Bill Ward's Brickpile » Vehicle

White Trailers

Bill — Sun, 29 May 2011 22:05:59 +0000

LEGO Semi-Trailers made to go with my various tractors. Each one has a folding leg to support it when not connected to a truck, and all have the same interchangeable pin system for being towed.

Click the image for the gallery, or view the slideshow.

Cab-Over Trucks

Bill — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:45:51 +0000

Cab-over semitrailer tractors made in LEGO. Identical except for color, these trucks have been a fixture on the BayLUG/BayLTC city/train layout for years, but I never got around to photographing them.

Click the picture or view a slideshow.

Double Trailer Truck

Bill — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:20:16 +0000

A double semi-trailer truck made out of LEGO, featuring tractor, two trailers, and a dolly to connect the trailers together.

I built this a year or two ago and it’s been at a bunch of BayLUG/BayLTC events but has never been photographed and blogged before.

Click the photo to view the gallery on Flickr or view as a slideshow.

Mail Trucks

Bill — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:46:09 +0000

United States Postal Service trucks in LEGO. Designed by me in 2003, and featured on many BayLUG and BayLTC layouts since then.

I posted instructions to build this in 2007 on Brickshelf, but never posted any photos until now (except of course for the occasional candid shot in a club layout).

Click the photo to view the set on Flickr or view as a slideshow.

Fifth Wheel RV

Bill — Fri, 27 May 2011 20:31:11 +0000

I built this many years ago (2003 or so?) but never posted it online before. It’s been on many BayLUG and BayLTC displays, though. I’m still fairly happy with it, though it could surely be improved in a number of ways.

The trailer attaches via a Technic axle to a bracket in the truck bed, and is a “toy hauler” – it contains an ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) for off road fun. It has two slide-outs, one in the bedroom in the front and another with a dinette in the center.

Click the picture to go to the gallery on Flickr, or view them as a slideshow.

Admin note: Over the span of the next few weeks I plan to post a bunch of older models online. After Maker Faire I brought all the boxes of models that have never been posted into the house, and am slowly working through them doing photo shoots and blog entries, and in some cases to make LDraw files for building instructions. So while the quality of construction might not be as good as stuff I would build today, they’re still models I like enough to show at train shows and events like Maker Faire. I hope you enjoy them.

Big Yellow Taxi

Bill — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:12:47 +0000

I’ve built an iconic New York City yellow Checker taxi cab.

Throughout building this, the Joni Mitchell song has been running through my head…

Late last night I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi carried off my old man
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

As usual, click the image above to see all the pictures, or view them as a slideshow.

Glacier National Park Bus

Bill — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:42:15 +0000

Glacier National Park is famous for its iconic old-fashioned tour buses with ten doors and an open roof. I’ve never been to the park, but I built the bus for BayLUG’s "National Parks" theme building contest at the September 2010 meeting, and displayed it at BrickCon 2010 in Seattle. I’ve made a few minor adjustments since then, but the original build was done in only two hours.

The Glacier Park Inc. Web site has the following to say about these famous red buses:

The White Motor Company between 1936 and 1938 built glacier’s red-with-black trim vehicles. This fleet of Red Buses is considered the oldest intact fleet of passenger carrying vehicles anywhere. These 17 passenger convertible touring sedans are more than a mere means of transportation for locals and visitors – they are cherished, elegant icons of Glacier National Park.

Here’s a picture from their site of the real thing in action:

As always, click on my model to see the rest of the photos in Flickr or view them as a slideshow.

Desert Road Trip

Bill — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:49:36 +0000

Flickr user jedimasterwagner has made a great little desert diorama, featuring my Shasta Teardrop travel trailer, a Jeep by Mike Psiaki, and a cactus based on an idea that Flickr user brickpoor brought back from BrickWorld.

Found via Lego Diem. Looks like the diorama was created using LDraw and rendered in 3D. I think it came out quite good – and great work on the mosaic billboard!

Fleetwood Revolution LE 42K Motorhome

Bill — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 01:14:43 +0000

This high-end luxury motorhome allows you to travel in class! Features three slide-outs, including one that is almost the entire left side, a powerful diesel engine in back, two bathrooms, plentiful storage underneath, a well-appointed kitchen, and much more.

It is based on the Fleetwood Revolution LE 42K Motorhome but I should admit I took a lot of artistic license, especially with the artwork on the sides.

