Tag Archives: tools

Iron Builder: It’s like a beautiful dance with a LEGO chainsaw!

When a new Iron Builder competition starts up, it’s hard not to feature some of the fantastic creations that come from the parts-usage head-to-head. In this round, both our competitors are trying to best utilize the Technic rotor blade in red. In a strategic move, challenger Duncan Lindbo attempts to cut down his competition with a brilliant chainsaw creation! It’s such a clean model, with excellent lines and a superb use of the seed part. But the log it sits on is equally impressive, all knotted and gnarled on the exterior, yet smooth and ringed where it was recently cleaved. Good luck to Duncan and his challenger Dan Ko as they duke it out!

Chainsaw go brrrr

Forget dragons. Imagine wagons.

There are LEGO builds that hit that sweet spot of nostalgia and realism, and this little red wagon from Ted Andes is one of the great ones. The highlight has to be those great wheels – 3×3 dishes rimmed with a rubber tire, complete with a 1×1 round plate cap. The thin rods for the axles and handle are also perfectly scaled, making this look like a product shot from a retro-toy catalog.

Little Red Wagon

Ted is an expert at creative part usage and unusual builds, as you can see if you take a trip through our archives.

And you thought stepping on them was painful

Most of us have a few brick separators lying around, but Gino Lohse takes things a step further by building a human-scale chainsaw that seems ready to take apart just about anything. Built for Iron Forge‘s April Tools monthly challenge, this 1:1 scale wonder isn’t based on a specific real-world inspiration. I think that makes it all the cooler, as there’s no question that this could be something you’d find on the shelves of a LEGO-universe hardware store. My favorite details are the modified 1×1 pate with clip/cheese slope teeth on the chain, the tires forming the handles, and the pull-cord starter.  The photography deserves some recognition, too, as this is one model that really benefits from a “lifestyle” setting.

Chainsaw

Cool additional fact: We learned about Gino’s creation on our Discord server. Head on over and join the discussion with fellow Brothers Brick fans! Or maybe seek some inspiration from other featured Iron Forge creations.

Forget your screw gun, try this screw blaster instead

There are always some people in the LEGO community who insist that certain pieces are worthless. Maybe it is the Big Ugly Rock Pieces (or BURPs); maybe it is the Juniors airplane; or maybe it is the ubiquitous stud shooter. The latter is much derided by those who wish their Star Wars battle packs came with normal blasters, rather than the huge and ugly things whose sole purpose is to lose studs behind the couch. Kids love ’em, at least. But perhaps the stud shooters are not so useless after all; PaulvilleMOCs shows us how elegant the part can be as a drill, for example, with a wand as the drill bit. Add in a circular saw and a sander, and you have a set of power tools perfect for a job site. This was built for the Iron Forge competition, where the stud shooter is the seed part; so expect to see some more studly builds in the days to come!

Power Tools

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

It turns out most people don’t stop collecting toys as adults. For us adult LEGO enthusiasts, we have literal toys but for other grown-ups their toys are a bit harder to define. Take Daniel Church’s “Grownup’s Toy Box” for example. It depicts a nicely built LEGO garage. A motorcycle and a snowblower sit front and center while a hefty toolbox and an array of other tools adorns the background. The brackets holding up the ladder, roof trusses and even the lawnmower handles are constructed from wrenches. The panoramic shot serves this composition nicely. This build even has a soundtrack. These are all neat grown-up toys indeed but is it weird that I still want to play Hungry Hungry Hippos?

Grownup's Toy Box

They sure don’t make them like they used to

Joe Klang is back in the workshop making more amazingly deceptive 1:1 scale models. If you thought his LEGO Etch-a-Sketch and Atari were neat, prepare to do a double-take with his cordless power drill.

My own creation of a Metabo electric drill.

Although the drill is what caught my eye I think my favorite tool is the orange adjustable box cutter making great use of the newer rounded plates to provide both smooth AND textured edges.

1:1 LEGO models are among my favorite fan creations, particularly because I appreciate the immense effort of manipulating the vast system of pieces (most of which have studs that would immediately give the game away!) into something familiar and handheld that seems like it couldn’t possibly be built out of LEGO.