Monthly Archives: December 2020

1. MOCs - My Own Creations, 1.2 ... And More, 1.2.5. Other Stuff

Fire Brigade Dice Tower (MOC)

Leave a comment

A dice tower built in the typical red an white fire brigade colour scheme.

Playing board games with a seven year old boy can be a real challenge with the dice rolling everywhere where it should not. So I decided to build a dice tower to solve that problem as good as possible.

There can be found a lot of similar designs anywhere in the net, so the basic design of a such a tower was easy. I just wanted to add two functions: A detachable lower deck for compact storage and kind of a door to get the dice from the platform in an easy way.

I wanted to build two for Christmas – one for my son and one for my mother – and the total cost of the bricks shouldn’t be a big investment. So I chose to use mostly common parts and colours to keep the cost lower. Red and white were a good choice, so the idea of a fire brigade theme for the tower was born.

A few hours with LDD and three Bricklink Orders later everything was on the way. This is the result. You can see the left tower with the detached platform mounted on the rear side of the tower for compact storage. The right one is ready to play.

This is how it works: Throw the dice into the opening on the top, the two small ramps inside make it bounce from one side to the other and back, and finally the “Quarter Pipe” on the bottom will make it roll onto the platform. Then you can just pick the dice or open the front door to get them. No more dice “flying around” on the board or the floor… :-))

Fire Brigade Dice Tower (MOC)

The detachable platform: The platform is fixed to the tower with a pair of long Technic pins with friction and additionally guide by two axle pins on the other side.

On the rear end of the tower there are two of my new favourite SNOT bricks (1 x 2 x 1 2/3 brick with studs on one side) to attach the platform. This way you need less space to store the tower next to your board games.

1. MOCs - My Own Creations, 1.2 ... And More, 1.2.2. Space

LL 918m2 One Man Space Explorer (918 MOD2)

Leave a comment

“Honey, I shrunk the Galaxy Explorer.” LL 918 rebuilt as a half scale interpretation of its bigger brother LL 928.

My first mod of LL 918 was pretty much based on the original model, just with the new half scale wings section of LL 928. A few days ago I was playing around with some down scaled versions of LL 928 when I had the idea of a modified LL 918 with the look of LL 928. I tried a few different designs and came up with a mix of LL 918, LL924 and LL 928.

Rear left view:
The most important change is an extra rocket engine and a bigger cargo area. It now has big cargo doors, just like LL 924 and LL 928 have. The cargo area is more than original 2x2x1 box with doors now. There is space for a 2x4x2 box inside.

Top view:
You can see the half scale wing shape of LL 928 with 1×1 plates in black and yellow. I’ve added the posts for extra rockets on the sides of the wings. Due to the limited space I used the small thrusters from LL 924. And, last but not least, the hinge for the roof is now on the rear end, combined with blue plates on the side of the roof panel.

So here it is: My second mod of the Lego Classic Space LL 918 One Man Space Ship with a design similar to the LL 918 Galaxy Explorer. I call it the One Man Space Explorer.

Bonus picture:
A preliminary rendering I made with Mecabricks.
… Hmm, I might go back to those shorter rear wings…

1. MOCs - My Own Creations, 1.2 ... And More, 1.2.2. Space, Uncategorized

Classic Space G1 Moon Base (27 Baseplates)

Leave a comment

A childhood dream come true: This is the Moon Base I would have loved to have when I was a kid: 9×3 baseplates filled with stations, vehicles and spaceships.

It was 1979 when I saw the first pictures of the new Lego Space sets. Everything was so new, so cool and so different from what Lego had been before. Lego Town (now City) had just started with the new minifigures and sets where those could live and work and move with. The only space set available before was the “bricky” Lunar Lander 367 from 1975.

And then came Lego Space, the first generation (G1) with the iconic blue/grey/trans-yellow colour scheme. We all wanted to have the three space ships (LL 918, LL924 and the epic LL 928), the space station, the rocket base and everything else from that catalogue.

