Tag Archives: Construction

The Best a Man Can Get

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There seems to be only one measure when it comes to marketing razors; The More Blades the Better. “You have three, well we have four.” “Well now we have five.” “Alright then, six.” It’ll only end when razors have a different blade for each individual hair on your face.

Trucks are much like razors, being marketed primarily as masculine tools, and where – at least according to Flickr’s Martin Nespor – more is more.

Cue Martin’s excellent fully remote controlled cab-over dumper, with not two, nor three, but five axles. It’s the Gillette razor of trucks.

All five axles are suspended, axles three and four are powered, whilst axles one, two and five are steered. There’s also a huge tipping dumper, operated via a linear actuator, with a self opening and closing bucket door cleverly linked to the tipping mechanism.

Well presented on-location in a sandpit, there’s more to see of Martin’s razor… er, truck at his photostream, and you can take a look via the link in the text above before someone builds one with six axles to beat him.

Tippin’ it Old Skool

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We love simple mechanical models here at The Lego Car Blog, particularly if they’re recreating simple mechanical vehicles. Cue regular bloggee Thirdwigg, and his thoroughly excellent Mercedes-Benz 917 AK truck.

Featuring no electric motors, zero app-based controls, and completely devoid of bluetooth, Thirdwigg’s truck is an old-school homage to vintage Technic sets, with a range of mechanical hand-powered functions in place of the software-based wizardry now commonplace in Technic construction.

Working ‘Hand of God’ steering, a piston engine connected to the pendular-suspended rear wheels, a high/low gearbox, tilting cab, and a three-way (snigger) tipper with dropsides pack the model with mechanical functions, and there’s more to see – including free building instructions – at Thirdwigg’s ‘Mercedes 917’ Flickr album, Rebrickable page, and Eurobricks discussion topic.

Click the links to tip it old skool.

Wheelie Big

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Nothing makes our smelly little workers happier than flattening one another with a remote control find. Cue much excitement from the Elf that found this enormous fully remote controlled Komatsu WD900-3 wheel dozer as it entered TLCB Towers, high on the expectation that it could smush any number of its colleagues into the office carpet.

Fortunately for us, that number was zero, seeing as Beat Felber‘s 1:28.5 scale replica of the 100-ton dozer is much too slow to catch any of them. But whilst it is indeed slow, it’s also incredible, with remotely operable all-wheel-drive, articulated linear-actuator controlled steering, a fully adjustable blade positionable via three pneumatic cylinders, each equipped with their own Servo-actuated valve, and an on-board pneumatic compressor.

That enormous blade can lift, lower, pitch fore and aft, and tilt left to right courtesy of the compressor, valves and pneumatic cylinders, all of which can be controlled remotely via bluetooth thanks to two third-party SBricks and an on-board rechargeable Power functions battery.

A work of engineering brilliance, there’s lots more to see of Beat’s Komatsu WD900-3 replica at his album of the same name, where twenty stunning images can be found along with further build details and a link to a video of the model in action.

Click the first link in the text above to make the jump, whilst we cheer up a despondent TLCB Elf with a well-deserved yellow Smartie.

Big Tow

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Mining trucks are slow. But even slower are the tracked vehicles that fill them, designed as they are to move very heavy things very short distances.

Which means if you need to relocate an enormous bulldozer or tracked excavator to the other end of the mine, you’d better clear your schedule for the next few weeks.

Which is where this curious machine comes in. Effectively a Komatsu mining truck with a gooseneck hitch in place of the dump body, it can tow the aforementioned mining machines to their new location aboard a specially-designed single-axle TowHaul Lowboy trailer, capable of transporting 250 tons. We bet parking isn’t fun.

This spectacular fully remote controlled recreation of the world’s biggest vehicular trailer comes from previous bloggee Beat Felber, whose converted Komatsu HD785-5 mining truck features motorised drive, steering, and gooseneck hitch, enabling the model to load and tow a huge TowHaul Lowboy trailer and its Komatsu D575A-3 ‘Super Dozer’ load.

