bricks'n'gears

Not for the average builder

2013-06-14T21:45:00.000+02:00

I was hesitating a lot if I should write this post, but at the end I have decided to go with it. It is all about existing builds, but I am mostly interested what can be still considered LEGO and what unconventional techniques exist to stretch this definition. When someone builds from bricks, the goal is usually to create something that looks good. Most builds never end up in the hands of many other people. There are exhibitions, but even there people are not allowed to touch the models. And...

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A new owner for Bricklink

2013-06-09T06:00:00.000+02:00

A single news item has for the week: Bricklink has been sold by the former owner Daniel Jezek's family to Jung-Ju “Jay” Kim. You can read the full announcement on The Brothers Brick. If you consider yourself a LEGO builder, you most likely know what Bricklink is. Otherwise, your first question is: what is it, and why should I care? Bricklink is an unofficial marketplace for anything related to LEGO including sets and bricks. If you look at any creation on the net, chances are that it...

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Super cars

2013-06-01T06:30:00.000+02:00

Super cars have always occupied a prime spot in the Technic lineup (see our history coverage: part I, part II, part III) No wonder there are many custom creations on the web in this category. Francisco Hartley has built this excellent Lamborghini Aventador. I was not able to find a video about it but the images speak for themselves. In my opinion it is one of the best LEGO Lamborghini builds yet. There are many functions too: 12 cylinders, gearbox, and suspension and...

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The air force of DIetterr89

2013-05-25T07:00:00.000+02:00

It does not happen very often that there is a post about a single person's creations, but it is worth making an exception today. As I started to build war planes a while ago, my goal was to find a scale that is the smallest possible, but still gives me enough room to incorporate many interesting details. I have settled at 1:48. This is the scale at which the MiG-15 and the Bf-109 has been built, and this will be the scale for the next few too. I have never dreamt that it would be...

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News Saturday

2013-05-18T07:00:00.000+02:00

There was so much going on in the past few weeks that for today we transform ourselves into a news portal and give you an update about recent happenings. Competitions: As in recent years, the Lego Military Build Competition has started. This years categories do not favor aircraft so much as during the past years, but for sure we will see lots of excellent creations. The first submissions are on the way, the deadline is July 10th. LEGO products: The Architecture...

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Developments in the air force: Supermarine Spitfire

2013-05-11T07:00:00.000+02:00

Building awesome models is cool, but I think it is even cooler to build several awesome models that match each other in scale, let it be about train engines by depi, cars, aircraft or something else. As I rebuilt the MiG-15 and finished the Messerschmitts I knew there will be more. The new member is a Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vb. This was the last version with characteristic three-blade propeller of the early versions. This is my first plane that uses a camouflage scheme. I...

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Behind the Iron Curtain

2013-05-04T06:30:00.000+02:00

After the many tanks and fighters let's see something more peaceful. There is no Iron Curtain for a while, but many of us still remember it. April's heme of the month on LUGNuts was "Behing the Iron Curtain". As my old Trabant proves this theme was one of my favorites. Mad Physicist has built a quite recent police car from Moscow. As one of the commenters says "Ugly car in reality, and yours is true replica :)". Well, there is quite a bit of truth in that. This...

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Beyond the hobby

2013-04-28T07:00:00.000+02:00

LEGO is very popular all over the net: if you would like to build, you will find a lot of help: you can get bricks from Bricklink, older sets from Ebay, instructions and inspiration from one of the many community sites. But for most of us, this is a hobby to spend our time and money. Well-known builders sometimes create instructions for their creations but frequently they don't. This is no surprise: many of the models gathering fame are complicated, fragile or contain special...

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The Spitfire story, part II

2013-04-20T08:00:00.000+02:00

In the second part of our Spitfire coverage (part I) we look at models that stand out from the rest. In terms of scale, the plane of legoleo is quite similar to others. At first glance the color scheme seems a bit unconventional: instead of using dark green and dark gray seen on many other LEGO Spitfires this aircraft uses a mix of light gray and normal green. It is not the color scheme that puts it above the field though, rather the motor built into the the nose that drives the...

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The Spitfire story, part I

2013-04-14T07:00:00.000+02:00

We have covered Messerschmitts on the blog earlier (part I, part II), let's take a look at the other side, more precisely Britain. The Supermarine Spitfire is probably the most well known British fighter from World War II. It was a protagonist of the Battle of Britain when the Royal Air Force defended British airspace in spite of being in numeric minority. According to statistics there were more aerial victories by Hurricane pilots, but still somehow the...

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Cars, Cars

2013-04-07T06:00:00.000+02:00

This week's post is more peaceful than the last couple of ones. Peter Blackert alias lego911 is probably the most productive car builder on the net, or at least in LUGNuts, the best car builder community. A while ago he started to build the friends of Lightning McQueen. Although the LEGO Company has an official product line around the movie Cars, I like these ones built from real bricks a lot more. Take a look at Flo: These are not real photos, but they look good...

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Family photo

2013-03-31T06:30:00.000+02:00

I still have pretty ambitious plans to build, but not so much time recently. Until I manage to carve out more, this is a family photo of two of the planes built so far.

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Ikarus in all quantities

2013-03-24T05:00:00.000+01:00

Although many years old, the Ikarus buses are still one of the most recognizable products from Hungary. The KLIKK blog has recently published a nice summary of the LEGO versions (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). The text is in Hungarian, but the models are international :) Although it exist on computer only, my personal favorite is this Ikarus 280 articulated bus created by gabor1980 alkotása. It looks simply fantastic: It is worth checking out the other ones...

