Rufus

Please use the Sightings & Availability thread to discuss this.

Super job on the lighting! Looks great. One of my long-term goals is to create a LEGO lighting resource; for now I'll index this thread in the miscellaneous section of the Special Index, but I'll move the thread to Town as that's where the Winter Village stuff tends to go.

I know, and sorry to be a spoilsport. Thanks for taking it so well.

You have to be 18 to join; anyone can view it. Sorry dude. I appreciate the effort you've gone to to inject a bit of humour, but there's a fine line between cheeky innuendo and inappropriate, and I worry you've crossed it here as people have complained. I've removed the image tags from the worst offenders (plus one oversized Robin picture); people can still click the links but I'd strongly suggest you put a warning that some may be offended if they view the pictures (or feel free to insert spoiler tags if you prefer). Such humour can be fine when you're presenting your own work (but even then you have to be careful); new set reviews attract a lot of attention from outside the usual EB member base so please take care.

Whilst the set has been identified, and it's an Action set, moving this thread there will just create clutter and serve little purpose. I'm pretty sure there's a 'Which set is this?' thread in LEGO General, but I can't for the life of me find it. So, I've renamed this thread, and will move it to General, where it can serve as a place for anyone with similar questions to look (assuming our Foog doesn't merge it into the existing thread, as if anyone knows where it is, it's him ).

Happy Birthday Rick! Hope you are having a super day!

Winter Village discussion belongs in the Town forum. Moving....

Sorry, but wild speculation about series 11 is pointless when we're not done speculating about 9 yet.

'Somebody revive me! Please!!' Rufindel's unconscious body seemed to say. Even in his near-dead state, he wore an unmistakably sad countenance. ' '

'Sealed, eh?' scowls Rufindel. 'Best get to doing what I do best - inflicting small scratches on animate statues! Come on Suffering, let's see how you like a minor inconvenient tap with an ineffectual weapon!' With that, Rufindel bashes the statue somewhat improbably from the back row.

This was a great game to follow. Expertly hosted with great storytelling and photos! Hate to say it, Town, but if you had just analysed the vote from day 2 you could have caught all the scum there and then. As Rick said, over-reliance on night action results was your downfall: the lynch vote is always the Town's strongest weapon. Well done Scum!

Why start a topic when you have nothing to post? Locked.

Thanks for the pictures! I love the brown bird. Nice to see some unusual theme colours for CREATOR. Looks like a new part for the white car roof??? I'll update the first post very shortly.

Thanks everyone for the replies! Thanks! I'll be ready for the next step any day now (EB downtime has let me catch up somewhat!) Cheers, sne! I've been meaning to do something like this ever since I joined EB. Star Wars may have been what got me back into LEGO, but it was Classic Space that got me hooked in the first place. I got some good old grey wedges from Bricklink; I also bought a job lot from ebay (a risky move ). No way my ISD is dying for this though - it's probably worth quite a bit now! Sadly, the trans yellow parts aren't nearly as good as they look, but I may have managed to get hold of some better ones. I looked long and hard for somewhere that would print CS logo bricks; I'm surprised no-one seems to. Short of shelling out a load of cash for a flatbed printer and doing it myself, I can't think of any solution. I don't think I ever went so far as to name my dudes, but I did name the ships (as we'll see later!) Hey dude! Thanks again for inspiring me to go and buy that box!

