Classic Space Reboot: The Star Fleet Voyager

 This is a "reboot" model based on the original classic space ship from 1981.

It looks pretty cool with the smooth wings and all.

I'm pretty pleased with this model.

Fixing / Removing yellowing on Lego Bricks (De-Yellowing video)

After doing some research I found a solution for yellowed Lego bricks. This is awesome. 

You can actually fix yellowed Lego bricks by restoring their original color. 

By soaking them using this method you can remove the yellowing on the lego bricks!

Here's a video I found addressing the solution. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2yGTAK1gfs

Bionicle: Battle For The Golden Mask Competition- look back

This here is a photo of my recent Bionicle creation.
It was an entry for the Battle for the Golden Mask competition hosted by a number of websites worldwide.
Much to my surprise this model pulled through and won SECOND PLACE on ReBrick.
I will shortly be getting a collection of new Bionicles in the mail for this achievement so I will do a follow up on my personal thoughts about the new line and the story along with it. Please take a moment to visit my photostream and check out all my pictures of this model.

Build the TARDIS!

Instructions are now available for a Tardis to go along with the Dalek model.

click "read more" after the photo to see full instructions.

Still accepting commissions to build anything smaller than a regular Rubik's Cube.

EXTERMINATE!!!

 This is the first mini model prepared.

It is a Dalek from the highly popular BBC show, "Doctor Who".

Instructions are now available!

Christmas Is HERE!!!!

It's time to start blogging again.

This time I'm starting something new.

I am accepting commissions to build anything smaller than my Rubik's cube.
Any ideas I accept will be generated into building instructions.

More updates will come along very soon.

Roofing a House, 2-roofing techniques to improve lego homes

I have already brought up some basic house building techniques in a previous post.
In this post i will continue with the basic roofing of houses.

Lego just recently released info on another one of their big sets for next year.
This time it was the                                      

10243 Parisian Restaurant. After taking a closer look at this model i realized that the roofing was rather abnormal for Lego. This model featured some large sloping elements to form the roof. Often techniques like these are excluded from official lego sets. 

Now, as mentioned before, most lego houses are designed for a beginner's age group. so, more complex roof designs are excellent to find in new sets. 

with this all said, it's time to get to the building tech part of this post:
House roofing techniques....

Lego to release a small scale model of the "Maersk Line Triple E" !!!

The first Triple-E to be launched: The Mc-kinney Moller
Passing through the Suez canal on its maiden voyage. 

Lego has always had a way of taking advantage of the release of "the next big thing".
This time, it's the world's biggest, energy efficient Maersk Triple-E!!!

20 of these ships are to be constructed over the next few years and will be launched to ship over 18,000 containers at a time!!!! These giants span about 400 meters long and 59 meters wide. The ships are much to big to dock in the Americas. They are designed to cross the Suez Canal in Egypt in order to preform trades between Europe and Asia.

under construction!

The Triple-E will be able to carry 2,500 more containers than it's predecessor the E-class Emma Maersk.
"One of the class's main design features are the dual 32 megawatts (43,000 hp) ultra-long stroke two-stroke diesel engines, driving two propellers at a design speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Slower than its predecessors, this class uses a strategy known as slow steaming, which is expected to lower fuel consumption by 37% and carbon dioxide emissions per container by 50%. The Triple E design helped Maersk win a "Sustainable Ship Operator of the Year" award in July 2011." -- Wikipedia
For a visual info watch this youtube video on the Maersk channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxFs5LpDsQU



Why is this big news for Lego? If the reader hasn't noticed before, Lego has a habit of designing sets based off an upcoming theme. Take lego Cars for example, just

The five basic tips every house builder should know.

    

Recently, lego creator saw the release of the new Family House. I personally have had a chance to mess around with this set and I find it disappointing. Although it may "look cool" it has a low piece count (756p.) and price per piece is high averaging at 9 cents a piece. This includes all the minifig elements and accessories. so i do not fancy this decline in value of lego sets.

Now I could go on and on about how awful a set this is, including the fact that the garage opens directly into the living room where a kitchen should exist, but I have a different point to make.

The standard for lego houses could be so much better. Take the modular buildings for example.
The 10218-1: Pet Shop has neat techniques and lots of space for it's size. If you haven't seen this model displayed before, it's HUGE! So, why aren't Lego houses this good?

The two reasons I figure are:

Building tips: minifig bed.

This is just something quick i'm throwing together to present an awesome way to create a realistic minifig scale Lego bed. A while ago i set out on a two minute mission to design a perfect bed. actually turned out great!  and now i'm sitting here posting about it : )





okay, for starts...

this is the frame, evidently it ended up simple.

here's a breakdown photo.

basically two fence railing elements create the base.

And the cool part is, i even used black minifig legs to style the headboard.

Then, all you got left to do is to make a mattress. this was pretty easy.

just take a small piece of foam, wrap it with tape, and tape a cloth over the top as a 

mattress cover. 

so there, simple Lego bed for ya. comment below and tell me if you use it in any models

and how. 

I would like to thank all of my readers and please subscribe :) 

how to cram a pic-a-brick cup and get the most brick for your buck.

This simple guide will show you how to cram up to twice as many pieces in one pic-a-brick cup.

Usually people come into the lego store, grab a cup and look at the wall and say, "ooh1 maybe some pretty flowers to throw into my lego bucket!" or something like that, and then they grab a couple bricks and throw them into the cup. they do the same with the wheels they grab enough for at least one car. 

