Mike Walsh's LEGO® Blog » Standards

The last module!

Mike Walsh — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:10:06 +0000

Renee and I just finished the last module I need for my neighborhood portion of the NCLTC layout at LEGOPalooza next weekend (yikes!).

This is a middle module and features a bunch of the dark red elements I got from the UTB project. Unfortunately I ran out of the dark red headlight bricks � I wanted to make it another level taller. I still may do so if I can find some on short notice.

The Dark Blue house

Mike Walsh — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:57:30 +0000

This weekend, with Renee�s help, I completed another module for the neighborhood. It is a dark blue house built using mostly bricks I received from working on the UTB project. I really wanted to add some medium blue striping to it but I don�t have any and Maersk blue doesn�t look right, it has too much green in it. So I left it without any striping. I like the grey roof, it goes well with the dark blue.

This is another corner module, you can see another new middle module in the background as well as part of the corner park as well.

Residential Neighborhood at LEGOPalooza

Mike Walsh — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:15:45 +0000

As part of my section of the NCLTC layout at LEGOPalooza, I will have a small residential neighborhood.� I had built a couple houses to a standard of sorts a few years ago, the most notable a lime green house with pink windows and a white roof.� It is very unusual looking but I like it.� It was a joint project with my oldest daughter.

This year my daughter Renee built a house on top of one of the unused baseplate modules I had laying around for her entry in the NC State Fair.

This house is representative of what the rest of the modules look like – they all sit on 32×32 baseplates with a tiled sidewalk made from 2×2 white tiles.� Each module is raised to provide some elevation and they fit together to form a city block (much like my modular buildings do).� I have six modules – four corners and two middles – to make a 2×3 layout.

Renee has been my helper on this part of the project – she built this module with very little assistance from me and has helped with two more.� Last night we built another corner module, a dark blue house with a light grey roof.� After looking at it again this morning I think I will add a third level to it.� It needs something else too – maybe some medium blue.� I’ll post a picture once it is done.

Modular Hills Part 3

Mike Walsh — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:55:13 +0000

I guess I am still on European time as I was awake at 3:30 AM this morning. I decided to get up and address the corner adapter problem. I ended up building a new module which connects the corner to the straight. It is 16 studs wide instead of 32. In the end, this was a better solution than trying to lay something on top of one of the straight modules. I need two corner adapters so I still have another to build. They go quick though. I also need to build the 16×16 filler corner which goes on the backside of the corner module. That won’t take long at all though. I am however, now out of 2×2 black bricks so I am not sure what I will do. I still have lots to do before tomorrow

Modular Hills Part 2

Mike Walsh — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:55:00 +0000

I am back from my business trip to Paris and picked up a large order of green bricks from ThorzLegoz which I need to complete the modular hills I had started last week.

I had built 3 straight modules before I left for Paris and they went very quickly. However, the corner module took far longer than I expected it to. I just couldn’t get it to look good and more importantly, allow the train to pass through. It either looked good and didn’t work, or looked so-so and worked correctly. So after building it three times I finally have something I am happy with. I think it will work out pretty well. I deviated quite a bit from the COLTC corner solution in my final design. The design does require some sort of an adapter to match the slope of the corner module to the slop of the straight module. I haven’t decided whether I will build a separate adapter module or simply some bricks which sit on top of a straight module.

Now just I need to build a couple of tunnel faces before Tuesday when the layout needs to be complete. I am also just about out of black 2×2 bricks so I may need to switch colors until another BrickLink order shows up.

Looks like my camera lens is dirty!