adding weight to a brick?

[mikey]

One of my (long term) projects has been attempting a 'boom lift'. These are essentially a two man cherry picker box on one long extendable arm, they are capable of both long reach horizontal and vertical lift. I could link some reference pictures if necesary.

My aim is a realistic looking build with realistic functions. My problem now is balance. My model is capable of vertical lift (with no problems), but to achieve a decent horizontal reach I have had to balance the boom to far back from the body of the machine (to achieve a realistic look).

I'm sure my explanation will need some pictures really, but I do not have a camera yet!

My solution would be to have a brick with some weight, I am sure this would balance the horizontal reach...

I have seen a 2 x 6 weighted brick which Lego have produced, and I have seen a 2 x 4 aluminium key fob (which the makers claim is Lego compatible, once you unscrew the key attachment), but they don't seem to sell in the UK, and I do not really want to pay them to ship one across the atlantic for me!

The 2 x 6 official Lego weight brick is to large for me, I need a 2 x 4 brick with weight. So my ideas are leading me towards adding weight to a standard 2 x 4 brick? This may be seen as cheating by some, and as an act of violence towards our brick!

My 'warped' imagination is seeing a brick filled with 'Poly-Filla' (this is like plaster, you mix it up with water to fill in cracks! in your walls and ceilings), but once dried out it may not have that much weight?

If anybody has managed to make it this far down the page, can there be a solution to this, apart from resorting to 'out riggers', as the machines I am basing it on do not use these.

Edited April 29, 2009 by mikey

[Saint]

Hmmmm let me think..

Grab hold of a 2x4 brick, take the round inside out and fill it up with lead ... you don't need boiling hot lead, but a bit of lead sheeting will do nice.

You can always soft it a little bit up with some heat to get it in the corners.

Use aceton in a small amount and a 2x4 flat to close the brick. ( I don't know if aceton is available to you , or you know what it is, but it's pure nailpolish stuff )

aceton mixed in a small amount simular to lego wil infact melt the lego, and produce a glue, simular to what lego uses for their models. It's NOT a good idea to mix colors or whatnot with that .. use the remains of the 2x4 brick and take a simulair colored brick. just try to mix it in a 50/50 state.

you can always take fishing lead.. thats softer than normal ... and also ready in small pellets.

Hopes this helps.

Grtz Saint

[Darth Legolas]

Buy one of the magnetic bricks, and if necessary fill all of the rest of the inside of the brick with small weights. Maybe fill it with paint?

Lead...illegal...lead paint.

[mikey]

yes, this would be perfect I think, I was considering to use 'Super Glue' to glue a plate on to the newly weighted 2 x 4 brick.

I think I know 'Acetone', but would not know where to get it in a pure form. I assume actual nail polish would be mixed with other chemicals, so would not really be suitable.

If I used fishing weights I could experiment to get the perfect weight (for balance), before I put them in the brick. I am thinking that I will not need to fill the whole void up with lead, so in that case, do I trust that I can work the metal into the corners (surely lead will be workable from body heat?, from what I remember it is malleable at room temp?), or would there be some way of gluing the lead to plastic?

cheers for the advice

Buy one of the magnetic bricks

I have not seen those, I would prefer a 'Lego Solution' in an ideal world (purely for the satisfaction of obtaining a 'purist' solution), but if necesary I will resort to butchery!

Is there any chance of you pointing me in the right direction to search for this on BrickLink? I have tried 'magnetic' on the search, but only find the train links, and stickers...

cheers

Edited April 29, 2009 by mikey

[Eilif]

I think we're on the right track with lead, but instead of lead sheet, how about lead solder? A low-watt soldering iron and solder is cheap and relatively easy/safe to use. I've never tried it, but I've done a fair amount of wiring of guitars, so I would guess it might work something like this...

-Flip the brick over.

-Use a soldering iron to heat up the solder and drip it into the brick.

-Fill the brick about 2/3 full so that it can still stick to other bricks.

-Solder heats and cools fast, so it shouldn't do much, if any damage to the brick.

-The solder should stick just fine to the inside of the brick, and if you have a small scale, you could make each brick near the same weight.

If you don't want to use solder, 2 part epoxy might also be a substance you could use to add some weight to a brick, but it's pretty messy, and not as heavy as lead.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Eilif

[mikey]

I think we're on the right track with lead, but instead of lead sheet, how about lead solder?

