This musical family is performing a social-distance concert for their neighbors from their front porch and balcony in the time of COVID-19. Stay safe and stay home!
Tag: #Building
Octan Gas Station
My LEGO gas station is now on display at the LEGO store in Pleasanton, California at the Stoneridge Mall. I built it in 2012 and first showed it at Bricks by the Bay, but never posted a blog entry about it until now.
Log Cabin 3X
I really like the relatively new LEGO Log Cabin set #5766 with its three different models of log cabins. I bought three of this set, and built each of the versions, and for a while had them setting on a table in my living room together. But as I was looking at them it seemed to me that they were just a bit too small, and that the parts from these sets could be combined to make a much bigger, nicer cabin. So I took them all apart and used the parts to make this:
Little Australian Houses?
One of my pictures has been used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on their Web site to illustrate a radio story about the relative merits of buying versus renting a home. You can see it on the ABC News homepage as a small thumbnail on the right hand side, and if you click the “Best of abc.net.au” link it takes you to a “best of” page where that story is featured with a larger version of the image at the top of the page. Here’s the photo they used (from their Web server):
Blackburn Hotel
The Blackburn Hotel is a building that I have displayed may times as a part of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club layouts at train shows and meetings, but never blogged about.
Little House Instructions
Recently I posted about some little houses that I had built for the BayLTC train shows.
Little Houses
I built a trio of small houses (16×16 stud footprint) as practice in building in different architectural styles with LEGO. There is a Victorian with bay window, a house with a dormer window in the roof, and a steeply-roofed house.
San Ladrillo Suburban Train Station
For the past year or so, the train station on the Bay Area LEGO Train Club layouts at train shows and museums has been my San Ladrillo Suburban Train Station.
TransAmerica Pyramid
The TransAmerica Pyramid is one of the most distinctive structures in the city of San Francisco.
Coast Guard Base
Last fall, the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (BayLTC) was doing a show where many of our usual waterfront models were not available, so I volunteered to build a new model for that spot. I discovered Coast Watch HQ sets on sale at Costco for about $20 each, and bought two of them. I used many parts from the sets, such as the baseplates and windows, but built a new design to be a little more realistic. The building is of my own original design, but the helicopter and cutter are based on real U.S. Coast Guard equipment. Since it was for a train show, I made it come apart into pieces for easy transport.
Esso Garage
A garage to take your LEGO cars for their regular maintenance. Has two service bays, each with a lift to give the mechanics access underneath the car. Also equipped with a workbench and a complete inventory of repair parts and tires.
This model is fully detailed on the interior, and also features rare and valuable printed bricks (Two each of “ESSO SERVICE” and “GARAGE”) from the 1960’s.
Modular Downtown Buildings
These buildings were made for the BayLTC train layouts. Fellow club member Kenny Paul and I agreed on a standard for the placement of Technic pegs to connect the buildings together. However, with practice it turned out to be easier to not connect them, but to just place them next to each other.
The pegs are placed in a 1×2 Technic brick with peg hole, at the 7th and 8th studs in from the street, at the 3rd and (optionally) 8th brick heights. In addition, pegs may be placed at the rear, also at the 7th and 8th studs from the edge. The backs and sides of the buildings are incomplete because they are not visible; the rule is that from street level to the 6th stud, and everything above 12 bricks in height, must be decorated.
The tan building has a removable wall on the right side. This allows it to be a corner building or to be in the middle of a series of buildings. The removable wall features a fire escape.
