The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide

Yes, one of the questions I’ve been asked many times about the book is why it was printed in black and white. If you’re one of those people, you might be interested in reading a blog entry I wrote to address those concerns about black and white images.

But… to show that I do read your emails and listen to your concerns I decided to offer this next set of instructions in color. You might recall spotting this model near the end of Chapter 1:

Of course, in the book it appears as a greyscale image. But in this case I had actually created the instructions in full color. In fact, they have previously appeared on the web on both Brickshelf and The Building Instruction Portal. That original set of instructions was produced when I was just new to the software used to render the images of instruction steps. For the apotome.com website I went back and completely rerendered them in a higher resolution and using different lighting settings. (Sort of like getting to go back and remaster an old album)

So head over to the Instructions page and feel free to download the .pdf file.

Enjoy!
Allan B.

This coming Saturday (March 18, 2006) I will be at the Bricks and Blocks outlet store in St. Jacob’s, Ontario. For those of you from southwestern Ontario but who may not know this store, it’s located just north of Waterloo across the road from the St. Jacob’s farmers’ market.

I’ll be in the Bricks and Blocks store from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. on the 18th. If you’ve got a copy of The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide please bring it with you. If you don’t have a copy yet, but would like one there will be copies available at the store to purchase.

I look forward to seeing some of you there!

Allan B.

You asked for it…. you got it!

First I want to thank each of the readers who took time to email me about the Empire State Building instructions that I had posted. They pointed out that posting them as a Word document probably wasn’t the best idea. They were right.

So for the time being I’ve removed those instructions, but have posted a brand new set in their place.

I hope you’ll take a minute to stop by the Instructions page at Apotome.com and check out the instructions for the microscale cargo ship. Many of you will recognize this as the model that opens Chapter 6. Enjoy!

Thanks again for everyone who offered help and advice with the instructions!

Allan B.

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend some time talking to Steven and Nikki Combs from BimpCast. Now, this is the Internet age, of course, so the talking actually occured via a program called Skype. Some of you may be more familiar with this app then I was since I’d never used it before that morning. But I have to say it was remarkably easy to download, install and configure.

At the last minute I realized I hadn’t given much thought to what I was going to do for a microphone. I don’t use my computer for any sort of voice chat or anything that normally needs a mic. So what to do? No problem… I dug around in some old electronic gear I’ve had for ages and came up with a Realistic Highball 2 microphone that had to be almost 25 years old. Many of you might know Realistic as the house brand once sold by RadioShack stores. So using a little adapter plug I had the mic connected to my laptop and was amazed that it actually seemed to put a clean sound through to the Skype program. But the Highball is one of those classic big mics like you see 70s rock musicians swinging wildly around the stage. I really didn’t want to sit there for the entire interview and hold the mic in my hand. Plus, I thought if I happened to bum p it, or worse drop it, there was likely to be some aweful noise recorded. So again… what to do?

No problem… I’m a LEGO builder, right? Why not use some LEGO bricks to solve this problem. and that’s what I did as you can see here:

And it worked like a charm.

So Nikki, Steven and I talked for quite a while… nearly 45 minutes of actual interview I think. But we also had a little time before and after the interview and I have to say that the two hosts you hear on the BimPCast each episode are just as nice when they’re not being recorded. They’re genuine and sincere people who obviously have a great passion for this hobby. I can’t thank them enough for taking the time out of a Saturday morning to talk with me about my book.

So if you’ve got 45 minutes and want to hear what we talked about, why not head over to Bricks in my Pocket, the home of the BimPCast that is now the official podcast of LEGOFan.org and download the file. There’s even a link on the BimPCast site that takes you to my book’s listing on Amazon.com. So if you happened to be thinking of buying a copy, why not use that link and help support the BimPCast at the same time.

Allan B.

UPDATE: March 5, 2006
After some excellent feedback from a number of readers I’ve removed these instructions for the time being. They are being recreated as a .pdf file and will be reposted soon!

Many of you have written to me asking when the instructions will be posted to the apotome.com website. I wish I could have them all finished and uploaded now, but I just haven’t been able to finish them as quickly as I’d hoped. However, I am happy to report that at least one is finished and a second is on the way soon. So for those of you who have wondered about this model:

I hope you’ll take a minute to check out the Instructions page on Apotome.com and download the complete instructions for the Empire State Building model.

More to come! Remember, Apotome.com isn’t nearly finished yet. It’s still very much a work in progress.

Allan B.