This is pretty much the diametric opposite from my last RV model, the Shasta Teardrop Travel Trailer that I made a couple of weeks ago. While that one was small and minimalistic (with only the most basic interior, and no removable roof) with classic styling from the 60′s, this one is modern and contains all the amenities you could wish for. However, neither model has 4 wheels, so both are eligible for the All But Four challenge on LUGNuts. It’s also eligible for a new Flickr group I created, LEGO RVing.

Hope you enjoy it, and please post comments here or on Flickr. If you want to see it in person, come to the BayLUG exhibit at MoAH in Palo Alto, CA – I’ll be bringing it there tomorrow and it will be there through January 11, 2009.

Click the photo above for the photoset on Flickr, or view it as a slideshow.

Shasta Teardrop Trailer featured on LAMLradio Podcast

Bill — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:30:08 +0000

I just wanted to say thanks to Jonathan Bender for selecting my Shasta Teardrop Travel Trailer as his “MOC of the Week” when he was interviewed on LAMLradio Episode 69. (If you just want to hear what they had to say about my trailer, skip to 39:02)

Of course, thanks to The Brothers Brick for featuring the trailer a week ago, as that’s where Jonathan saw it…

If you don’t listen to LAMLradio, I highly recommend it. Hosts James Wadsworth and Aaron Andrews (“DARKspawn”) feature interviews with movers and shakers of the LEGO scene, talk about LEGO news, and discuss a few key “MOCs of the week” in each episode, which come out about once a week.

Lately James has also been putting out video podcasts, called appropriately enough LAMLtv. I’ve done two of those as guest episodes, featuring footage and interviews from BrickCon in Seattle last October, and have plans to do a few more. I’ll post those here too, of course.

(In case you were wondering, “LAML” stands for “LEGO and more LEGO”)

RoadRailer Trailer

Bill — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:42:25 +0000

This cargo trailer is both a railcar and a trailer for a truck. The rail wheelsets are removable, and the road wheels are then available to be towed down the road. I built this many years ago and it’s been on numerous BayLTC train layouts, but I never put pictures online until now.

I first learned about these interesting hybrid vehicles on the PBS television show Tracks Ahead. They are a real thing made by Wabash National. Each trailer has permanently-attached road wheels, and can have railroad wheelsets attached for use in a train. The trailers are hitched to each other, with the wheelset mounted on the rear of the trailer, and a special wheelset is attached to the front one.

See the Flickr photoset for detailed pictures from various angles, or click for a slideshow.

By the way, when I posted my Gondola car, I said that was my first train car MOC. Technically I guess the RoadRailers are, but the Gondola is more of a “train car” in the traditional sense, whereas the RoadRailers are more road trailers that can be carried as a part of a train in my mind.

Shasta Teardrop Travel Trailer

Bill — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:53:03 +0000

My latest vehicle MOC is a camping trailer, based on the 1960′s Shasta travel trailer. Click the image to view the set on Flickr, or check out the slideshow.

I built it for the campground scene that Loren built for BayLUG’s exhibit at the Museum of American History in Palo Alto. The display will be open to the public through January 11, 2009, on Fridays through Sundays. If you’re in the local area, come on and check it out one of these weekends.

I had made two RV’s before this, a Class C motorhome and a “toy hauler” fifth wheel trailer. But since I didn’t think Loren’s campground would work with just two campsites filled, I got inspired to make another. I built it to be compatible with the “Range Rover” from the new 7635 Horse Trailer set, partly because I didn’t want to also have to build a tow vehicle, and partly because I really like the look of that car.

As for the trailer design, I wanted to build something iconic, and thought about doing an Airstream but the curves were too complex. I thought of the “teardrop” trailers, since they have flat straight sides. I did some image searches online and found a few images of the Shasta trailer, and decided to build that:

Isuzu NPR Delivery Truck

Bill — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:53:45 +0000

My latest model is one of the most common trucks in the world today, the Isuzu NPR.

This one is configured as a delivery van, with roll-up door in the rear. Notable details include the cab with sloped windshield, fuel tank, sloped driveshaft, mud flaps, and 6 wheels.

I originally had the idea for this at one of the BayLUG meetings in conversation with another member, Brooks. He and I experimented with the geometry to see if the windshield design was doable at that meeting, and after many iterations this is what I ended up with.

