Subject:
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RE: Technic's Dead (was: I need Technic)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.technic
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Date:
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Mon, 5 Aug 2002 18:28:27 GMT
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Reply-To:
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<rhempel@!Spamcake!bmts.com>
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> Yes, I'd bet Technic bricks are more expensive to produce, because they
> require more pieces in the mold. To make a standard brick, you'd only need
> a two-piece mold - one piece for the bottom, to make the inside hollow, and
> another piece for the top. To make a TECHNIC brick, my untrained eye sees a
> four-piece mold, because there are hollows on four sides of the brick.
> There's the hollow underside, the hollow studs on top, and each side has a
> hollow around each pin hole (the pin hole itself could be molded by the
> mold-piece for either side).
>
> This leads to another molding comparision: TECHNIC bricks and smooth beams.
> With smooth beams, you're back to a two-piece mold: one piece for each side
> of the beam. There are no hollows on the top or bottom of the parts, just
> the hollows around the pin holes.
>
> So it seems pretty likely that smooth beams are much cheaper to produce than
> TECHNIC bricks.
Steve,
My Dad was one of the mold design and production managers at Husky Injection
Molding way back when. I can tell you that LEGO bricks in general have a
degree of mold complexity that is very high.
There are a number of technical hurdles, not the least of which is that the
parts are sprue-less, which means they don't have any obvious points at
which the plastic "comes in" to the mold. This also means that the parts
don't need to have sprues trimmed after production.
On Technic parts, these injection points are typically inside the stud hole
where they can't interfere with any close tolerances. LEGO parts also have
almost invisible seams where the main mold halves join. These seams are
usually along edges, which is the hardest kind of mold making.
A Technic part such as a beam is molded in a two-cavity mold. One
for the top, and another for the bottom. The holes are accomplished with
what are called side-pulls. These are cam activated pins that retract so
that the parts can be removed from the mold.
If you look closely at a technic beam, there are recessed ridges that mate
with the flanges on a pin. So you need a side pull from each side of the
mold. More cost, more complexity.
Take plastic shrinkage and mold life into account, and then realize that
molds often have anywhere from 4 to 24 cavities, and pretty soon you have
a big production problem. Incidentally, the part number is often molded
into a brick followed by a dash and another number. The second number
often indicates the cavity number of the part. If a part starts going
bad, production can either fix the mold or seal off a cavity to prevent
bad shots from getting into the finished goods.
Oops, that's more than anyone probably wants to know. I'll stop now.
Cheers, Ralph
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Technic's Dead (was: I need Technic)
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| "Ralph Hempel" <rhempel@bmts.com> wrote in message news:CAEBIOGHPFFJALB...mts.com... (...) Injection (...) the (...) Huh?? I'm not sure about that. For as long as I can remember, the 1x1 round plates which have come in a great variety of colors, (...) (22 years ago, 7-Aug-02, to lugnet.technic)
| | | Re: Technic's Dead (was: I need Technic)
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| Interesting, but not actually relevant to technic being dead. I've got to say, that even with the new technic liftarms being cheap(er) to produce, that doesn't explain why lego are suddenly making the bionicle bodies and arms- these super (...) (22 years ago, 10-Aug-02, to lugnet.technic)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Technic's Dead (was: I need Technic)
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| (...) Yes, I'd bet Technic bricks are more expensive to produce, because they require more pieces in the mold. To make a standard brick, you'd only need a two-piece mold - one piece for the bottom, to make the inside hollow, and another piece for (...) (22 years ago, 5-Aug-02, to lugnet.technic)
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