The Scorpion King may be a truly awful movie spun off from a merely not very good one (although this TLCB Writer will watch it at every opportunity for one simple reason), but it managed to spawn both an even more pointless sequel and give name to an obscure Finnish forest harvester range.
OK, we’re not really sure if the marketing department at Ponsse actually named their eight-wheel harvester line after a terrible Dwayne Johnson film, but they do share the same name.
This goliath of a model is a fully-functioning Technic recreation of that Finnish forester, and it’s a work of engineering genius. Powered by eleven motors, marthart‘s Ponsse Scorpion King can drive, steer via linear-actuator driven central articulation, raise, extend and turn the harvesting arm, and do whatever-it-is that the thing on the end does to harvest trees, all via remote control.
There’s also an on-board compressor for the pneumatic system, an inline 6-cylinder engine, working suspension, and a detailed tilting cabin too.
There are more images available to view at marthart’s Ponsse Scorpion King album on Brickshelf via the link above, and here’s another bonus pic because something good had to come from that dismal movie…
We round out a small-scale day here at The Lego Car Blog (don’t worry, we’ll be back soon with something much bigger) with this neat Fendt 500 Vario. Built by Flickr’s Stefan it’s an excellent recreation of the German manufacturer’s infinitely variable transmission tractor, but as with real tractors it’s what attached to it that’s cool.
Stefan has built a variety of tools for his Fendt, including a Polterschild & Forstseilwinde forest blade and winch (shown above) allowing the tractor to handle some hefty wood,* and what is apparently a Mulchfräse forestry mulcher** (below) for… er, mulching it?
There’s more to see of Stefan’s Fendt 500 Vario and the various implements it can deploy at his photostream – click the link above and get mulching!
It’s that time of year again! With LEGO’s H2 Technic sets on the horizon the survivors from our crack team of Elves – sent to infiltrate The LEGO Company’s HQ – have returned to TLCB Towers with this summer’s bounty. So without further ado, here are the brand new Technic sets due to reach stores on August 1st!
42081 Volvo Autonomous Loader
OK, let’s get the weird one out of the way first. This is a Volvo autonomous loader concept and it is, frankly, one of the oddest Technic sets to appear in recent times. Continuing LEGO’s successful line of officially-licensed vehicles the new concept loader joins the previous (and excellent) Volvo Technic sets, but differs in that it isn’t a replica of a real-life Volvo at all. This makes it – in our eyes at least – utterly pointless.
Like many of LEGO’s recent Technic sets 42081 straddles the Model Team and Technic themes, bringing increased visual realism to functional models (only 42081 can’t be visually realistic because there is no real-world equivalent). All-wheel-steering, a mechanically raising and tipping bucket, and – for reasons we simply don’t understand – a model of a quadcopter drone are all included.
Expected to cost around $140 there are probably better ways to obtain 1,167 yellow and black pieces for your collection…
42080 Forest Harvester
This is more like it. Aimed at ages 10+ LEGO’s new 1,000-peice 42080 Forest Harvester set is the first to include Power Functions 2.0 (which may also mean the possibility of App control). We’ll have to wait until we get our hands on the new components to test out the upgrades, but the fact that the set also includes new pneumatics is cause for celebration!
We expect 42080 to use the new system to drive a pneumatic compressor that powers both the raising/lowering of the arm and the grabby/rolly/cutty thingumy on the end of it (which also looks to feature some new spiky round bricks). Mechanical functions are likely to include centre articulation and working steering, plus a little workbench and brick-built chainsaw are thrown in (somewhat unnecessarily) for good measure too.
We expect the brightly-coloured 42080 Forest Harvester set to cost around $150 when it reaches shelves later this year, which makes it $150 better value than that Volvo…
42079 Forklift Truck
A staple feature throughout Technic’s long history, we’ve lost count of the number of forklift trucks in LEGO’s back-catalogue. The new set does appear to be one of the best though, and it could very well be the sweet-spot in the H2 Technic range. With Hand-of-God rear-wheel steering, a tilting fork, and an interesting-looking rope-activated lift mechanism, 42079 includes just enough mechanically-operated functionality to be interesting.
We think it looks rather nice too, with well-judged Model Team detailing, a few stickers teamed with a nice colour choice, and a bonus mystery barrel containing something dangerous. Aimed at ages 9+ 42079 is constructed from just under 600 pieces and is expected to cost around $70 when it reaches stores in August 2018.
42082 Rough Terrain Crane
Now for the big one. This is 42082, LEGO’s 4,000+ piece, $300 flagship, and it’s massive. With the highest piece-count of any Technic set to date, plus Power Functions, 42082 is set to lift (hah!) the top tier of LEGO Technic even further towards engineering for adults.
An enormous extending boom (and it really is huge – the picture above shows it in its most compact setting), superstructure slew, boom raising/lowering and winch control are all driven electronically by LEGO’s Power Functions system, plus there are working outriggers, steering, and a V8 piston engine.
As with all of the new Technic sets 42082 will include instructions for a B-model, and it also features a wealth of stickers (each new set seems to include decals denoting the set no.) as part of a trend towards increasing the visual realism of Technic.
It’s a tough life being a The Lego Car Blog Elf. You spend all day dodging dogs and seagulls in the hope of finding a Lego creation worth blogging so that you’ll get fed, and then whilst you’re asleep in the cage room one of your colleagues drives in a remote control tractor with a giant mechanical claw on the back, picks you up and dunks you in the toilet.
Still, they bring it upon themselves. The vehicle responsible is this rather impressive fully remote controlled Technic John Deere 648L by Brickshelf’s pipasseyoyo, complete with twin L motor drive, articulated steering via two mini linear actuators, a remotely raising/lowering front mounted blade, raising, rotating and opening claw, and an inline-6 piston engine.
It’s a lovely bit of kit and there’s more to see of pipasseyoyo’s build via Brickshelf, where there is also a link to a video of the model in action. Click the link above to take a look.
This Komatsu PC210LL-10 loves munching on wood.* With a 365 harvester head it can strip a tree of its branches in seconds, enabling the trunk to be neatly stacked on the back of a waiting truck. Flickr’s Mathijs Bongers is the builder and he’s replicated the tracked forest harvester brilliantly in mini-figure scale. See more on Flickr via the link.
This beautiful machine is a Stalowa Wola L34 front loader, built from the mid-70s until the 2000 in Poland and now recreated in stunning accuracy by Zbiczasty of Brickshelf.
Featuring Power Functions all wheel drive, articulated steering and a pneumatically operable front bucket Zbiczasty’s model is much more than a detailed display piece. Zbiczasty has also created the Stalowa Wola L34’s front-mounted grab which can be fitted in place of the bucket, allowing the vehicle to become a foresting tractor.
There’s lots more of this hugely impressive model to see via Zbiczasty’s Brickshelf gallery, where there are nearly twenty spectacularly good photographs available. Click the link above to make the jump to Brickshelf.
Mini-figure machines don’t appear here that often, but if done well Town-scale creations can be a match for creations several times their size. Our Elves found two great examples of top quality mini-figure models on Flickr today. The yellow machine is keko007‘s JCB telehandler, whilst the elaborate red contraption is Mathijs Bongers Komatsu forester. See more of each via on Flickr the links above.
We could put this Komatsu 951 by LegoMathijs to good use in the Elves’ cage room – there are quite a lot of logs to pick up at times. Still, that’s what the office interns are for. There’s more to see of this unusual creation at the link above.
