This TLCB writer was peacefully working today when one of the more unusual sounds to penetrate the office came floating through the door. A cascading metallic rush followed by screaming, it sounded like a tin of thumbtacks being emptied over a TLCB Elf. Sigh. Still, no Elf is strong enough to upend a full tin of thumbtacks over one of its colleagues, so it couldn’t be that.

Oh yes it could. Thanks to previous bloggee ShineYu‘s remarkable fully remote controlled Volvo EC950EL excavator, a multitude of thumbtacks had indeed rained down on one of our Elves.

Much too slow to run down any of its colleagues, the Elf at the controls of ShineYu’s Volvo had deployed some trickery to allow it to cause maximum carnage. This involved loading a tin of thumbtacks into the excavator’s bucket, using the four Power Functions L motors that control the arm to raise it high above the floor, and then lying in wait for a curious Elf to walk underneath it.

Carnage achieved it then ran off cackling delightedly, leaving us to pick up tacks, and to pull a few out of a very sorry looking Elf. Whilst we do that you can check out more of ShineYu’s huge Volvo EC950EL at the Eurobricks discussion forum, where you can also watch a video of the four excavator arm motors in action, as well as the two XL motors that power the tracks and a third that rotates the superstructure. Click the link above if you dig it.