How not to photograph a firestation...

I was walking down the street the other day, and I saw this lovely old fire station.  They even had what looked like a vintage fire truck there.

So I just had to take some photographs. I like shooting the trucks from low down, there are two reasons for this.  The first is that you can really get some fun details, like the eagle or phoenix atop the bell, the chrome around the head lights reflecting a neighbouring truck, of the texture of the radiator, or klaxon.  The second reason for shooting low is to get a kids eye view.  Grownups look at fire trucks where kids look up to them, in every sense of the phrase.  You can add to the size by being low, you can re-kindle memories.

I'm definitely happy when all I'm exploring the details of a fire-engine, every nuance of design, be it a Mack, Pearce, La France, Seagrave or whatever.  Sometimes I get a little too focused.

But usually I notice when the engine starts up, or the firemen shout at me to get out of the way.

Lego Houses

This is a typical English semi-detatched house, about 100 years old. Judging by the amount of space to the side we can see it's in a more rural location. Very much like my grandparents house for location, however the L shape of each house is more like the ones I grew up in, which was on the edge of town.



This one was intended to be a more modern American house, probably about 30 years old now. Actually, I built this one first, then DW suggested I build the UK homes.


There is a Lego building style called "Micropolis" which is scaled such that a city block is on a 16x16 base, and a car can be made by using a 2x1 "jumper" (plate with single stud) and a 1x1 plate (preferably studless). The American house is a smaller scale than Micropolis, but the UK house would probably be acceptable.


These were quick builds, but unfortunately exhausted my supply of 1x1 slope bricks, so I can't make any more at this scale.

I want a garden railway!

Yes, it's true. I finally have a desire for a railway.

That's not a fair statement. I've had inklings towards a railway for some time.

My childhood 'N'-gauge never really got far. A freight train, and a passenger train with one diesel and one tank engine, and a couple of buildings.

The concept of a 'Z'-gauge briefcase railway was appealing. Can you imagine a layout of flex track building a simple diorama. All in a compact form. Great fun, uses some creativity, and would satisfy the urge. But have you tried buying for a 'Z' gauge system?

Another idea was just to build some static dioramas. Display cases about a foot long, and 4" deep. That would give the option of say putting a streetcar on a high street. A painted or printed backdrop of mill chimneys, and frontages for the buildings. Tracks set on cobbles. Could work. How about a deep picture frame and put a logging train, or Swiss train hugging a mountain side with trees and trestle bridges?

The next obvious one for me is a Lego system. That sounds great, but it would just take up space, and the boys would want to borrow parts. Who could blame them?

So, garden gauge? How about that? We have a yard that is 15'x19'. I can do something with that. I am thinking of running it at ground level. There is nowhere really to bank up earth or terrace it. I would like to use this as an excuse for a shallow water feature too. No one uses our back yard. It's too small to run, or ride a bike. The basketball hoop is unused. The sand box is retired. It's too hot in the noon sun, it's too dark and closed in the evenings, and we're close enough that partying outside at night would disturb the neighbours.

So my next question is what do I go with? I'd love live steam. I'd like Lego. I want ease of maintenance. The electricity out there is completely in the wrong place. And I want to keep it low budget.

The other thing, since the sandbox is coming out, I think I'll pull out the bench too. I have carte blanche in one wall of the garden and an eccentric shape of soil. I can see pea gravel, alpines, and miniatures. I can see moss and baby's breath. I don't see banzai though.

Are my ideas above my energies and skills? Only time will tell.

Some New MOC's

So here are some MOC's (My Own Creations) that we've put together. The first one is a rather natty fire truck. I designed it onLDD (Lego Digital Designer), and since I'd used a few new parts, bought it from Lego Factory.

I didn't use the chrome spoked wheels myself, they have a neat reversible hub with lugnuts on one side and finer spokes on the other. The kids switched wheels on me a few months ago.

I actually came up with a truck chassis/cab first time around, then I added the fire engine parts. When submitted to Lego Factory it actually got tagged as a "cool creation", one small claim to fame.

