Took out my old favorite Toy from the past: LEGO !

[Etienne MacGyver]

Long time ago, i picked up the box of Lego i had from my childhood at my mother.

After 30 years it was a nice experience to put some of the projects together with my son.

I clearly remember when i was on holiday with my parents in Germany, that i saw a Trainset when i was in some city walking by the shop windows.

I remember that i saw that train, and loved it.

My dad who passed away when i was 14, bought the set there in the summer, did not tell me that ofcourse and kept it untill my 7th birthday in September.

Now that made this trainset special for me.

Now my son is about the age when i saw the trainset in the shopwindow, and i thought it was nice to search all the pieces together after such a long time.

Its nice to see that he enjoys it as much as i did 32 years ago  

I was surprised that it still worked, because i have mistread that engine for alot of other Lego projects back in the day. (hey, they dont call me MacGyver for nothing uh !   )

Its almost undestructable, it runs just fine !

It was missing the battery wagon, but i found that on marktplaats for cheap. (its a blue one instead of a red   but ok)

This is the set:



here a video of the train :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guncfqYXFPE

Later that week, i sorted all the other track parts that where still around, and was able to make a much bigger track  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvhavUPVT-w

As you can see in the second video, the "181" stickers are on the train.
I could not find anything suitable to just print, so i vectored the label  

Its available here :

Lego-181-Sticker.pdf

Now i just need to repro the "International Transport" label.

later i started with the technic series, which really educated me on technics in general at a young age.

I love Lego's !

[Blanka]

Cool,
I had this one:

together with this one:


Although I really like the old lego's, I let my kids mess with it. It is really lacking the usability of modern bricks. They are either too loose or way too tight, the plastic breaks much easier, and the blue and white bricks have a lot of discolouration.
So I treated myself with a bunch of modern LEGO sets, like these 2 top 5 ever sets:

[Etienne MacGyver]

I am not really into the new lego, but thats maybe just because i dont have any

I am from this era :





Here i am building those after 25 years  









Those sets really teached me how engines/gearboxes/differentials and pneumatics/hydraulics etc. etc. etc. work !

[Blanka]

I have the same excavator! Still the best looking LEGO excavator today.
Unfortunately, as a kid you HAD TO put water in the pneumatic pumps. Now they are pretty rotten.
So I exchanged the old for the new cylinders of the Unimog, and now it works better than ever.

[Belike]

Nice setup!
Lego was not available in those days behind the iron curtain, fortunately my father worked in international forwarding business and brought us a lot of stuff from Vienna.Still have most of the old boxes.

[Superully]

fabulous, etienne, lego fever never dies!!!

here's my and my lego mindstorms school team winning last year's regional contest



we sucked at the european finale, but we were more than happy to have made it there ...

[level42]

Nice setup!
Lego was not available in those days behind the iron curtain, fortunately my father worked in international forwarding business and brought us a lot of stuff from Vienna.Still have most of the old boxes.

This never seizes to amaze me Béla.....the whole concept of how that situation was is just so weird....and now....there is a new dark movement developing in the east.....

[DarthNuno]

Lego rulez!

I had to do this, three years ago   









...but back in the day, I collected the Legoland "space" serie... and this was my biggest (and favorite) one   



...and in that era, there was NO star wars or other 'licenses' series... you had to imagine, experiment and create everything by yourself... that's the power of the lego! Be creative! I hope my daughter will catch the virus too 

[Belike]

Nice setup!
Lego was not available in those days behind the iron curtain, fortunately my father worked in international forwarding business and brought us a lot of stuff from Vienna.Still have most of the old boxes.

This never seizes to amaze me Béla.....the whole concept of how that situation was is just so weird....and now....there is a new dark movement developing in the east.....

I will tell you in person what is happening here again, Ukraine will be erased from the map soon and Moscow started to build a new nuclear reactor in Hungary for 10 billion euros...........
Back on topic, that Super Star Destroyer rocks in arcade surrounding.

[Dazza]

Cool! My kids are quite into Lego at the moment.

So I popped round my parents house and up in the loft managed to find my first Technic sets which I promptly put together:

Set 855, Mobile Crane:


Set 857, Motorcycle:


Set 8660, Car Chassis:


I was also bought a couple of newer sets by my wife recently and she also got me the LEGO Technic Unimog U400 - 8110 (as shown above) and the Excavator (8043):


Lego is such a cool toy and invention!

[level42]

It's strange but I wasn't that much into Lego BITD.
I never had much more than the regular building blocks and well....I wasn't that creative at all with them....

I had HO trains and stuff, thought the LEGO trains were insanely expensive.

I also had more Playmobil.

My son is (or I guess I already should say, was) heavily into LEGO esp. SW stuff and technical stuff.

We played with Mindstorm at Legoland Germany couple of summers ago, had to program the robot to do some stuff. Lots of fun to do and very good to learn about programming. We were the first to finish and I didn't help a lot
http://youtu.be/C4HVmFIoMY8

[Etienne MacGyver]

I had a second hand HO trainset BITD, i dont know what happened to it, its not at my mothers place and its also not here

i do remember that i had 2 transformers, one of them i Always used for the Lego engine as shown in the video, i did that because it was variable and 2 ways 

this is it :



i needed to look out that i did not set it to full throttle, because the motor was just 4,5 volts, so now you guys also understand what i ment when i said that i mistreaded that engine 

Damn, now i miss my HO set even more !

[level42]

Yeah man, I had Hema trains too. This was actually Lima, a very cheap brand and nothing compared to Märklin or Fleischmann....but budget was different then...

I had this transformer, actually I do still have everything 



Proudly made in Hengelo, The Netherlands !

Temsi was an interesting company in regards to this thread. It made a "bootleg" of Meccano for years:
http://www.girdersandgears.com/temsi.html

[anunaki]

I use to have a nice Darda collection, with ramps, loopings and a couple of cars

gave it all away to my kid neighbor back then

stuff like this

[level42]

O wow......the Temsi inventory production lines were sold to a German company in 1997 and they are STILL in business !!! :

http://www.metallus.de/index.php?&page=start