Subject:
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8462 Tow Truck - a review of a very sweet set
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Tue, 13 Jun 2000 07:47:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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624 times
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I celebrated the official birthday of our beloved monarch by building the
8462 Town Truck (apologises to the residents of those states who celebrate
this joyous occasion at other times of the year). First, take a look at the
set:
http://www.lugnet.com/pause/search/?query=8462
It's a sweet one, indeed.
Visually, it's quite appealing. The main infrastructure is black and grey,
but the outer body is sketched in blue with turquoise (teal?) cabin
fittings. There are 6 alloy wheels. The two yellow transparent "emergency
lights" on the cabin roof are a nice touch. There are a few decals, the
number plate on the front, the "speed stripes" on the pneumatic cyclinders,
and the yellow safety strips on the towing tray, but nothing spanning
multiple pieces (thank heavens, as I agonise over them too much).
Mechanically, it's both educational and entertaining. There is rack-n-pinion
steering, operated by Hand of God using the knob on the top of the cabin
roof; the steering wheel in the cabin is purely decorative. The rear of the
truck lowers and raises(pneumatically), allowing the towing tray to be
folded up and down (a separate piece of pneumatics). There is a rachet winch
with a pulley hook that can swivel about 270 degrees on a turntable
(operated by a Hand Of God knob on the side of the truck). The winch can be
projected further out and retracted (again pneumatically). There is a
hand-operated (well, finger-operated) pneumatic pump.
Stylistically, it's very Technics. The model is mostly held together with
connector pins, with very few stud-brick connections. It is a very solid
model; you don't have to worry too much about where to pick it up (apart
from the towing tray at the rear which is on a fairly flexible pivot). For
the purist, it has very few SPUDs or POOPs. Most pieces were familiar to me
from other Technics sets (although sometimes used differently, which is a
Good Thing IMHO).
Is it fun? Yeah! Even my NLSO was playing with the pneumatics.
Building it was fairly time-consuming, as it's a reasonably large model (773
pieces according to LUGnet). In the early stages, there is a lack of support
in the middle of the model, as the ends are raised slightly higher with
plates and pressure along the middle (e.g. when adding new pieces) bends it.
I put another plate under the middle to support it in the early stages of
construction, and this made it much more stable to build on. However, the
finished model is very robust.
I found the pneumatics were a little bit tricky to work with. It was my
first time using them, and I was amazed at how hard it was to push the tubes
onto the inlets/outlets. Obviously, it has to be a tight fit to work, but
some of them just didn't want to go on or didn't want to go on fully.
However, I eventually succeeded and my pneumatics all worked perfectly first
time, so the effort was worth it. I was also a bit nervous about having to
cut the tubing into the correct lengths; I was convinced I'd get it wrong.
(I tried to reassure myself that the set was intended for 11-16 year olds so
surely at 40, I was capable of getting it right!)
Also, when building the model, you have to keep a close eye on where the
tubes run relative to the new pieces you are adding, otherwise you can find
them in the wrong place many steps later. There are times when the
instructions could be a bit clearer in this regard. However, it is not as
bad as the spaghetti maze of electrical wiring on the 8448 Space Shuttle.
I don't recall how much I paid for this little beauty, but LUGnet lists its
MSRP as USD122 and since I bought it from Toys R Us at Aspley, Brisbane on a
discount-free day, I probably paid something pretty substantial (in the
vicinity of $200 I'd guess). However, I'm very happy with it. I don't mind
paying the money if I'm happy with the result. Of course, you'll all write
and tell me how I could have got it for a fraction of that price elsewhere,
like you always do!
There are instructions for a second model, which seems to be a race car
which is launched by a pneumatic launching system. I haven't built that yet.
One drawback of the pneumatics is that its reuse is somewhat limited by the
lengths to which you have already cut the tubes. Any comments on whether my
local hardware store is likely to have some suitable substitute tubing?
Kerry
--
===========================================================================
Dr Kerry Raymond, Distinguished Research Fellow kerry@dstc.edu.au
CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology Ph: +61 7 3365 4310
University of Queensland 4072 Australia Fax: +61 7 3365 4311
===================================================== www.dstc.edu.au/kerry
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: 8462 Tow Truck - a review of a very sweet set
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| "Kerry Raymond" <kerry@dstc.edu.au> wrote in message news:Fw31nn.33I@lugnet.com... *SnipS* an interesting review. 1. If you like the 8462, you'll LOVE the 8868. a. It has more degrees of movement b. It has a proper drivetrain and engine c. (...) (24 years ago, 14-Jun-00, to lugnet.loc.au)
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