Category Archives: LEGO

You’d probably expect a lot of the posts on a LEGO website like The Brothers Brick to be about LEGO, and you’d be right. If you’re browsing this page, you might want to consider narrowing what you’re looking for by checking out categories like “Space” and “Castle.” We’re sure there’s something here that’ll fascinate and amaze you.

Team SCA’s yacht recreated for the Volvo Ocean Race using over 100,000 LEGO pieces and 1200 man-hours

The Volvo Ocean Race is a yacht race around the entire world. It is held every three years and generally takes approximately 9 months to complete. Each boat has a crew of 9, who race 24 hours a day for up to 20 days at a time, living off of freeze-dried food and raw courage. It isn’t a race for the weak or faint of heart.

This incredible LEGO model was built by Johan Sahlstrom, who works for Volvo, and Anders Christensen, who works for LEGO. After deciding to build a model of the Volvo Ocean Race boats, they chose Team SCA, the first all-female crew in over 10 years, because “Team SCA is definitely the coolest looking”, according to Sahlstrom.

The SCA boat is 2 1/2 meters long and 3 1/2 meters tall, using over 100,000 pieces. It includes fully functional halyards, winches, grinding pedestals and a canting keel. It is completely to scale, took over 1200 man-hours to build and uses no glue. Creating it was a quite the feat in and of itself!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

To the Stars, Classic-Style

Jon & Catherine Stead have created this lovely Neo-Classic Space “Rocket Launch and Recovery Vehicle”. It really reminds of an updated Mobile Rocket Transport, which was one of my favorite sets from my childhood.

The mix of new and vintage parts really bring this concept home but I think it is the use of all the transparent bits that makes this standout. It’s a rather full of “bling” and I’m liking it.

House of Healing...and Leaning

This crazy house is the fault of César Soares and it’s an eye-catcher. It really has some unusual angles going on, both on the roof and the walls. I also like the patches and repairs. It gives the house a sense of character and helps create a story in your mind.

LEGO, Quantum Mechanics, and Defining the Kilogram

As Adult Fans of LEGO, we know that our hobby with LEGO bricks has some amazing applications, and we see how the creativity flourishes. I think it’s amazing when LEGO finds some very practical uses in real-world places that help not just creativity, but further science and innovation.

Five researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards (NIST) have used LEGO to create a LEGO Watt Balance. The Watt balances at NIST as well as other facilities are being used to help push the “measurement precision to within a few parts per hundred million,” which will hopefully achieve a redefined kilogram by 2018. This is important because as of right now, the kilogram is the only fundamental unit of the International System of Units that’s defined by a physical object, not a universal constant.

Leon S. Chao, Stephan Schlamminger, DB. Newell, J.R. Pratt and Xiang Zhang have recently submitted their paper on their LEGO Watt Balance to the American Journal of Physics. Their creation is helping bring quantum mechanics into the classroom, and will hopefully inspire a new generation.

No Loyal Friend

This symbolic scene depicts the moment in The Lord of the Rings when Smeagol (soon to become Gollum) steals the ring from his cousin, Deagol, and evil takes hold of him. Tim Lydy has done an exceptional job with this scene. Everything fits together so well. The scene is almost idyllic, with the water, grass, fishing boat, tree (made from a dragon tail!) and the look of happiness on Smeagol’s face. It is almost easy to overlook the dead body of Deagol and the looming shadow about to possess him forever.

Galactic happy holidays

With the final hectic days before Christmas, Tiago Catarino (Catarino0937) wishes us a happy holiday’s, and shows us that there will be gifts for all, no matter which planet you’re on:

Open for business

The Blue Shield Inn by Halhi141 is situated on top of a hill by a gentle creek, but something about the scenery seems ominous. Check out the accompanying story along with more photos on MOCpages.

Lucifer’s Advocate – A Hot Rod to Hell

According to Lino Martins, he combined hot rod and steam engine in equal parts and sprinkled in a dash of black magic. When the thunder and lightning stopped and the earth ceased to shake, this wicked beast rolled out of the smoke and up to the curb.

I really dig this one. The locomotive motif, the color scheme and the steam-punk detailing all combine in a most excellent and cohesive way. One of my favorite touches is the open rib-work on the hood, showing off the spinning turbine. This is definitely another masterpiece from the Master.