In the end all they did was grab a bunch of pieces that they think are cool and go home and can't really build anything out of them. this is because they never grabbed the pieces that would support a full model. 

In order to really get something that will benefit you out of your pic-a-brick purchase, you need to be envisioning what you will be doing with these pieces when you get home: will they just become part of your little bucket of pieces you don't know what to build with? or will they build a cool model and impress their friends.

 In this post i will explain the most effective procedure to fill a pic-a-brick cup at the Lego store.

The other day I walked into the store and looked at the wall and said "OMG! They have bright purple 2x3 plates!" I walked home that day with about 30 of them in my cup!

To the left is a picture of what my cup looked like.
DO YOU see any purple plates? NOPE!
That's because they're crammed in the middle!












Here! I'll show you how to do it!
first, fill the bottom rim inside the cup with some small pieces. That way you can sort of level the floor out.

Next, begin stacking all of the square element you want (plates and bricks).

Make each stack tall enough to just fit inside the cup.

If you have any sloping elements you can make them take less space by putting them together in the cup like this:

Put all your stacks around the edges of the cup.

If you want to put any large baseplates in stack them loosely on to each other

and put them in the middle of the cup. 

Sometimes there will be a space between the large plates and the wall of the cup. This is a good space to put awkward pieces. In this example i laid fences together in the space.

As you can see, there's still lots of space left in this cup. 

This is where you are left with a choice. you can fill the rest f the space with small or awkward shaped pieces or (i recommend that) you use the "fill it in halves" technique  (that's just a name i came up with).

This technique allows you to fill the cup in sections. 

so far the bottom section has been filled. 

Now, you can make even more stacks to fill the top section! 

Once you have finished all the stacks, you are ready for the last step! 

You're almost done!

choose any of the small elements on the pic-a-brick wall and stuff them in all the cracks and crevices of 

in the cup. you can even shake the cup gently to allow the contents to settle and create even more room! 

It even helps to push down on all the bricks to force them to fit in the cup!
now the last step is to create a little hump where there is
space in the knob of the cap:

 Now, the miracle of heaven in this process is that the store employees will tape the cap onto the cup for you, so that the lid stays on (in case the lid were to fall of if the cup was crammed to overflowing).
so, the rule is, as long as the lid is touching the cup, it will be okay!





One other tip that is very helpful is to have an idea of what you are going to use the pieces for when you get home, that way you don't ever get pieces and never use them for something nice. :)

AND THAT'S HOW I CRAM MY CUP!!!


You see, the image below shows that the pieces in this pile, PLUS all the pieces that are filling the cup. can fit inside the cup if you fill it using my methods! NO JOKE!
IT REALLY WORKS!!!!

So, maybe now you can get twice as many bricks in one cup yourself!

thanks for reading and please subscribe to:

THE BRICK WORM!!!

turbo tank mod instructions!

The turbo tank mod instructions are finally available!!!

this is an awesome model that has a lot of interesting connections and I encourage you to check it out.

Instructions part 1

Instructions part 2

this is pretty exciting!!!!!!!!!

OK!... My Turn

I've been posting a lot about other peoples' models for a while and now it's time for me to resent one of my own. Here are two fig-scaled exo-suits i'm pretty proud of. some inspiration was taken from builders such as mondayn00dle on flickr. 

i'm wondering if i could possibly impress some people with these. 

Epic copter!

It took some time to bring myself to blog this but I guess i convinced myself to because here I am now blogging it. what you are looking at is an EU serpent gunship by Andreas.
Quote:
"The Serpent is a stealth tilt-rotor Gunship utilized by the European Union. Its design is focused on reducing the radar cross section and the VTOL´s heat signature. Therefore the Serpent has a dark and angular design, unlike all other EU aircraft. Depending on its armament configuration a Serpent can however also be used as multi-purpose Gunship rather than as stealth VTOL." -- Andreas 

Starfleet

just in time for the release of the new STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, 
M. R. Yoder presents his starfleet project including the Enterprise and the Voyager. some work is required gut for the most part, it's looking good!

"winter moon"

and when i found mondayn00dle's model the "winter moon" I said "oh! that just CAN'T be Lego!"
BUT IT IS! And it's amazing! The color contrast is done perfect. The lines are so clean. the use of pieces is great. It even fits a minifig!!!!

How to build lego cobblestone!

It took me a while to find this but, once again, Eklund outs his genius mind to work and comes up with this sweet new cobblestone technique!         Here you can see how he put his technique into action!

Iron and vintage!

Here i have stumbled upon what could possibly be a perfect model of vintage american gas pumps!
Except that this one belongs to vikings!!!
  this model was constructed by Bruce Lowell or "bruceywan" for the iron builders' competition!
Though he has disabled downloading of his photo (probably to keep it safe because it's a contest entry)
I urge you to check it out because it is soooooooooo cooooool! perfection!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruceywan/8740346650/in/photostream/

orange rover overview

On a separate page i have posted a simple overview of what went into this awesome 

orange rover model i put together.

you can view it here:

http://brickwormdownlaods.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Nex 4.0 mod.

Here is a simple mod i preformed on the Hero factory Nex 4.0.

I've posted a brief photo recap of the mod here.

Here's how to do it:

Complete:

The laser cutter can be stored on his back or used in place of his left hand

as shown: