You wait ages for a reimagining of a long-forgotten phallically-symboled LEGO theme and then two come along at once. Yes we have another Rock Raiders redux today, with this one coming from F@bz of Flickr, who has redesigned the 4970 Chrome Crusher set and added a whole lot more… well, everything. Except chrome. There’s less of that.
Monster wheels, a frankly terrifying drill, some sort of rail-gun, and a whole heap of superb building techniques make this a model well worth digging into, and you can tunnel over to F@bz’s photostream for more via the link above.
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.
This a dragline crawler crane, used in open-cast mining for digging really big holes. Built by previous bloggee Beat Felber, this incredible creation is a fully-working replica of one the world’s largest; the 700-ton P&H 2355 diesel-electric dragline that worked the Rix Creek Mine in Australia.
Remotely controlled by three SBricks, Beat’s creation can hoist and drag the bucket, rotate the superstructure, raise the boom, drive and skid-steer, and even raise the two access ladders thanks to seven Power Functions and two Micro Motors.
Four pairs of LEGO LEDs illuminate the floodlights and interior, whilst removable panels give access to the motors and winches within.
It’s a spectacular build, with a fully detailed machine room and interior to match the astonishing working mechanisms, and you can head to the mine via Beat’s ‘P&H 2355’ album to get in drag.
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.
Head to Beat’s photostream via the first link for a closer look at the jaw-dropping image above, and you can check out some of the individual models pictured within it via the links in this post or via the search function on this page.
We’re often asked why we don’t feature more digital builds. Well mostly it’s because they don’t look like this. ‘This’ is Finn Roberts‘ Mining Truck, built to serve the icy world of Hibernia that seems to be popping up all over the place in the online Lego community of late, and rendered so well you’d be hard pressed to know it’s a digital build.
What makes the renderings even more impressive is that they showcase the model’s ‘working’ features, like its enormous tipping bucket, folding entry ladder, and four-wheel-steering system. Head to Hibernia via the link above to see more, where there’s also a link of to an animation of Finn’s model in action.
This is a Komatsu D575A-3 ‘Super Dozer’, and it weighs 150 tons. Well, this one doesn’t, being rather smaller and slightly more plastic, but it’s still really impressive.
Built by Beat Felber of Flickr, this incredible creation shrinks the giant Komatsu down to 1:28.5 scale, yet retains much of the super dozers awesome functionality.
Powered by two SBricks, Beat’s model can be controlled and programmed via bluetooth, with adder/subtractor crawler drive allowing the model to drive and steer courtesy of an XL Motor providing forwarded propulsion and an L Motor powering the steering mechanism.
Pneumatics also feature, with air pressure built on-board by an L Motor with an automatic cut-off, and two pneumatic valves – each controlled by a Servo Motor – controlling both the lifting and tilting of the blade. Lastly lighting is taken care of via four pairs of Power Functions LEDs.
It’s a brilliantly engineered creation and you can see more – including a link to a video of the model in action – at Beat’s Komatsu D575A-3 Super Dozer album on Flickr. Take a look via the link!
But a pair of Abt locomotives that are, well… beautiful. We thought Abt were a motorsport company specialising in Volkswagen Group products, but then we are a car blog after all. Sharing a name but otherwise totally unrelated are these Abt locos built for the Mount Lyell Mining Company’s narrow gauge railway on the Tasmanian West Coast. And they really are built for Tasmania’s West Coast, as builder Alexander (aka narrow_gauge) was commissioned to create these for The West Coast Wilderness Railway who now run the real restored locomotives. Custom decals, 3D printed valve gear and motors complete the realism, and there’s more to see at Alexander’s photostream via the link above (or at the The West Coast Wilderness Railway Museum).
It’s nearly Christmas! So in celebration here are a pair of models that have exactly nothing to do with the festive period. Built by Michael A they’re a 300-ton mining excavator and a dump truck semi. Each is an excellent mini-figure scale build and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.