There’s loads more to see of the both the Komatsu HD785-5 truck and the TowHaul Lowboy 250 ton trailer behind it at Beat’s Flickr album, and you can watch the whole rig in action courtesy of the video below.

YouTube Video

Yellow Bull

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We like big yellow bulldozers here at The Lego Car Blog. Because we’re eight. This one is a Komatsu D65EX-18, as built (superbly) by Flickr’s Y Akimeshi in mini-figure scale. Clever techniques and top quality presentation are evident throughout, and there’re more to see via the link above if you’re eight too.

Big Reach

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Reach. It’s a word we hear a lot in the running of a world-famous top-quality Lego site. OK, a mildly-known bottom-of-the-barrel Lego site. But nevertheless, we still hear it a lot. Countless messages offering great value reach improvement services are deleted with alarming frequency.

Anyway, today we have great reach, courtesy of TLCB favourite and Lego-building legend Sariel, and this incredible fully remote controlled Liebherr LTC 1045-3.1 mobile crane.

Powered by fourteen motors and three SBricks, Sariel’s crane can extend its reach to well over a meter, with a further half-meter boom extension possible on top of that.

Four Power Functions motors drive the boom’s elevation, extension and winch, another three the cabin boom elevation, extension and tilt, one rotates the superstructure, another folds the mirrors, two more the outriggers, and finally three power the drive and steering.

Over five meters of wires are hidden inside to link the motors, LED lights, LEGO battery, and SBricks, with the total model weighing almost 5kgs and able to lift ¾ kg.

There’s much more of Sariel’s superbly presented creation to see at his Liebherr LTM 1045-3.1 album, you can read how Sariel turned his hobby into revenue via our ‘Become a Lego Professional‘ series, and you can watch this amazing model in action in the video below. Click the links to reach the full content.

YouTube Video

Bend & ZNAP

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This is an ŁM-50 tracked front-end overhead loader, a Polish device characterised by two curved metal bars that allow the bucket to pass from the front to the rear of the machine over the head of the driver.

Which provides something of a conundrum when recreating it out of Danish plastic, because LEGO don’t make Technic bars in curved form. Or rather, they don’t any more…

Back in 1998 LEGO were in trouble. The perceived threat from electronic toys and rival construction brand K’nex sent the firm down some very dark alleyways, and the darkest of the lot* was Znap.

Essentially a K’nex rip-off, the Znap range lasted just two years across nineteen sets, and its most notable feature was that it had virtually nothing to do with LEGO bricks whatsoever.

It did however feature curved beams, beams that Flickr’s Maciej Szymański has somehow integrated into his superb fully-RC ŁM-50 front-end loader, enabling the bucket to slide over the model just like it does on the real thing.

A suite of third-party CaDa electrics power the movement of said bucket, plus the skid-steer tracks, but seeing as they’re about as genuine LEGO at Znap was, we’ll let it slide.

Excellent attention to detail and top quality presentation complete Maciej’s model, and there’s much more to see (including a video of the model in action) at his ‘ŁM-50’ album. Click the link above to bend and Znap!

*Except for Galidor of course.

**Today’s tenuous title link. You don’t get quality like this at The Brother’s Brick.

Yule Logs

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We’re back! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for more pointless Lego-vehicular narrative to be projected out into the internet from TLCB Team.

Said staff have returned to TLCB Towers post-Christmas break, with only one drunken family fight and a single potential lawsuit between them, which is a definite Christmas success! After releasing TLCB Elves from the cages in which they had been imprisoned over Christmas, the first job is, well… cleaning those cages.

Fortunately for us a particularly keen/hungry Elf returned to the office almost immediately with this rather neat Technic wheeled-excavator by Flickr’s Thirdwigg. With four-wheel steering, a slewing superstructure, and a mechanical bucket-lift, boom elevation and scoop movement, Thirdwigg’s creation is perfect for removing Elven ‘presents’ from even the hard-to-reach corners.

Whilst we get on with that you can check out the full image album on Flickr via the link above, where – if you have some yule logs of your own to remove from a household cage – a link to building instructions can also be found.