That is a really good solution, it means that I don't need to remove the cylinders from the brick. I was planning to cap the weighted brick with a 2 x 4 glued plate, (4 plates high is perfect for this purpose). So leaving the cylinders in is going to aid the glue. I could use the cold solder to check the weight needed first, (then mark out a rough length which would be needed to be melted into the brick).

Now lead solder is what people use to put togethor miniture stained glass? It is different to standard solder that you would use to do simple electronics (like a guitar?)?

As a side note, if you did ever need multiple weighted bricks, using a micro scale is a brilliant idea. I'm sure with some experimention and care you could produce a range of weights if needed.

[prateek]

put rock or magnet inside the brick, or if you dont want to do that, just use plates instead of bricks

[mikey]

put rock or magnet inside the brick, or if you dont want to do that, just use plates instead of bricks

Plates were my first solution, but 4 plates have no weight in them what so ever

[ILikePi]

Is there any chance of you pointing me in the right direction to search for this on BrickLink? I have tried 'magnetic' on the search, but only find the train links, and stickers...

This is a magnet brick:

They come from the new 2009 magnet sets.

Here's a link to the piece:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?G=74188

[mikey]

That looks perfect, they are going for like 10p. This is the second element I have been introduced to today!

Am going to try these out first, I would prefer a pure Lego solution, over cheating with fishing weights and lead solder! Four of these are going to be on my next BrickLink purchase, which I can see been done tomorrow.

Nice one for pointing them out for us.

[Siegfried]

My solution has always been to make a box of LEGO and fill it with fishing weights. I'm curious how this all turns out and I'd love to see your final solution and MOC.

[mikey]

I got my magnet bricks yesterday..., and they are not that heavy really! I have not tested them out yet, but am sure they are not much heavier than say 4 lots of 2x4 plates, also they do not allow a connection underneath. But I do think they are really cool!, I doubt they are going to work for my problem, but I am sure they will end up on the fridge, radiator, etc. so I am not disapointed with them!

Looks like this is going to involve lead solder, I like the idea of making a 'box', (i was thinking 1x2x2 panels), and filling with weights. But am not happy with them 'rolling round', (all the weights I know are round or cylinders?). I am going to test the magnet bricks out, but I can see this heading towards dropping solder into a 2x4 brick at the moment.

A lot of good suggestions (and the solution I think once I get some Lead Solder), has come out of this post (and now I have some magnet bricks, to attach minifigs and small creations to metal all round the house!).

[Blondie-Wan]

I got my magnet bricks yesterday..., and they are not that heavy really! I have not tested them out yet, but am sure they are not much heavier than say 4 lots of 2x4 plates, also they do not allow a connection underneath. But I do think they are really cool!, I doubt they are going to work for my problem, but I am sure they will end up on the fridge, radiator, etc. so I am not disapointed with them!

Looks like this is going to involve lead solder, I like the idea of making a 'box', (i was thinking 1x2x2 panels), and filling with weights. But am not happy with them 'rolling round', (all the weights I know are round or cylinders?). I am going to test the magnet bricks out, but I can see this heading towards dropping solder into a 2x4 brick at the moment.

A lot of good suggestions (and the solution I think once I get some Lead Solder), has come out of this post (and now I have some magnet bricks, to attach minifigs and small creations to metal all round the house!).

Do you also know about the larger magnet bricks? LEGO is offering a couple varieties of magnets for "around the house" use now (in addition to the ones meant for things like train couplings). There are the ones like you've gotten, for attaching minifigs to the fridge, and there are other, larger ones that are essentially 4x4 bricks with magnets built into them (so, like the minifig ones, other bricks can't connect to the bottom, but they can to the top).

Here are LEGO's various current magnet offerings; I don't know if they're significantly heavier than the minifig ones, but those 4x4 bricks at the top of the page look as though they might be worth checking out (and if not, hey, at least they're more cool LEGO magnets to stick on your fridge, right?).

[Eilif]

Sorry that the magnets didn't work out, but I hope the lead works. One other thing you might want to try is filling these

with lead fishing weights. They are available on PAB online.

I think the solder meathod would be great, but this might be easier.