Kev Levell (@kevlevell) creates his own models inspired by LEGO® NINJAGO 71736 Boulder Blaster after examining all its new and interesting parts. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
Released in January 2021 as part of the LEGO® NINJAGO Legacy subtheme, it comes as no real surprise that this update of set 70747 from 2015 uses close to twice as many pieces. 71736 Boulder Blaster is beefed up, improved and generally just more impressive-looking.
New mould in set 71736: Windscreen in Trans-Black with Pearl Gold Frame Mold
Dual-moulded parts using translucent material have been seen in minifigures (e.g. 19859, 37630, 19023), dragon wings (51342), Ninjago Spinner parts (40923 & 66960) and collectible “tokens” (like 87748 or the more recent 69567), to name a handful. There have been others, but Windscreen in Trans-Black with Pearl Gold Frame Mold (6322113 | 69564) feels like something new, in that it is somewhat larger than a minifigure part and it is not “marbled”, the mouldings are clearly delineated and crisp. This is an interesting development in dual moulding and I’m intrigued to see if there will be other such parts coming in the future.
There is just the one attachment point via a standard 3.18 bar and it’s overall dimensions are 4x9 by 2 modules deep.
The set has been out for a while now but the part isn’t listed at LEGO
Bricks and Pieces at time of writing, so perhaps never will be available
there. The Boulder Blaster appears
to be the only appearance so far of the Trans Black variant but this intriguing new dual moulded Pearl Gold element will
appear in Trans-light Blue in 7 sets in the NINJAGO
sub-theme Seabound.
Rare & Exclusive Parts in 71736
- 2x Weapon, w/ Cross Axle, No. 5 in Pearl Gold (6330240 | 35633) has appeared in two other sets.
- 2x Ramp 4X8X6,4, W/ Wing in Black (6186061 | 15625) is exclusive to the Boulder Blaster.
- 1x Rim wide 43,2X26 W 6 HOL.Ø 4.8 in Warm Gold/Pearl Gold (6326764 | 51488) is also an exclusive recolour.
- 1x Tyre for Wedge-belt Wheel in Pearl Gold (6232257 | 2815) has appeared in two other sets.
MOCs inspired by parts from 71736
I had “help” with these two MOCs, my son is becoming an avid NINJAGO fan and, it has to be said, pestered me to let him build MOCs with me!
I had begun playing with a couple of the new canopies - I’d sourced another couple from Bricklink, in the hope of creating a deep-sleep suspended animation dream-machine thing akin to the cryogenic hibernation pods in Alien.
The Black Angler
Before I dug into my collection to augment the parts available, I had tried to build using only parts available in the Boulder Blaster… that rapidly changed as I started to (predictably) try to create the front of a spaceship. My son took one look at the construction I had, picked it up and said, “this looks cooler this way up!” well, I had to agree, and so just allowed him to free build with the available parts on the build table.
To finish this up, I added the fins and the lantern, reasoning that if the new NINJAGO sets are underwater, why shouldn’t this be too? So, it’s some sort of deep sea sub…
Micro Blaster
While I was adding to the “Black Angler” my son continued to build and produced a reduced scale ship, very much in the flavour of the Boulder Blaster, I liked it enough to fill in one or two gaps, but essentially this is the model he built.
Conclusion
My son and I had serious fun building the Boulder Blaster, there’s some neat techniques used to create the “gatling gun” of spring shooters and some other cool bits of construction along the way too. It’s a very cool, brutal - yet sleek black attack ship. The price seems pretty reasonable too. If I have one criticism, it is that there is not one boulder in sight, a similar accusation can be thrown at the previous version too!
If you are looking for a parts pack or something to inspire new creations, there really is only one piece in this set that is new and different - and that is the dual moulded canopy. Furthermore, this windscreen has limited appeal over existing parts in that it has a very specific look. It also has limited options for usage owing to that single bar attachment point.
I’m not going to recommend the set as being anything other than a cool Ninjago ship, but in many ways that’s enough. If the set is on your wants list already though, please consider following our affiliate links to make your purchase.
READ MORE: See Eero Okkonen's MOC using parts from LEGO® Friends 41449 Andrea's Family House
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The angler fish submarine is lovely! I also like the fighter's gun exhausts and the engine combining two wheel parts. Great work, both of you.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI feel like having large coinjected parts without marbling is a bit less novel than you make it out to be. The spinners from the 2019 Ninjago sets were also coinjected with crisp, distinct molding. It's just that that hasn't really been done with a windscreen part until now, with most multicolored windscreen elements relying on either multiple assembled components like window glass and a frame or on printed decoration as on many Star Wars windscreens. It is effective in this case, which leads me to wonder if perhaps someday we might see some of those other types of windscreens like those for TIE Fighters or X-Wings invest in a coinjected mold like this.
ReplyDeleteI love the MOCs you came up with! The multiple connection points on those Technic blade elements offer some interesting possibilities for detailing and as a former Bionicle fan, I'm quite a fan of them.
You're right! Those were :-) in fact, two variants of the "cycone" style spinner have pretty neat crisp moulding, those in the spinjitzu spinner sets and those in the Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu theme. Good catch!
DeleteI find dual-molded parts really interesting and on every new part I get I try to figure out how they have been molded, like in what order or how the molds separate.
DeleteYou used a term I hadn't encountered before so I had to do some reading, but I believe 'coinjection' is used to describe molding where the core receives a different plastic (colour or type) than the outer layer. Now I'm definitely not an expert, but this might not even be practically achievable at the scale of parts Lego makes.
This is different from the addition molding* used for many 'dual molded' pieces by Lego, which I believe requires multiples molds to produce a single piece, since many only have one visible sprue.
The marbled molding seems to be the simplest form of multicoloring, which just means you need to injects one color after the other. The best example I know is the parrot from Pet Shop 10218; 2546p02 It clearly shows both colors mixed at the sprue. Of course I say simple, but actually doing this stuff in practice requires a LOT of skill and knowledge.
*I believe Lego specifically uses 'connection molding' where the two colors are just melted together by the new hot plastic touching the older, allready solidified plastic.
Thanks for the kind words too.
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me the name of a translucent part used for a lantern? There is something golden inside? It looks awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's the pearly fishbowl helmet:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=51283&idColor=12#T=S&C=228&O={%22color%22:%22228%22,%22iconly%22:0}
with a simple trans yellow mini-figure head inside:
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3626c&idColor=95#T=S&C=19&O={%22color%22:%2219%22,%22iconly%22:0}