I was lucky to get about half of the sets, but after a few years the G1 sets disappeared from the shelves without a real chance to get the missing sets. There was no Internet, no Lego shops and the kids who had the sets wouldn’t give them away. So when the first sets started to appear on local flea markets I was already spending my money on Lego Technic or games for the Commodore 64.

After my dark ages, the discovery of bricklink and with more money that I ever had as a child, the old dream of a really big G1 space base came back.

My first CS model after my dark ages was built for the first MOCpages Classic Space Pocket money contest. With 100 parts or less the goal was to build a model that could have been a real affordable set in the Classic Space years. The result was my 892 Surface Explorer. It was a lot of fun to build that and it’s still on the moon base today. This one really restarted my enthusiasm for Classic Space.

The model was followed by a small space ship, a mod of the 6890 Cosmic Cruiser in G1 design with “Vic Viper” applications and a G1 version of the 6876 Alienator.

That was more or less when the idea of the big base really took form.
My original plan included the most iconic G1 sets:

  • LL 918 One Man Space Ship
  • LL924 Space Cruiser
  • LL 928 Galaxy Explorer
  • 920 (Alpha-I) Rocket Launch Pad
  • 926 Command Centre

I also wanted to build some of my all-time favourite newer Classic Space sets with a realistic G1 look, including:

  • 6929 Starfleet Voyager
  • 6927 All-Terrain Vehicle
  • 6890 Cosmic Cruiser
  • 6980 Galaxy Commander
  • 6952 Solar Power transporter

And the centre of the base should be a modular, big station with detailed interiors and as many functions as possible.

The most important part of that is the word “modular”. I wanted to have a module unit similar to a standard (ISO) shipping container for cargo units. station modules and more. I decided to use a box with a size of of 8x16x8 (WxLxH) bricks as a “Space Container Unit” (SCU) for that. The rest of the base started evolving around that idea.

Instead of buying or rebuilding 926 Command Centre and 920 (Alpha I) Rocket Launch Pad I decided to build my own versions of them based on SCUs. I call them SC 926 and SC 920. I also adapted my new versions of 6927 All-Terrain Vehicle, 6952 Solar Power Transporter and 6980 Galaxy Commander to carry an SCU. And finally I built my big “Gamma I” station based on 6 SCU modules.

My first layout had 18 (3×6 baseplates) and was already too small when I assembled it the first time:

The next step was a 8×3 layout with more space for space ships, vehicles and cargo.

After that I was lucky to get the Classic Space collection from one of my oldest friends for a price that satisfied both of us. It included a 926 Command Centre and a 6970 Beta I Command Base, adding 3 more crater plates to the layout, now with 27 (9×3) baseplates. This is now the maximum size for a long-time display in our quite spacious corridor.

So let’s take a closer look…


A walk around (1/6)


A walk around (2/6)


A walk around (3/6)


A walk around (4/6)


A walk around (5/6)


A walk around (6/6)


Top view (left side)


Top view (right side)


Details (1/9)


Details (2/9)


Details (3/9)


Details (4/9)


Details (5/9)


Details (6/9)


Details (7/9)


Details (8/9)


Details (9/9)

That’s it, my Lego Classic Space Generation 1 Moon Base  with 27 baseplates. It’s my biggest Lego project so far and really a childhood dream come true :-))

 

1. MOCs - My Own Creations, 1.2 ... And More, 1.2.2. Space

CStronauts 2020

Leave a comment

More colours! :-))

I was inspired by Pat-Ard and his picture, so I just had to take one with my bunch of CStronauts. It’s great to see new colours coming and I’m still thrilled by the new retro helmet mold from the Lego Movie 2 set “Benny’s Space Squad” (70841).

The first five of the guys in basic “Mondrian” Lego colours are original CS minifigs. The green one is from the Ideas “Exo Suit” set (21109), modified with a classic head and without a helmet visor. The grey one is a combination of the CMF “Rocket Boy” and light bluish grey parts combined with classic light grey helmet and air tank. The pink one is “Lenny” from “Benny’s Space Squad” and the orange one came with DK’s “Visual History” book.

So let’s wait and see which colour will be next… Lime would be awesome! :-))

Here they are with some of their classic and newer space colleagues. I have to get another box… ;-))