Here's the lost post from the EB downtime: Part One: 928 Galaxy Explorer 1.4 Box, Instructions and Minifigures The Box A scout around on Bricklink allowed me to find this original Galaxy Explorer box, in good condition and for a reasonable sum. Unfortunately, it's the American 497 version, but you can't have everything. I have to thank EB member jamzee for the pointer on this one! It's a little battered at the corners, but in remarkably good condition, with no major creases or tears. There's a sticker mark in the bottom right corner, but it's hardly noticeable. Compared to the European version, the obvious differences are a slight rim of white around the edge (the Euro version's picture goes all the way to the sides) and the addition of a little text: 'Space System' under the LEGOLAND banner; '325 Interlocking Pieces' in the bottom right, and the age guideline under the LEGO logo. The diorama of the ship streaking low over the moonbase is simply gorgeous. The box rear is, I believe, identical to the European 928 version: Alternative builds abound! I particularly like the three-cabined version at the top left. The 1980s were the hayday for beautifully excessive LEGO packaging. The lid lifts, revealing the contents, which are, at the moment ... ... nothing! The underside of the lid reveals some more alternative builds, along with a few shots of the set's features. Nowadays, I'm sure there'd be more focus on these features. Oh, and we musn't forget the obligatory 'bad hairstyle' picture! The Instructions These are my original instructions. They are a little battered and creased, but far better than many you'll find for sets of this age: They're still attached to the staples, for one thing. In common to most instructions from this era, we get right down to business on the front page ... ... but, in contrast to most early sets, this one comes with part call-outs: I think this was the first non-technic set to include them. Shown here is my favourite part of the build - the two big blue doors at the back. On the rear is a lovely diorama of most of the original Classic Space sets - I think, of the larger ones, only 924 is missing. 918's pilot appears to be about to 'abandon ship'! The Minifigures After rummaging around in my own collection, I managed to find about four loose white figures in reasonable condition, and have supplemented them with some orders. Like Classic Space Logo bricks, it's really hard to get whiteys with a pristine logo. Of these, numbers 3, 4, 5 and 7 are the best; 4 has discoloured arms and 3 has a sticker on the reverse of his torso. I've selected 4 and 5 for the Galaxy Explorer. I have a good number of red figures in adequate condition. Here are the two I found with the sets in the first place (one was hanging out in 918): You can tell which figures are my originals ... ... because at some point, I numbered them all! My early custom decals leave a lot to be desired! Here are the final figures, lined up and ready to go: As you can see, the right-most whitey is a little discoloured; it's worse in the photo then real life. The other whitey has had his discoloured arms replaced, and looks great! We're nearly ready for the big reveal, but I'm still waiting for a couple of Bricklink orders. Next up: Building the Set!

'Sir Trout, indeed,' grumbles Rufindel under his breath. 'Oh well, I've been called worse.' He flashes a smile at the dog-headed figure, and turns to the man in pink. 'Well met, friend,' he says. 'You look worried. What is troubling you?'

Rufindel searches hopelessly through his meagre belongings. 'What? No bedroll? I knew I'd forgotten something.' Instead he pulls out a tonic. 'Down the hatch! Oh wait, we just did that.' He listlessly beats a soft pattern on his new drum with his thumbs, then continues looking slightly seasick.

Part One: 928 Galaxy Explorer 1.2 Cleaning the Bricks Ok, let's get these parts cleaned up! First up, the baseplates: Before: There's a lot of surface grit and grime on both plates. I gave the flat landing pad a good soak in biological washing powder; for the crater plate I used Baby Wipes. I believe I have Rick to thank for this tip. And here's the result: They're looking much better now. There is some discolouration on the landing pad plate; I don't think I can do very much about that, and it isn't too noticeable. So far, so good. Now the grey plates: I'm not using my usual lighting set-up here, so there's a bit of flare at the top left. But you can see that the plates are looking reasonably good. There is s till some colour variation, most obvious on the 2x8 plates in the centre, and common on old