It's interesting to recall what new elements came out back then, and still useful info today for your building. These four articles describe parts and their place in the LEGO System, along with some ideas and techniques for using them. Which never gets old!
Each article opens in a new window.
- We examined the history of 'notched' elements and the various angles of wedges, following the redesign of the unusual piece Aeroplanewing 4X9 / Wedge, Plate 4 x 9 (Design ID 14181)
- The introduction of Brick 1X4X1 Inv. Bow/ Slope, Curved 4 x 1 Inverted (Design ID 13547) caused us to get fixated on the little 'lip' at the end of all sloped pieces
- For our first ever 'Old Elementary' article we looked at the surprising ways you can interconnect Fence 1 x 8 x 2 2/3 (Design ID 6079)
- The first 45° roof piece to appear in 55 years: Roof Tile 2X2X1 45 Degr. - Bot. 45 Degr./ Wedge 2 x 2 (Slope 45 Corner) (Design ID 13548)
p.s. In that final article I mentioned that once I had enough of that part I would create a LEGO rhombicuboctahedron. Well folks, nearly seven years later, that day has at last come!
LEGO rhombicuboctahedron
Next, attach two of the seed part Wedge 2 x 2 (Slope 45 Corner) (13548) as shown in the right of the picture above. This completes the subassembly – now repeat it another 11 times so you have 12 of these in total. Therefore you need 24 of part 13548 to make this model.
No further parts are required; by arranging them as shown you have enough connection points to build the rhombicuboctahedron. Good luck!
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Thanks to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Iain Adams, Geppy, Ryan Welles, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're all awesome!
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There are two additional changes you could make, separately or in conjunction, that would further increase the strength. The design of the infrastructure leaves a perfect cube-shaped void in the center. You could add a 2x2 brick sandwiched between a 2x2 top tile and a 2x2 bottom tile (or plate) to fill that core. You can also put #3 axles inside the 1x2x1-2/3 bricks to provide some rigidity in the centers. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be much that can be done with the hollow voids at the corners, since they're all 5x5x5 LDU and parts tend to come in 5x5x6 or 5x5x4 increments.
ReplyDeleteTrue
DeleteOne thing from the old wedge article that I didn't see mentioned is that the angle of the aircraft wing does match one other part, even though it's not a plate—the 16x4 curved wedge slope (part 45301). It actually lines up perfectly with the wider side of that slope, though there's no part that can continue to line up with the rest of its length.
ReplyDeleteBah! Rather than go chase down one of each, I tossed them into MLCad, so it took me a little bet to figure out why they weren't lining up correctly, but it appears you're correct. If you line up the wide ends of both parts it doesn't work, but if you move the wing one stud towards the narrow end of the wedge, it does line up precisely along the angled edges. It's a bit weird that that works, but it makes me wonder how often it's been incorporated into MOCs.
DeleteLove this! Thanks Andrew!
DeleteFor the rhombicuboctahedron my first thought was: you could use the dice from the board games but that thing seems to be a fraction off-system...
ReplyDelete