Building round castle tower- need idea or suggestion

[Lego Otaku]

lxf file: Download

Ok I'm using technic lift arms to make a semi-rounded castle tower much bigger than any of official LEGO castle panels. Those panels aren't big enough for a bed, and the smaller half round would be more like a prison than anything. The rounded wall is easy, and I can do roof using wing plates and hinged bricks on top. But window is stumping me a bit.

I originally wanted to use 2L and 4L arms but 4L does not exist at all (hint LEGO!!) so I had to use 3L and 5L instead. This created a bit of new issue: windows 3 studs wide are all older than I am and won't be easily found or cheap either. So is there a suggestion for medieval type window that could fit there with minimal gap?

Also there are no 1x1 round piece that can fit in between lift arm, and LDD would not let me use regular brick (flipped to side) because it seems stud doesn't "fit" there at all. Not sure if it's an error with LDD or if it's illegal but works. If using brick sideway does not work, is there a simple trick to filling in the gap in between lift arm and let me attach it to the corner or side of the castle?

Thanks for any tips you can provide.

[maydayartist]

This is a nice way to to it round, but you can see that a window will cause some trouble.

Why don´t you use the normal brick way?

1 x 2 bricks oder 1 x 3 bricks with 1 x 1 round ones.

Like this one from the picture.

And a window is also possible in this way as you can see.

[Lego Otaku]

I've tried that in LDD but it won't play nice and let me make a complete ring. :/ Even if I entered the angle number manually, it seems after a few bricks there's an error in fraction of a mm that prevents bricks from joining to form a circle, and align tool doesn't work for me here.

[I Scream Clone]

I've tried that in LDD but it won't play nice and let me make a complete ring. :/ Even if I entered the angle number manually, it seems after a few bricks there's an error in fraction of a mm that prevents bricks from joining to form a circle, and align tool doesn't work for me here.

I'm unclear if you intend to build a castle in LDD or in real life. If its LDD then I am happy to move the topic to the LDD forum for some more appropriate help however if its real brick building then the 1x2 brick and alternate 1x1 round brick is one method, or for a tighter tower use headlight brick with cheese turned sideways then alternate round brick like Sirens of Titan used for his Goblin MOC.

[Horry]

A similar way as the one described by maydayartist can be found here here for inspiration. Corioso took some more pictures of his tower so the technique used can be seen quite well.

[Lorentzen]

I know this wont be very helpful at first, but I hope someone who has seen the same MOC as me a couple of years ago:

There is a very large MOC out there that is a white snowy landscape with a huge cave beneath it. At the top of the hill there was a round tower. It was built using different wedge-bricks - but I can't remember excactly. Sorry

[Lego Otaku]

I'm unclear if you intend to build a castle in LDD or in real life. If its LDD then I am happy to move the topic to the LDD forum for some more appropriate help however if its real brick building then the 1x2 brick and alternate 1x1 round brick is one method, or for a tighter tower use headlight brick with cheese turned sideways then alternate round brick like Sirens of Titan used for his Goblin MOC.

It will be a real model eventually. I'm using LDD to get an idea of brick count and to get an idea of what things would look like before I commandeer a table and not be able to eat there for a month or 2. I'm not going to put in finer details like plants, furniture, etc. just the walls, windows, and door.

I eventually got the rounded brick towers to work in LDD but it seems to work only when the bricks are 18 degrees (1/20th of a circle). Any other (10, 12, and 15) does not work, and I didn't go with smaller angle as the resulting tower would be huge. I made 2 versions, using 1x2 bricks and 1x3 bricks: download While the joined wall section would be slightly off set, I believe the tower will still have some wiggle room needed to make the walls squared onto the main walls, and onto the baseplate.

[tiammath]

I've tried several ways to make round towers in LDD. The 1x2 brick and 1x1 round brick method is probably the most common one to build them. LDD can be very annoying when building such towers but it's possible (see below). I also made one with the 1x3 brick but I can't find the lxf.

I tried other methods. The one with hinge plates is easy and you can make some nice builds.

[I Scream Clone]

I know this wont be very helpful at first, but I hope someone who has seen the same MOC as me a couple of years ago:

There is a very large MOC out there that is a white snowy landscape with a huge cave beneath it. At the top of the hill there was a round tower. It was built using different wedge-bricks - but I can't remember excactly. Sorry

That would be Norro. The problem with that is the wedge piec is a bit expensive.

[Lego Otaku]

That would be Norro. The problem with that is the wedge piec is a bit expensive.

Aye, and tricky to line them all together.

download LDD file

I haven't checked with 2x4 wedge pieces but I think the MOC used 2x4 because it's larger with little or no visible gap. If he used 2x3 wedges to make tower that large, there would be gaps at the narrow end.

That was a great MOC though, it must have taken days to build natural looking cave system. Lots of various slopes so it's probably an expensive MOC to make as well.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Lego Otaku

[Follows Closely]

this is an interesting read: http://mocpages.com/moc.php/257825

Also some different approaches:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3496/4077587610_1552290f01_o_d.jpg

http://www.brickstud.com/Images/X-S/Creations/Fantasy/rapunzels_tower.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28773832@N08/3806845527

[fred67]

I just have to say that I love topics like this... so many great ideas on how to accomplish things, so many creative builders. Of course, the 1x? with 1x1 rounds has been around forever, but it works great.

I tried other methods. The one with hinge plates is easy and you can make some nice builds.

This is really quite cool looking; I have tons of hinge bricks and occasionally do some smaller curved walls this way, my only problem is getting them to stay in place, so I use an occasional cross "beam" to hold things together, but I'm guessing the steps there might do a decent job of making the tower hold it's shape.

There's another technique I found interesting (picture is a flickr link):

It uses rings of brackets separated by 1x2 plates, and with 2x2 tiles around the outside.

The problem is it's not a "legal" (full) connection, so LDD would definitely not let you do this.

I tried this technique myself; it worked OK, but I had a hard time with the illegal connections... I couldn't get them to be equally... uh... illegal, I guess.

[TheLegoDr]

I tried other methods. The one with hinge plates is easy and you can make some nice builds.

I had never considered this before. That's why I love this forum, always coming up with new ideas. I will definitely use this method in the future for my larger towers.

Thanks!

[TooMuchCaffeine]

Here's a technique for larger towers. It won't create a perfectly round tower, but it looks pretty good.

I used it for this...

[tiammath]

Hello,

I tried to reproduce Steve's wonderful technic, used for the ComicCon Castle (see here)

Here's the result (ok, all grey is not so nice, I focused on the technic) :

And the LXF file.

Edited July 24, 2011 by tiammath

[Follows Closely]

I have used a very similar technique, except I used 1x2 tiles on the facade. I may have to go back and add the 1x1 round brick like Steve did to fill in the gaps. I placed a piece of paper behind mine to block the light from all the gaps, I felt kind of dirty doing that.

Another technique can be seen here:

The frame:

Edited July 26, 2011 by Follows Closely

[Hoboman]

I have learned so much from reading this one thread. Thank You to all who have shared so far. Some of us really grow by seeing these ideas.