grey parts. As most of these plates will not be visible on the finished model, I'm not too concerned. You may notice I've acquired the missing 6x12 plate, too. One of the 4x12 plates is a little chewed in the corner, but again I think I'll get away with that. Now the wedge plates: These are important, as they'll be very visible. They've cleaned up nicely, but the top left centre plate is a distinctly different colour to its neighbours. That will have to be fixed, or replaced. Some of the 45-degree plates are a little damamged, too. I did attempt to fix the dicolouration of these plates, by a long soak in domestic hypochlorite solution. It wasn't entirely successful: On the left is the discoloured plate from the previous picture; the two on the right have been 'treated'. It has fixed the colour problem nicely; but has revealed some nasty whiteness on the plate on the right. The treated 3x4 slope is a horrendous result. The other grey parts have come along quite nicely: I'm probably going to have to stick with the 2x4-2x4 hinge, despite it being in quite poor condition. I've managed to get hold of some replacement grey tails (from an ebay job-lot), and one grey 2-wide cone; three of the 4-wide grey cones (centre-bottom) have little dents but may have to do for now. I'll see if I can get some better ones (there are two on the way, but I'll need three more). Here's an overview of the blue parts: As you can see, many of the bricks are quite scratched. I have found replacements for some of those; what isn't so obvious is that there is some colour variability, which will make the finished model look like a patchwork if I'm not careful. It's most obvious in the 1x4 plates; I'll have to see if I can find others with a better colour-match; but I might have to resort to using newer bricks for some of them (particularly the 2x4s). Otherwise, most of the yellow plates are too battered to use (see a close-up here); the blue tiles are also quite beaten-up, but I have no qualms about using newish replacements as the design hasn't changed much. The tails, brackets and inverted slopes look okay at first glance: Again, there is colour variation, most noticeable in the tails. One of them, I've just noticed, has a bent foot (second from the left, front row). The slopes look good, but unfortunately the 2x2s are a little faded when compared to the better bricks. The two swivel hinges are in good condition; two more are on order. I managed to find, in my original collection, four 1x2 slopes in excellent condtion: And they are original bricks, without the bottom tube! The larger blue plates - four 4x6s and one 4x8 - were quite discoloured. I tried soaking them in hypochlorite, which removed the discolouration but they are now quite faded. They weren't in great condition, anyway. Of the 'special' parts, the trans-yellow bricks and slopes are quite badly scratched up: It's really difficult to get hold of good quality ones; these may have to do. These printed bricks aren't too bad; you can see the imperfections clearly in this picture, which makes them look worse than they are! Now the Classic Space Logo parts were in pretty bad shape, and will have to be replaced. Luckily, I've managed to get hold of some: On the left are my originals; on the right are the replacements. One of the gold logo bricks isn't quite so good, but these are hard to get hold of: for every four you order, you'll be lucky to get one in good quality, and unfortunately sellers aren't always so honest about the quality. 1.3 Replacement Parts Some replacements have already started to arrive: Tracking down an intact antenna took a little work. The spokes seem to be really fragile, and what happened to my original seems to be a common fate. As usual, I've ordered a vast excess of some parts: The trans-yellow slopes, top right, aren't really any better than my originals. The other trans parts, top left, are new and from my own collection. Replacement parts so far: 1 Light grey 6x12 plate 4 blue 4x6 plates 1 blue 4x8 plate 3 blue 1x3 plates 1 blue 3x6 33 degree Classic Space Logo slope 4 blue 1x2 Classic Space Logo bricks 1 light grey 8-wide radar dish All trans-red and trans-green parts (new) 7 blue 1x2 tiles 2 blue 1x1 tiles 1 light grey 3x4 33-degree slope 2 light grey 2-wide cones 5 light grey 4-wide cones (2 arrived) 1 light grey antenna with side spokes 2 blue 1x2-1x2 swivel hinge bricks 4 light grey 1x2 plates with handles I've also acquired a number of 4x8 and 4x4 wedge plates as I'm not convinced my originals are of good enough quality. We're making some progress! Thanks for reading. Next up: the box!