Lego mining excavators usually appear here in huge fully remote controlled form. Not so today, as Michael A’s mining excavator is – being mini-figure scale – rather smaller. Surprisingly though, Michael’s build still features a fully functional arm and bucket, thanks to the inclusion of several mini linear actuators from the Technic range that can be hand-cranked via the wheels hidden throughout the build. It’s a neat trick and one we’d like to see more of in Town scale creations. There’s more to see of Michael’s working Town-scale mining excavator at his photostream – click here to take a look!
This is Marion 204-M Superfront cable-operated mining shovel, and it’s massive. First built in 1974 by the Marion Power Shovel Company (who also built NASA’s enormous crawler transporters), the 204-M Superfront used electrically driven cables to drive its huge bucket arm and had a working weight in excess of 700 tons. Built for around twelve years the 204-M worked in open mines all over the world, with the last still operating in Asia decades later.
This incredible fully functioning Lego replica of the Marion 204-M Superfront was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr and it comes from Beat Felber who has recreated the machine in astonishing detail. Powered by eight Power Functions motors and controlled via bluetooth thanks to three third-party SBricks, Beat’s 204-M Superfront uses an XL Motor to drive each track whilst two L Motors can slew the entire superstructure independently. A pair of XL Motors power each of the cable drums and the bucket angle and bucket door are electronically powered by another two motors, giving Beat’s model as much articulation as the real Marion 204-M.
There’s a whole lot more to see of this spectacular model at Beat Felber’s Marion 204-M Superfront Flickr album, plus you can read our 5 star review of the SBrick bluetooth controller that makes creations like this possible by clicking here.
There’s something massive at TLCB Towers today. No, it’s not your Mom (she left this morning), but this, an absolutely gargantuan Caterpillar 797F mining truck built from 61,399 LEGO bricks! Designed by Certified LEGO Professional Ryan McNaught for the previously featured ‘Brickman Awesome’ show, the Lego 797F utilised Caterpillar’s own 3D modelling tool in its creation and took Ryan and a fellow builder 53 hours to construct. There’s a whole lot more to see of this astonishing build (just look at those brick-built wheels!) at Ryan’s photostream, where you can also see the other models from the Brickman Awesome show, many of which have appeared here. Click the link above to make the jump!
It’s tough being a TLCB Elf at times. After being squashedonseveraloccasions by colleagues’ remote control finds one of the Elves finally got itself an RC model to exact some revenge and then found it was too slow to do any squashing at all. Worse still, its targets jumped in the back for a free ride.
Fortunately this amazing Caterpillar 797F mining truck (one of the largest in the world in fact) by Sheo features more than just remotely controlled drive and steering. All-wheel suspension and folding ladders are present too, but they’re of no use to a vengeful Elf.
What was useful was the enormous fully mechanised dumping bucket, operable remotely via twin linear actuators. This meant the inventive Elf could drive its free-riding colleagues out into the snow that’s currently surrounding TLCB Towers and tip them neatly into a snow drift. Revenge exacted.
We now have one very happy Elf, and several very cold ones. No matter, there’s more to see of Sheo’s excellent Caterpillar 797F on Flickr and at the Eurobricks forum, which includes a video demonstrating the model’s features. Click the links to take a dump.
Our Elven workforce couldn’t resist this nicely detailed mining lorry from Flickr’s LEGO 7. As well the detailing, the “Giant Dump Truck” has some nice play features, including an opening cab & tipping function. Depending on how you choose to read its name, it could also be a bit rude. Perfect for our Elves and sadly perfect for us too. Click the link in the text for more photos.
It’s been a summery weekend here at TLCB, and this writer has been enjoying the great outdoors. Spare a thought then for those working far away from the sun, bringing us the materials out of the ground that we use in everyday life. However, one upside to such a job is that someone gets to drive machines like this one; the huge mining excavators.
This one isn’t huge at all though, having been thoroughly miniaturised by builder Krall, yet it’s still packed with Technic functionality. A rotating superstructure, rolling tracks, a two-stage motorised arm and a motorised bucket all feature, and there’s more to see of Krall’s creation at his Flickr photostream and at the Eurobricks discussion forum.