Mammoth Extension

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Ah, a mobile crane, which means you’ll be expecting TLCB to make erection jokes. But no! We’ve grown up, and are rising above it. Yup, we’re stiffly sticking to sensibility today, as Ralph Savelsberg‘s Town-scale Mammoet-liveried Liebherr LTM-1350 is a properly well-constructed piece of equipment, with an impressive rotating superstructure, extending stabilisers, and a meaty hook well-hung from the two-piece boom. There’s more to see at Ralph’s ‘Mammoet Mobile Crane’ album, and you can take a look at the full package via the link above!

Technic Tipping

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This neat Technic tipper truck was discovered by one of our Elves today, and they’ve all had great fun sliding down the raising tipping load bed. Flickr’s JLiu15 is the builder, and has included Power Functions motors, LED lights, a working miniature piston engine under an opening hood, and the aforementioned linear-actuator powered slide tipping bucket. See more at JLiu15’s ‘Classic Dump Truck’ album via the link.

I Don’t Want To Be a Lumberjack Any More

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The LEGO Technic 42139 All-Terrain Vehicle revealed here earlier this year looks rather good, with loads of working features and more unusual source material than LEGO’s typical mid-size sets. Plus there’s a chainsaw.

But what if you don’t want to be a lumberjack? Latvian builder TGBDZ may have the answer, having turned their 42139 ATV set into this rather jazzy front loader.

Articulated steering, a pendular rear axle, a working piston engine, and a mechanical boom/bucket all feature, and you can build TGBDZ’s alternate for yourself as instructions are available, with more to see at the Eurobricks forum. Hang up your chainsaw via the link above.

Say Yes to the Dress(ta)

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This is a Dressta TD-25M bulldozer, and it’s about as good a Lego creation as you’ll see this year.

Built by Bricksley of Flickr, this incredible model blends Model Team aesthetics, PoweredUp motors, pneumatics, and Mindstorms to create a perfectly working 1:18 replica of the Polish crawler-dozer.

A LEGO Mindstorms hub can be operated by an Xbox controller to remotely drive the four PoweredUp motors that power both the tracks and the pneumatic system that provides movement the front blade and rear ripper, whilst LED lights and even a working horn and back-up warning sound feature.

It’s an amazing build and one of which you can see more at Bricksley’s ‘Dressta DT-25M’ album on Flickr – Click the link above to say yes to the Dressta.

Rugby Injury

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This is a Jama SBU 8000 Mechanical Scaler, and it is so far outside of our vehicular knowledge it might as well be sci-fi. It’s also entitled ‘Skrotare’ by Swedish builders Sefan Johansson & Robert Lundmark which sounds like a horrific rugby injury, so we’ll leave the description there. It is an incredible creation though, with stunning detailing capturing the real mining machine in spectacularly life-like fashion. There’s more of the build to see at Stefan’s photostream and you can head into a Swedish tunnel via the link above.

Dozing Cat

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Cats are best when they’re dozing. Because then they’re not scratching something, killing wildlife, or crapping on your lawn.

Dig at cats in general complete, we can tenuously link to this Cat ‘dozer, a Caterpillar D6N LGN as built by regular bloggee Damian Z. Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of his wonderfully detailed creation on Flickr via the link.

Rise of the Phoenix

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We were going to title this post ‘Rise of the Phoenix’ until we realised that there was no suitable image of the tipper of Porsche96’s Tatra Phoenix 6×6 actually rising. But then we couldn’t think of any other titles…

No matter, because the tipper of Porsche96’s Tatra Phoenix 6×6 does rise, thanks to an L Motor driving a linear actuator, which is controlled remotely via BuWizz bluetooth brick.Two further L Motors power all six wheels, all of which are suspended, whilst an M Motor steers the fronts (along with the steering wheel too), and there’s an inline-6 engine under the tilting cab.

It’s a top quality Technic build and there’s more to see, including a video of it in action (tipper rising and everything) at the Eurobricks forum, with the complete gallery of images available on Bricksafe. Click the links above to see the Phoenix rise.