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Subject: 
#8868 is amazing
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.technic
Date: 
Wed, 2 Oct 2002 05:47:23 GMT
Viewed: 
1183 times
  
This is probably old hat to everyone who has played with 8868, but I'll
ramble on anyway...

I had never seen set #8868 before until the recent Technic set poll
placed it among other favorites of mine such as 8480 and 8880.  The
cover picture looked a little clunky to me.  I think it has to do with
those tires...they remind me of #956, which has a special place in my
heart for nostalgic reasons, but let's face it, the tires are absurd.

Anyway, since everyone was raving about #8868, I decided to build it.
Thanks to instructions at brickshelf, and inventories at peeron, I
raided many of my other sets to scrape together the necessary parts for
#8868.  This really disappointed my son (age 3), who didn't like the
fact that I had to take apart #8459.

Building #8868 was a fun challenge.  Over the years I think the Technic
instructions have gotten simpler and simpler.  They break each step into
lots of sub-steps, clearly highlight every piece that is added, etc.
With #8868 you had to figure out a little bit more for yourself (it also
didn't help that I was looking at scanned instructions instead of
paper).  Using pneumatics to turn the crane blew me away.

I did manage to make one improvement to the design...I added a pneumatic
air tank.  Without the tank, some of the action is a bit jerky.  With
the tank, you can let the compressor run for a minute or so to build up
pressure, then everything operates smoothly.  I strongly recommend this
addition to anyone building the set.  Acutally, I may try to get a
second air tank, then I can add them to the model as the truck's fuel
tanks (right now the tank is just mounted half hidden behind the cab).

I also fixed those tires...the tires from #5571 are just about the same
size, and have a more realistic appearance.  Yeah, I'm being picky :)

And my son has forgiven me for tearing apart #8459.

Dave



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: #8868 is amazing
 
This one ranks as my all-time favorite technic set. Everything is just about perfect here; functionality, piece selection (both specialized and generic), looks, originality (for its time), alternate model, etc. You don't see that everywhere. ;) As (...) (22 years ago, 2-Oct-02, to lugnet.technic)
  Re: #8868 is amazing
 
(...) 8868 is the set I most kicked myself for not getting when it was out - my dark ages were partly brought about because I was no longer able to ask for Lego as presents and I was at University with no money. Just as I left 8880 came out which I (...) (22 years ago, 2-Oct-02, to lugnet.technic)

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