bloodnok

I've had this model since Easter last year and this seems as good a place as any to say what I did to it. Most of the modifications to it here seem to be (impressive) changes to let it lift elephants, but the two things I wasn't happy with were that it can't be steered and it rotates freely about the tracks when that lever on the gearbox is disengaged. I addressed the first problem moderately successfully: Yellow parts are those that are newly added. The 8 tooth gear on the middle axle is sliding; this means - although everything is a tremendously tight fit - the middle axle can be slid back and forth to engage either the 8 or the 16 tooth gear on the long axle. (The bush on the long axle wants to have its indents towards the 8-tooth gear because that gives a little more leeway to slip past it). The angled 3-stud beam can then be dropped down on one side or other of the gears+bush on the middle axle to stop the whole affair slipping, which works better than I expected. All this folderol means one can select a different gear ratio on the left and right sides of the crane, and so it can be steered. Conveniently, it also provides an extra-low gear ratio for climbing slopes. LDR file for the design. I've not really got anywhere with the free rotation. I've experimented with driving it through a worm gear, which can't be driven in reverse (and perhaps a clutch so bumping against the model doesn't try and rip it apart) but if the worm gear isn't firmly braced fore and aft it slips, and there's so little space in this part of the model that's quite hard to do. To try anything new here demands disassembling half the model, too.

That is exactly how we cleaned the parts. :-) Oh, I forgot; we coloured marzipan, and the edge of the cake has three stripes, white/blue/red, forming the then (and now) Russian flag. On top of the cake it's brown for frozen mud, but the icing glooped a bit after I made foot and hoofprints in it, so you can't see as much of that as I might like. I was pleasantly surprised to find there are Lego skeletal horses; we piled icing over the middle to hide the inconvenient void intended for a skeletal rider. It is an odd subject for a Christmas cake, but most of ours are. I'm not sure Clare has yet warmed to my suggestion of Stalingrad in 6mm minatures. We did Lego Space a few years ago, but it wasn't as exciting. Thanks for taking said liberty, Captain Braunsfeld. I should really have done it myself.

I'm not sure where to put this or, even remotely, what the etiquette is here; but I thought some of you might like our completely historically accurate (er) Christmas cake: http://www.chiark.gr...erell/pix/cake/ The inobvious features that come to mind are that Napoleon has hobbit legs (yes, I know, he was not actually short) and that I looked up the correct position to shoot a horse. Sadly, even after we bought a bigger cake tin, there was not room to fit a limber to the gun carriage.