It's the 4435 Caravan Couple! Except she has a new 'Luke Skywalker' hairstyle and he has had a bad facial hair makeover. At least they look happier travelling by train.

Happy Birthday Etzel! Hope you're having a great day!

'Work, damn you!' Rufindel growls at his staff. 'It's like you're malfunctioning or something.' He quickly stows it and gets the faithful fauxthril staff out again. 'Right! If they're not all dead by the time I get to them, I'll give Orc C a good whacking! Or at least a good tickle, from the back row. Christian! Do your worst!' 'Right you are, pointy-ears!' Christian also takes a swing at Orc C from the front row.

Rufindel is not lucky. 'Christian, care to join me in bashing that Orc D?' The pair advance on the weakened Orc from the Front Row.

More than a couple! The armless torso appeared in just under fifty sets between 1975 and 1977. I agree though that those three years were a short time-span in the grand scheme of things. My guess is that the 'plain' minifigures were popular enough to spur the LEGO Co on to produce the articulated minifigure, rather than being a failure.

Part One: 928 Galaxy Explorer Known by the rather less grandiose title 'Space Cruiser' in the UK, the 497/928 Galaxy Explorer was the flagship of the early Classic Space range, and remains to this day one of the favourite LEGO sets amongst AFOLs. It was the first large Space set I owned - I remember getting it for my birthday or Christmas when I must have been about 6; I can remember vividly my brother building it for me initially. It must have been broken up and reassembled countless times, and was taken to and from friends' houses, probably dangling from the handlebars of my bike in a plastic bag; it has clearly also been attacked by both my kiddie and my nascent adult teeth along the way. As you can see from the introduction pictures, it has acquired a thick coat of grime from many years stored in an attic, along with losing certain vital parts along the way. Now let's take it apart and see what we'll have to deal with. The Plan of Action Here's a rough plan of how to tackle this. Unlike the Yellow Castle, I no longer have the box for this set, so I'm going to leave the box till later, if I can find a decent example to replace mine. I'll start with the parts inventory, cleaning, and replacing worn or missing parts. Part Inventory (this post) Cleaning the Bricks Ordering Replacements Box, Instructions and Minifigures Rebuilding the set! 1.1 Part Inventory Let's start with the baseplates: Aside from the grime, these are looking pretty good. I've no way of knowing whether the crater plate is the one which came with this set as I have several; from the looks of the colour difference, I'd say probably not. The landing pad plate, however, is the original: you can tell by the pattern of dashed yellow lines. The version which came with 6980 Galaxy Commander has yellow lines at all entrances: Picture from Bricklink ... whereas 928's has the single pair of yellow dashes as you see in the picture. There is a third variety, here, which came in some versions of 928, but I don't have that one. Taking the Cruiser apart, I made four piles of pieces. The first was of bricks to be discarded, because they don't belong to the set, or are too damaged to be usable: A couple of the yellow and black 1x3 plates were missing, and had been replaced with 1x2s and 1x1s. Two of the grey tails were broken; a third snapped as I took it apart (I was careful, honest!). The grey cone here is rather too chewed and discoloured (a closer inspection of the other one, which has mysteriously disappeared from the photos, reveals a similar problem); this presents a difficulty as the original cones had a solid stud and are now rather rare. The grey landing pad here is the bent one which I pointed out in the introduction. Next were parts which are either a little chewed, discoloured, or slightly bent, but possibly salvageable: I'll give these a good clean and see how they go. The 2x4-2x4 grey hinge in the centre is quite badly chewed, but this will be a difficult part to replace, and may have to do. The five 4-wide cones are each slightly bent; again, these originals (without axle hole) are quite hard to come by nowadays. The three blue tails here are in good condition except slightly discoloured. I should be able to replace most of the blue bricks from my own collection; rather surprisingly, I may have some trouble with the 2x4s - these 1980s bricks can be distinguished from modern bricks as they have a thicker wall and no cross-supports, and a little tricky to find in good condition. Not also the 1-wide plates: 80s bricks have large, solid knubs between the anti-studs on the underside. Next come the bricks that are in good condition ... mostly: Some of the wedge plates are discoloured; they'll get a good soaking in a variety of reagents to see if I can rejuvenate the colour. I've included here the 6x24 plate, which doesn't belong to the set, but I have found only one of the original 6x12 plates. The two wheel axle parts are in good nick, but the axles are a little rusty; I can live with that. Finally come the 'special' parts: The computer slopes are in good condition, and the 1x4 blue 'grille' bricks are okay; the Classic Space logo bricks have lost all their gold. We've already seen the badly scratched printed slope. Of the trans-yellow parts, the bricks and plates are a little scratched, but reasonable; the slopes have quite a few nicks and may have to be replaced. The large 8-wide radar dish is broken, and will definitely need replacing. And we mustn't forget the antenna: Apart from the broken spoke - the bane of this part - it has escaped the worst of my younger self's abuse. But it will have to be replaced. I have a number of bricks and plates in good condition from my own collection to replace many of these; from a preliminary count, here's what I'll need to order: 1 grey antenna 1 grey 8-wide radar dish 1 grey 2x2x2 support ('landing pad') 3 grey tails 2 blue 1x4 swivel hinges Up to 3 3x6 33-degree trans-yellow slopes 1 Classic Space logo blue slope* 4 Classic Space logo blue 1x2 bricks 2 grey 2x2x2 cones with solid stud 1 grey door, 1x3 left Possibly 5 grey 4x4x2 cones without axle hole Possibly 1 grey 2x4 hinge plate Up to 7 1x3 yellow plates (depending on how well they clean up) Up to 3 1x3 black plates * I considered using a decal to spruce up the logo of the printed slope; as there's no gold on this, it might be possible, but it wouldn't be authentic. I'll try to get a good quality replacement part instead. I will quite happily use modern parts to replace the missing or broken trans-red and trans-green plates and round bricks: aside from a slight difference in the shape of the hole in the stud - a change which occurred during the Classic Space era - they are pretty much the same. Likewise with the missing or damaged blue tiles. However, I'll try to replace other bricks and plates with 80's equivalents where I can. In all honesty, it's a bit depressing so far. But things will get better! Thanks for sticking with me. In the next installment, I'll show the some of the results (positive and negative) of my cleaning exploits, and show you my progress in replacing the missing parts. In the meantime, if you haven't seen it before, check out this amazing Neo-Classic Space version of 497/928 by Legoloverman on Flickr: This is not mine!!!! I wish it were.

Happy Birthday Stash! Have a great day, dude. Make yourself a nice cup of tea.