ncs

Exhibition: LMEE 2018

Sunday, 21st January 2018 By Caz

The London AFOLs were sharing a stand at the London Model Engineering Exhibition with Brickish at Ally Pally over the weekend. Several of our members had built GBC modules and they were all put together to make a ridiculously pointless ball-carrying contraption, including two of mine. The punters loved it! Here’s a video of the circuit:

I was helping to run the machine all day, and heard many complimentary comments. The two best ones were:

This is the best LEGO model I’ve ever seen!

and

This is the best model in the whole show!

High praise indeed… Anyway, here are my two contributions merrily shifting balls.

LMEE '18 - My GBC Modules — LMEE ’18 – My GBC Modules

And the public clearly loved it – there were loads of questions from young and old alike.

LMEE '18 - Punters Enjoy Our GBC — LMEE ’18 – Punters Enjoy Our GBC

I was allowed out for a little while to look at the rest of the LEGO on display, here is a selection of photos of other builds:

LMEE '18 Fairy Bricks Bus — LMEE ’18 Fairy Bricks Bus

LMEE '18 Lunar Lander — LMEE ’18 Lunar Lander

LMEE' 18 Tanks And Trains — LMEE’ 18 Tanks And Trains

LMEE '18 Two Spaceships By Alec Hole — LMEE ’18 Two Spaceships By Alec Hole

LMEE '18 NCS Surface Rover By Alec Hole — LMEE ’18 NCS Surface Rover By Alec Hole

LMEE '18 Brickish Seaside Display — LMEE ’18 Brickish Seaside Display

LMEE '18 Brickish Seaside & Rocket — LMEE ’18 Brickish Seaside & Rocket

LMEE '18 Brickton On Sea — LMEE ’18 Brickton On Sea

So all in all my first experience at exhibiting was a good one, great fun and excellent company. When’s the next one?

MOC: NCS 918 Interceptor Mark II

Thursday, 18th January 2018 By Caz

I’ve been working on a NCS spaceship MOC for a month or so now, but it’s finally evolved into something I’m happy with. Initially I gathered together all the bley, blue and trans yellow pieces I could find and bodged this togther:

I was quite pleased with the shape of the wings and the engine, but the front was hideous. I desperately needed some better trans yellow pieces for the cockpit. The engine details were nice and greebly, and there was quite a bit of yellow around as well as blue and bley.

After “borrowing” a couple of trans yellow windscreen parts (6070) from Benny’s Spaceship outriders, I was happier with the front. But I also rebuilt the wings quite significantly. Still a lot of blue and yellow accents everywhere, which isn’t quite in the NCS canon.

Benny was the first test pilot for the craft. He gave me quite a lot of feedback on what could be changed before the ship could go into production.

Eventually after a Bricklink order or two had come through, the final model turned out like this. I’m really pleased so much of the original engines made it through – and the simpler colours in the wings are much better, I think. Plus the new wrap-around windscreen makes for much better visibility.

Here’s a comparison shot – of my new 918 Interceptor and the original 918 model from 30+ years ago. My craft is a fast, highly manoeuvrable patrol ship meant for low-planet orbit or short inter-planetary hops. I like the wing shapes seen from above here. Yes, I know the bumblebee stripes are 90° off from their “correct” NCS orientation, but changing them to face forward would require another radical wing rebuild, so it’s staying like this for the moment. Besides, the original 918 doesn’t have any stripes at all!

NCS 918 MarkII Interceptor vs old 918 One Man Spacecraft

I hope you enjoyed seeing how my MOC evolved into the final configuration.

MOC: Intergalactic Tower

Sunday, 14th January 2018 By Caz

The Federation needed a headquarters building in Micropolis so they commissioned the best architect in town to build them something impressive. Here you see the result: Intergalactic Tower, built with lots of the pieces I got from the Sith Infiltrator set, and some more of those 2×2 trans yellow bricks from Monday’s haul. One of the pieces which particularly drove the design was the chunk at the bottom of each tower section, 30373, formally in the wing sections of the Infiltrator ship. The rest followed quickly, and I used plenty of odds and ends I had been collecting in light grey, trans yellow and blue to finish things off.

MOC: Intergalactic Tower - Front — MOC: Intergalactic Tower – Front

MOC: Intergalactic Tower - Rear — MOC: Intergalactic Tower – Rear

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:

Mooncropolis: NCS Fleet

Monday, 27th November 2017 By Caz

I have big plans for my Microscale Moonbase – Mooncropolis. But in order to get some of the structures built, you first need to land on the Moon and bring in supplies. This is where my little NCS fleet comes in. So far, I have three classes of ship working the route.

Runabouts

I’ve had a word with Benny The Spaceman and he told me where to get some little runabout ships which were going cheap – in fact, they were on a BOGOF offer, so I took his advice and snapped up a couple of the 7114 LEGO Dimensions Benny Fun Pack sets.

As I don’t have any interest (or equipment) to play the Dimensions game, I had to rely on Benny giving me instructions on how to build his little craft. They turned out pretty well!

Cruisers

I also spotted a good deal on eBay for four microscale cruisers – just what I need to fill out the fleet a bit more. The polybags come with a LEGO book as part of set 11910 but didn’t include any instructions, so I had to wing it from an LDD file I found online.

I tipped out all four bags into my sorting tray and set about building them simultaneously, just so they all ended up the same.

Taking a closer look at one of them, it’s a well-equipped vessel with plenty of room for passengers up front and cargo in the back, which is stowed through the two opening doors at the rear.

These bigger ships will bring personnel and supplies to the Moon as the base is being built, while the runabouts will be good to move bits and pieces around once they are on the Moon itself.

Heavy Cargo

There were quite a few spare parts which I didn’t need from these sets, which will probably go towards making the NCS Ugly Duckling into a bit more of a believable craft! Watch this space(ship).