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I’m working on a rather large model that will end up being 5ft tall (which I will be sharing soon!). I need a good way to fill the inside of this thing for structural support. I was planning on buying up a bunch of Duplo blocks, but would anyone have any good recommendations for this?
While we’re at it, does anyone have any good tips for attaching round towers to square bases? I’m using the technique of pivoted 1×2’s with round 1×1’s and need a clean way of attaching them to regular bricks.
There was this guy in the LUG who built a Christmas tree that was six feet tall, but it was too fragile to move from the spot where he built it. What a clown!
DUPLO is definitely better than QUATRO, which have no clutch, but like any vertically stacked bricks, they can come apart. DUPLO bricks are good for taking up space and you can generally get 2×4 DUPLO blocks in used condition for about 10 cents each.
A suggestion I have is that if you are going to build something tall, if it covers more than one baseplate, ensure that you have a sturdy board that can support it. Designing something large so that it can be transported in pieces that can be reassembled is extremely important.
There was this guy in the LUG who built a Christmas tree that was six feet tall, but it was too fragile to move from the spot where he built it. What a clown!
LOL @greg.
You might find this thread interesting:
OK so it’s super long, but we actually made a steel welded frame in several sections in order to support the 10x6x3′ PITT logo. Your model probably doesn’t quite require the steel skeleton, but you still might find some interesting ideas for latticing your interior, etc. Check the LUG Instagram starting here for a few pics:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj2oGDDAMzF/
We stuck with regular LEGO instead of Duplo for that project. Duplo can work well if you can get enough of it, particularly if you can get 2x4s to better stagger your structure.
While we’re at it, does anyone have any good tips for attaching round towers to square bases? I’m using the technique of pivoted 1×2’s with round 1×1’s and need a clean way of attaching them to regular bricks.
Jordan, sounds like you’re doing something similar to what I did for my main Hogwarts tower, except that I used 1×3 instead of 1×2 bricks (pic attached). To help keep the 1″ rounds in place (which is useful if you end up removing the tower to transport it for a display), I added some 1×3 plates on the bottom row centered under the 1″ rounds. Then, depending on the number of pieces you have around the circumference of the round tower, you may be able to line up some of those 1×3 plates with studs at two of the four cardinal points (north, south, east, west) to attach. I also added some tiles under some of the other 1×3 plates to get up off of the other baseplate studs as you go around the circumference.
For the big tower shown, the best way I found to attach it was to pin it to an adjacent building in my castle. To do that, I substituted a 1×2 technic brick with 1 hole (plus a 1×1 brick) for one of the 1×3 bricks, up from the bottom around 6″ and at one of the cardinal points. I was then able to work another 1×2 technic brick into my adjacent building at the same level, and used a 1×3 Technic Long Pin with Bushing to pin them together.
I’m working on a rather large model that will end up being 5ft tall (which I will be sharing soon!). I need a good way to fill the inside of this thing for structural support. I was planning on buying up a bunch of Duplo blocks, but would anyone have any good recommendations for this?
If your not stuck on being a “LEGO purist”, then I’d consider using wood for your substructure, especially if you intend to someday transport and display your build. I did a Minas Tirith build a number of years ago (before I joined the LUG) and used a wood substructure for the various levels. I found and attached an in-progress pic that shows that. Although this one never made it out of my Family Room, I’d still do it this way if I were building it today.
I also used wood substructure on my Hogwarts Castle (pic attached). Basically everything at the level of the buildings are sitting on a wood substructures, with the rock wall sections built up to hide those.
I have had this one out to display a couple of times. Couple of suggestions if you’re at all thinking about doing that down the road:
1). Plan your base in pieces that you can get out of the room you’re building it in, and into your car to transport (I didn’t do that the first time I built this, and had to rebuild it!).
2) Make your build modular so that they can easily be taken apart for transport and re-assembly. I was able to make my buildings modular units to be able to do that.
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