Subject:
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Re: Mini-fig Scale Maersk Ship...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.boats, lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sat, 19 Jun 2004 15:38:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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21988 times
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In lugnet.boats, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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In lugnet.boats, Josh Wedin wrote:
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Hi Robin,
Great ship! I really your bigger version. And the tug is a nice touch as
well. I work on the waterfront in northwestern washington state. So I see
tugs and large freighters every day. I just have a couple of comments. The
ship itself is closer to being minifig scale, if it were a small container
ship, but your containers are still a bit small. I have unloaded a lot of
these Sealand containers and you can comfortably drive a forklift into them.
In fact, two forklifts can squeeze by each other if the drivers know what
they are doing. Most containers are about 8.5 feet wide inside (I am sure
someone knows the exact size and will correct me :-)) and vary in length. I
think Sealand containers are about 40 feet long. It doesn’t look like a fig
can drive into one. What do you think?
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Agreed. This is a known issue with the standard (as designed by LEGO) minifig
scale container, it’s too small.
We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place though, either we abandon the
design (and lose compatability and not have a use for all the train club
containers) or we live with it.
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Well, this is the hard place!
This container is 40ft x 8ft x 9ft6in high, the size I see on lorries in the UK,
built to 8mm:1ft scale. You could drive a model of a 5ft wide fork lift truck
into it or two minifigures could walk in side by side. I would have liked to do
a ship in this scale but at 48 studs wide and 344 studs long it would be too
large to push around the floor! Imagine how much it would cost (and weep!).
I saw a TV programme the other week about car thieves who fill containers with
cut up stolen cars for export. They fit at least 6 mercs in a 40ft container.
The standard LEGO-designed 4x8 and 4x16 containers are aimed at the play value
market, so there were 5 containers with the 4555 container depot. No-one would
buy containers as big as mine due to the cost. That’s the main problem with 8mm
scale - a loco would be £300 ($525) and there’s no market for models that
expensive when a whole train set can be bought for £100. Therefore I do it
because it can be done. It’s also jaw-dropping for kids at exhibitions.
On British railways the containers are as wide as the trucks, so if a 6-wide
standard were proposed, it would be between 6x24 and 6x30. For 9ft6in high
containers, low wagons are required (British TOPS code FKA). Lego models of
these would need the tiny plastic train wheels, which wouldn’t run well enough.
I’ve built a prototype low loader container wagon that tilts outwards on banked
curves, so as not to foul the loading gauge if the train stops on the curve.
However, the truck is not yet up to exhibition standard, so I haven’t taken a
photo yet.
Mark
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Mini-fig Scale Maersk Ship...
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| (...) Agreed. This is a known issue with the standard (as designed by LEGO) minifig scale container, it's too small. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place though, either we abandon the design (and lose compatability and not have a use for all (...) (20 years ago, 18-Jun-04, to lugnet.boats, lugnet.trains, FTX)
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