Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks
LEGO Models that I have created
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!
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.
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”)
I like to make LDraw virtual models of all my MOCs, for a number of reasons: so I can re-create the model if it is ever taken apart, and so I can share the design with others.
However, I’m a little stuck as to what to do with these files. Should I post them online? If so where?
As an experiment I’m posting this one on Flickr. I posted the GIF file rendered by MLCAD for my recent Gondola train car, and as a comment under that GIF I put the entire LDraw .MPD file.
I’ve also uploaded it as an attachment to this post: gondola.mpd
What do you think is the best way to make the LDraw files available?
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.
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:
This is my first ever train car MOC, would you believe?
I’d done locomotives before, but never a car, at least that I can think of…
This gondola car first appeared at the November 2008 Great Train Expo layout by the Bay Area LEGO Train Club. I made two of these cars with a cargo of coal.
One end has a brake wheel; the other does not. Originally I built it with brake wheels on both ends but was told that was not correct, so I removed it from one end.
This has been a feature of many BayLTC train layouts over the past few years.
This is an old-fashioned train signal, or "semaphore," which uses lights for nighttime use and an arm at various angles for daytime use. Signals like these were widely used on railroads all over the world in the early days, but particularly in North America they have been phased out and replaced with light signals. Now you mostly see them on tourist railroads or in train museums. Here is an example (from the Wikipedia Railway semaphore signal article) of an Australian version of this:
Update: I make no claim of accuracy for any particular railroad. In my research online I found many different systems for semaphore signals, both “upper quadrant” (such as this model) and “lower quadrant.” Different colors and designs were used on different railroads, and across different countries. There was probably some railroad somewhere that used a signal like mine, but I couldn’t tell you which one. Here’s another article about early railroad signaling if you are interested in reading more.
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.
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.
