in the UK. I didn't really have an agenda - it was nice to just wander aimlessly around the exhibits, check out what was for sale and chat to some of the model builders. Then I found something that literally stopped me in my tracks....

Just take a look at that thing - it's massive ! Around 7 metres long, and it weighs a quarter of a tonne. Utterly astonishing, and having seen it up close I can confirm that the level of detail is just incredible (click on the image to enlarge). It apparently consists of around 250,000 bricks. That's a quarter of a million bricks. A QUARTER OF A MILLION BRICKS ! I think the guy in the dark blue polo shirt on the far right of the picture is Ed Diment, the creator of this behemoth. Respect ! Credit is also due to some of his collaborators, including Ralph Savelsberg (who I think I spoke with while staring aghast at the model) who designed and built the aircraft on the deck with help from Annie Diment, who I assume is Ed's (presumably extremely long-suffering) wife. You can read more about the background to this model here. As far as I'm aware, Ed doesn't work for the LEGO company, so I guess he had to source all 250,000 bricks himself at his own cost. Phew - that's some serious dedication for you. I really have to bow down to this guy - from a LEGO perspective I am simply not worthy. I did want to go shake him by the hand, but the whole time I was near his model he was surrounded by other star-struck people. So if by any freak occurrence you ever read this, Ed - well done, your model is simply awesome !

There were a number of other stunning creations on show, including a fantastic model of St. Pancras station (picture below) in London, complete with some of the most realistic LEGO trains and vehicles such as buses and coaches that I have ever seen. I would love to give a name check to the talented builder(s) responsible for this - if you know who's responsible then please post a comment below to give him or her due credit. My picture below doesn't even start to give a true picture of how amazing this model is, but hopefully you get the idea......

Other highlights for me included the opportunity to see the newly-announced Harry Potter Diagon Alley set and the newly-launched Tower Bridge set "in the plastic", and also actually meeting a number of people who I've interacted with online but never previously met in the flesh - cheers, guys !

Newly revealed - Set 10217 Diagon Alley

So thanks to Martin and colleagues for organising a great show, well done to all the model builders, and here's to next year !

Co-operation

Given the passion that so many people have for LEGO, it's really no surprise that such a strong and vibrant community has grown up around it. Whatever you're interested in LEGO-wise, there's probably a website to cater for it.

Sites such as Brickset keep the LEGO fan up to date with the latest LEGO-related news and also enable visitors to catalogue their sets and write and/or read reviews of sets by other fans, while Peeron and Bricklink offer complete inventories of sets plus links to online traders, so you can see which pieces you're missing and then replace them. There are also sites focusing on specific themes such as Space, Castle, Trains and Star Wars, while other more general sites such as Eurobricks have discussion forums focusing on a host of different aspects of building and collecting LEGO as well as some of the most comprehensive set reviews on the web. And there are loads of other great sites such as FBTB and The Brick Show offering their own unique view of the LEGO world, as well as blogs like the one you're reading now, of which there are probably millions.....

One of the aspects of the LEGO community which I've personally benefited from, and which I think there's perhaps some scope for expansion of, is in the area of co-operation. Forums, like for instance those on Eurobricks, are an invaluable source of information, but in addition to the sharing of information, we could potentially help each other out in other ways too. For example, there have been a few occasions over the past few years where contacts I've made within the LEGO world have helped me get hold of sets which I had previously struggled to find. Most recently, a reader of this blog sent me one of the exclusive Brickmaster Star Wars sets which has as yet never been available in the UK (thanks, Dan !). It's pretty hit and miss, though - I moaned on this blog about not being able to get the set in the UK and someone offered to help, but there must be easier ways to make contacts. It's a simpler and more systematic way of getting people together for the purposes of such non-profit trading that I think may be currently lacking.

Bricmmaster Shuttle - not available in the UK....

I spent a few minutes thinking of other ways that LEGO fans might be able to help each other out, and a few things immediately came to mind :

1. There have been a ton of 3 for 2 offers recently, at least in the U.K. and U.S.. I could have walked into Argos and bought 3 Clone Turbo Tanks for the price of 2 if I'd wanted, bringing the price down from a painful £99.99 each to a much more reasonable £66.66. But what am I going to do with the 2 extra sets ? Sure, I could resell on eBay immediately, or more profitably hold onto the extra sets until the LEGO company stop making them and then sell, but frankly I don't need the hassle - I'm a builder and a collector, not a trader. An alternative would have been to join together with a couple of fellow LEGO fans and we could all have got a bargain without having to figure out how to dispose of the extra sets, but how do I make contact with these people ?
2. Many of us have really got into the collectable minifigs craze; while the identity of the minifig sealed within the foil packets is supposed to be a surprise, the barcodes on the packets in fact reveal their identities so it's been relatively painless to get hold of all 16 minifigs in each series. I understand that from series 3 onwards, however, the barcodes will no longer identify which figure is in the bag, so we'll have to resort to trial and error. Unless of course the LEGO community gets organised and finds a way to enable swapping of duplicate figures on a large scale.....
3. Be it Brickmaster in the U.S., newspaper giveaways in the UK, or whatever, the LEGO company keeps finding ways of providing exclusive sets to its customers in one region while denying them to customers in another. I'd be very happy to try and source duplicates when such offers come up in the U.K. and swap them for similar offers elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone. But how can people easily set up these arrangements ?

I'm aware that trading of LEGO-related items, including minifigs as above, is facilitated by a couple of sites, but this has somehow never seemed to really reach critical mass. I concede that trust is clearly a big issue in such matters - all we seem to hear about these days is how everybody is looking to rip us off online - but the success of sites such as eBay has demonstrated that the vast majority of people you come across are decent and honest, and I'd wager that when you venture into specific enthusiast communities such as that which surrounds our LEGO hobby, the proportion of villains is even smaller. Certainly my experiences on Bricklink, and with fellow fans I've 'met' online, has been 100% positive. I don't have 'the answer', however. Perhaps 'the answer' is already out there and I just haven't stumbled upon it yet - if you know reputable sites where this kind of thing goes on then please let me know. I do however think there's a 'gap in the market' for a site or resource to bring enthusiasts together for non-profit trading.

Talking of the LEGO community, I'm aware of a couple of LEGO fan events this weekend that look like they're worth checking out if you can get to them. In the U.K. the Brickish Association is putting on the Great Western LEGO Show at STEAM in Swindon. This will feature displays of models, interactive events and LEGO-related shopping opportunities. There's also going to be an awesome new set unveiled there which people will be able to see for the very first time "in the plastic"......pictures of this new set have already started to hit the web this afternoon, and I think it'll be worth getting along to check out the real thing. Meanwhile in the U.S., BrickCon 2010 is now underway in Seattle, featuring hundreds of models built by fans, a Building Zone where you get the chance to make your own models, and numerous opportunities to exchange the contents of your wallet or purse for oodles of LEGO goodness..... These kind of events offer people a great way to actually meet their fellow fans in the flesh and potentially put a face to some of the folks they've encountered on the forums etc.. If anyone reading this blog knows of such events and wants me to plug them please contact me and I'll give them a mention.