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I am into LEGO again. What next?

2013-03-16T06:02:00.000+01:00

I have several friends who have started buying and playing LEGO recently. Assume you are one of them: you have bought a few sets, built them, built the B-Models too and you find it cool. The obvious question is: what next? You can buy more and do the same. Apart from financials, there are other bottlenecks: you will have to store them somewhere. And unless you are one of those LEGO Investors, this is going to become a problem. So besides buying more, what other options do you have? Let's...

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It can be built by anyone

2013-03-09T06:42:00.000+01:00

I had a plan was to share some of my own creations. In my opinion Rebrickable is a really great site to do this, so I started uploading. Luckily the past few days gave them just enough time do review all the stuff, so here they come. First, I have the classic Mustang about which I even made a Youtube video a long ago. I was surprised to find out recently that someone else has downloaded it to make another one too :) I managed to publish the micro MiG-15 and...

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Swiss, but not cheese

2013-03-02T06:30:00.000+01:00

I may have an affiliation with Hungary, but I do live in Swizterland. Coincidentally, the Bf-109G has served in both the Hungarian and the Swiss Air Force. Hence, I decided to build a Swiss Air Force Bf-109 as well. The aircraft is almost identical to the previous one except for the color scheme. More photos on Flickr as usual. Enoy!

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Red arrow

2013-02-23T06:30:00.000+01:00

Valentine's day is just over, so let us take a look at something red. Not so long ago I was lucky enough to build a 9394 Technic airplane. This model has appeared in the Technic line last year. It is quite special in the lineup: it is only the second largish Technic plane ever, the previous one being the 8855 that hit the sleves 25 years ago. If that would not be enough, this plane is the first jet ever. Let us have a mini-review. I started the build with high...

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Cool things

2013-02-16T06:00:00.000+01:00

A few cool things from the last few days. We now have official information about the new large X-Wing. It will be built from no fewer than 1558 bricks and will hit the stores in the second half of the year. If I would live in the states and would like to invest my savings into LEGO sets, I am sure I would stack up a few. I predict there will be demand in years. I think this Soyuz spacecraft is way cool. Even if it does not have any bricks. Creation...

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Silver MiG reloaded

2013-02-09T06:30:00.000+01:00

As I started building new aifcraft recently I wanted to choose a scale that fits an entire fleet, not just a single model. Finally I have settled with 1:48 which is smaller than most other similar planes, but still lets me add a considerable amount of detail. When the Messerschmidt was ready, it was a no-brainer to start rebuilding my existing MiG-15 in a similar scale. This is how far I got. It is quite similar to the original one. The underlying concept is the same: the fuselage...

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Build like a pro

2013-02-02T06:00:00.000+01:00

Rebrickable helps you do something that I consider the essence of playing with LEGO: how can I build new things from my bricks? Not everyone is born as a talented builder and not everyone has enough inspiration to build cool new things. The idea behind Rebrickable is simple: LEGO builders share blueprints and building instructions. Quite good ones. Recently the 500th MOC has been uploaded to the site: this beautiful Mercedes-Benz 540K roadster from Sariel. Since this is a...

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Planes, as small as they can be

2013-01-26T17:30:00.000+01:00

I hope by now everyone has built his LEGO sets from Christmas. To make January more exciting, Mainman has organized his own microscale build competition for plane builders. The deadline was last week, it is a good time to look at the best nominees. tbone_tbl was the most productive one, he has built no less than seven planes. My personal favorite is this AV-8 Harrier. All details are in place: the wing is excellent, but I also like the canopy and its surroundings,...

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Best of MOC

2013-01-19T05:30:00.000+01:00

We have seen many excellent builds on the web during the past few weeks, let us take a look at some of them. _lichtblau_ has been covered on the blog earlier. His latest creations are a black Pontiac with a Plymouth highway patrol, they both have an incredible seventies feel. Although both are minifig scale they both have very car-like proportions. The most interesting detail is the front and back of the police car - the fenders built from bricks laying sideways fit this...

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News sets and parts for 2013

2013-01-12T06:42:00.000+01:00

We rarely cover news on the blog but there are so many recent developments that it is worth covering the most important ones. The biggest LEGO news of the week is the announcement of the new Mindstorms that is called EV3. It brings many-many new features starting with Android and iOS integration and also including 3D building instructions on an iPad. The biggest news however is simplification: the new EV3 brick can be programmed without connecting a computer. The goal of LEGO is that...

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Messerschmitt uncovered

2013-01-05T19:41:00.000+01:00

I am happy to start the New Year with something fresh and take a look at why I have bothered with various Messerschmitts so much. Several years ago I have already tried to build one. The 2009 model was a heavy compromise: it was built in Lego Digital Designer and the bricks were chosen from the limited selection of DesignByMe that still existed. As a result most of the plane was black because this color had the largest selection of bricks. It was already time to try...

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2012

2012-12-30T07:30:00.000+01:00

We still have a few days left of 2012, it is the perfect chance to look at what we got this year. In 2012 had only 21 new posts, fewer than what I would have liked. But as some of you may have noticed, I try to post a fresh post every week. I hope to keep the momentum going into 2013 as well. But instead of spending too much time on what has or has not happened here, let me look at another important event from my own perspective: kockagyar.blog.hu used to be the most popular LEGO blog in...

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