These Three critters, we're not sure what they are, but they are cute, and are the work of my 11 year old. They almost got re-used for parts the other day, but were too cute to take apart. We now have the photos, so I guess building can continue.

The following space ship was a quick build epic scale space ship. I started by building a couple of micro schips, and decided they need a mother ship to dock onto.


Yes the rockets on the wing are really minifigure binoculars, but they are comonly used as boosters, or gun barrels in the Star Wars tie in sets.

Keen observers will notice the nose is on at 45deg to the main body on the shuttles.

An Interesting Thought

I found this doodle in my 10 year old's school book. Never thought about it like that before.

Red Wing Flier

This was my first reaction, after the over-sized top heavy dirigible. A natty little flier. If I could only enter one design, it would be a toss up between this in the flapper. I think the flapper is more fun, but this one is more resilient to impact.

The Technobabble

This agile little flier is based on the Phosphonic drive. A strong phospherecent, light source (glwydium found in Welsh coal mines) is combined with a photo resonating material (Chestertonium XIII), that is light causes vibration. The vibration can heat a liquid, say liquid sodium, which then passes through a heat exchanger making steam to drive the turbines.

THe bulbous nose houses a gyroscope.

In Flight Movie

I never got good in flight video for this one, but here is what I have...

Parts

Only 24 bits. The chunk of Bionicle helped with reduced part count. The studded pins go one up for the pilot's "neck" and two down to fix the body to the cannonball. The red grid was just me being lazy, not looking for a 2x1 studless plate.

Flitter Flyer

Inspiration

Ever since I don't know when I've been interested in this stuff. "Space 1889's" concept of Liftwood Flyers was fascinating to me. The classic idea of a flapping flier just seemed too much fun. So here is mine.

Here we have the flyer with the wings out of phase, lifting the rear as the nose drops, then lifting the nose as the rear drops. I saw how airsickness would quickly come on with this motion, so we put the gearing so they fly in sync.

The Synched flight has the rear wings traveling a little farther than the front, this is so the pilots flight is not obscured, and the rear wings are taking more of the load. The upstroke is faster than the downstroke where the little plutonic steam turbine is fighting the weight of the flyer.

I did make a dirigible a couple of weeks ago.

Part Count

As for the build. 47 pieces in the flyer. The mini-figure included brings the part count to 51. Lets not mention the flying base as seen in the stills. That is not part of the set, and was only an aid to photographing the set. Do the small antennae count as one part or two each? I counted them as one, since that is how it is in LDD.

If I had to sacrifice a part, I'd probably lose the front two railings. They sit higher than the rest because of the wing mounts. If I had unlimited part I would have raised the rest of the fence to match using some grey 4x1 plates.

Part Sources

So most of the parts are borrowed from my sons. Sure I have plenty myself, but it's Technic and older vintage space. The pilot is wearing Diggers (Dino Attack/Dino 2010) leather flying/football helmet, he is also wearing Catwomans leather suit, and Luke Skywalkers head.

The Build

Now for the parts lists, and the step by step building....

The Movies

So I used monkey jam to make the movie sequences, using our Logitech Pro 9000 webcam. The images were PNG files. I used Paint to remove the flying base frame by frame, but since there are only 15 images in total, this was not too painful.

The Conclusion

I was actually the first post in the entries, and joint 8th place in the "Reasonable Clever" Steampunk build competition. Since the rules only permitted one prize per entrant, I still got a little something.

My attempt at stop motion

So this may seem a little bland, but it is the very first attempt for myself. I have spent the last few weeks helping the rest of my family with their projects.

The intent is to take the three segments and blend them together, much the way it is done in the 1982 Polish film "Tango".

It's also my first video post here on blogger, let's hope it doesn't take too long to download for you.

Update - Though I had taped down the baseplate and tripod, using the release button on the camera caused the camera to move - there is no cable release for that Kodak. This caused the wobble. I used a regular halogen desklamp for even lighting, the extension ring for the close up lens actually casts a shadow when the on-body flash is used, which leaves the lower left un-lit. Lego is also shiny, and flared horribly with direct flash.