Land Rover

Bill — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:36:47 +0000

I just finished building my newest vehicle, a 7-wide Land Rover:

It’s a little bigger than most minifig-scale vehicles, and at 7-wide (really 8 if you include the fenders and bumper) it’s a bit big for standard LEGO roads. But I think it has all the elements that readily identify it as a Land Rover from the 1960′s-70′s era. Hope you like it. Click the picture above for more, or view them as a slideshow.

Wheeled School Bus

Bill — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:43:25 +0000

Hot on the heels of my fantastical Lunar School Bus, here’s a much more mundane version.

This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a need to specify “wheeled” with reference to a school bus – how about you? :-)

Anyway, it wasn’t that hard. I was thinking of doing it anyway, but when Flickr user Mad physicist asked about it I decided to give it a whirl. I pulled off the antigravity bottom and rocket engines, and otherwise left it intact. The hardest part was the nose, because it contains SNOT sub-units facing in several different directions (up, forward, down, and to both sides), plus half-stud offsets here and there to keep things interesting. However I found a way to reuse as much of the original as possible.

I was also asked if I could make instructions for it. Well, I have done that too. I made a CAD version of the lunar school bus first before I started tearing anything apart (just in case!) and then later adapted it so that you could build either school bus from the same set of sub-units. I have a master MPD file containing everything needed to build both versions, and thanks to the MPD Wizard from Orion Pobursky (see the LUGNET thread where I heard about it for details), I also have separate MPD files containing just what you need to build one or the other. I’m not sure yet how I’m going to publish it – should I charge money or just give it freely? Would people be happy with the MPD file or would they want proper directions?

Anyway, click the pic for the rest of the photos, or view a slideshow. I included some interior shots from the lunar bus in the photoset because the interior is identical.

Classic Space NASCAR

Bill — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:25:53 +0000

Inspired by the NASCAR fad that’s been going around the Flickr LEGO community, I built this using the layout photo from mikepsiaki. However I thought I’d do one with the Classic Space esthetic….

The car is identical to Mike’s design, with a couple of changes:

To get the Classic Space logo on the sides, I had to replace the 1×2 panels with 1×2 bricks. That meant the 1×1 brick with studs on two sides would no longer fit, so I substituted 1×1 Technic bricks with half-pins instead.
Mike didn’t have anything between the rear wheels and the car body above. You could see clear through the car above the rear tires, and the car was very fragile. But the space was perfect for a 2×4 brick! Perhaps Mike uses that in his real model but just didn’t show it in the instructions layout image?
Since this is Classic Space, I used the old style 1×1 plate with clip :)
There’s a red Classic Space minifig inside!

Of course, I really wanted a big Classic Space logo on the hood. I have a few of the 3×6 slopes that would have fit but it would’ve ruined the lines of the car, so I elected to stick with the original parts and just put Classic Space printed bricks wherever I could fit them. I used a dark blue windscreen; I don’t think they were ever made in yellow, so this is more like the 6890 Atomic Cruiser set than the 497 Galaxy Explorer esthetic that people tend to associate with Classic Space. But that Atomic Cruiser was probably as big of an influence on me as a kid as the Galaxy Explorer anyway.

Check out the LAML Radio interview with Mike Psiaki to learn more about the NASCAR fad, or just to find out how to pronounce his last name… :)

June 21, 2002: Tundra Explorer

Bill — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:45:00 +0000

This was built for the Ice Planet 2002 Contest on Lugnet. I didn’t win, but I thought it captured the essence of the LEGO Ice Planet 2002 theme.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

April 8, 2002: Ski Boat

Bill — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:43:07 +0000

Waterskiing anyone? This little boat will provide hours of aquatic fun.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

February 24, 2002: Lunar Tour Vehicle

Bill — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:28:49 +0000

Part bus, part spacecraft, this vessell meets up with the Passenger Transport in Earth orbit and ferries them to the moon, where they can spend a week visiting the Apollo landing zones and other historical and natural wonders.

Its rockets pivot aft for flight, and downward for takeoff and landing. Inside are all the luxuries a traveler could want, plus facilities for the crew. A generous galley and head are included.

This uses the Docking System I devised for spacecraft.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.

January 16, 2002: Yellow Hopper Truck

Bill — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:03:50 +0000

Another repost…

This truck is for carrying sand, gravel, LEGO bricks, or similar material. A door in the bottom opens to allow dumping. I later rebuilt the trailer to produce a second version of this model.

Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or click on an individual photo. Or, you can view a slideshow of the photos.