The top of the coach also opens to display the crushed red velvet interior.

LEGO Star Wars 75060 Ultimate Collector’s Slave I [Review]

The good folks over at LEGO sent us an advance copy of the new flagship set for the ever-popular LEGO Star Wars line, 75060 Slave I. Ever since I first saw Star Wars Episode V, I’ve thought the Slave I was one of the coolest ships in the Star Wars fleet. A truly unique design for a spaceship (in 1980 when Empire released), the Slave I lies on its back for landing, but stands upright for flight, the cockpit and wings rotating to retain orientation. LEGO has released 4 previous minifig-scale versions of this ship, two for each color scheme from the new and old Star Wars trilogies, plus another five versions in smaller scales. So this new Slave I fittingly is the tenth version of the ship from LEGO, and is unquestionably the best.

Make no mistake, this is a big set — a very big set for being minifig scale. The Slave I is a deceptively large ship, and LEGO’s previous minifig-scale versions have not done it justice. The very first Slave I (7144) released in 2000 was almost laughably small at 166 pieces, but I still harbor fond memories of it. The new 75060 Slave I clocks in with 1996 pieces and is almost 2 feet long from tip to tip.

Continue reading →

Ask A Lemur – Sorting, Joining a LUG & the Founding of the Blog

Merry Christmas, Dearest Readers!

It’s the TBB Lemur Intern here, once again, to answer your questions and be your window into the deepest, darkest reaches of the LEGO hobby. Well, that and candy canes, cookies and all the other yummy bits that people keep leaving about. Such a scrumptious time of year! I’m loving everybody! Caylin let me lick the bowl after she made her world famous fudge and Ralph needed a guinea pig for his egg-nog experiment. I said I didn’t know any guinea pigs so he said I would have to do. It was really yummy! Not sure what the experiment was, but as long as he turns out delicious nog, I’m happy.

Oh, I have a bit of news. There is now a Lemur button on the sidebar! If you want to ask me a question, just click on it and leave a comment in the most recent ‘Ask A Lemur’ post. There is also a bit of delay in the Lemur Loot. Once it gets here, the mail room gnomes will gather all the addresses and get caught up on the backlog.

On to your questions!

How do you sort your Lego collection? And what ways of sorting have you found work best for which styles of building?

That is a great question! It is also not an easy question to answer because everyone sorts a little bit differently. There are two main ways though. Sorting by color and sorting by piece. Many fans first begin by sorting their collections by color.

The problem with that is once all your pieces are in bins of the same color, it is really hard to pick out the pieces you need because everything sort of blurs together. So most builders then move onto some version of sorting by piece. The problem there is that there are so many different pieces you can spend the rest of your life sorting your collection in the various pieces.

A good way to start is to do what many call a “rough sort”. Figure out what kinds of pieces you use most and separate them from the mass of pieces you don’t use. Then you can sort those into similar categories. If you have a lot of the same pieces, you might want to sort those by color. Some do and some don’t. I’m sure other readers will chime in and talk about the specifics of how they sort.

Personally, I sort my collection by taste. It takes a very keen set of taste buds but it’s totally worth it.

Continue reading →

Fjollum Great Hall – Inside and Out

This medieval pile has rather unique walls. This technique is most often used for floors but Isaac S. has done a great job of incorporating it into the exterior walls of this hall. But the features of this model do not stop there. Isaac has built a very believable interior into it as well. I really like the cheese-slope mosaic, featuring the coat-of-arms, on the lower floor.

It’s a good weekend for tanks

Christmas is in the air, colored lights and holiday shoppers everywhere… It just makes me want to jump into a 60 ton tracked vehicle and go defend Poland. Forget nativity scenes; all I want for Christmas is a massive diorama of the North African Campaign.

Marin Stipkovic posts this beefy Eastern Bloc design, based on a 1948 prototype;

From the same time period but opposite weight class, Intense Potato shares this teensy M3 Stuart;

The East comes roaring back with Nick’s slightly futurized T-90;

But he runs headlong into Alex Zelov‘s Somers-style Abrams;

And finally, a blast from the past, Jeffrey Mille shares this adorably twee FT 17 from the Great War;