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It really won't require damaging anything, you just gently stick a sewing needle into the small gap and leverage the axel out. Annoying? Yes. But "can't be take
by avar 5y ago
It really won't require damaging anything, you just gently stick a sewing needle into the small gap and leverage the axel out. Annoying? Yes. But "can't be taken apart" seems rather overblown.
I've got a 42043, Mercedes-Benz Arocs 3245[1] here which allowed me to reproduce this. If you look on page 322 (step #59) of the instructions at [1] it requires the same 4l axel to attach the bucket to its boom, and is held in place by a "bush" piece[2].
That one's trivial to take apart "correctly", but I just tried (without cheating!) by tightly showing the 4l axel in and gently prying it out with a sewing needle.
It took around 10-15 seconds, there's a tiny bit of external visible damage the size of the sewing needle head on the piece the 4l goes into, but I being careful.
Otherwise it's no worse for wear. I also tried it with a wooden toothpick, but the gap is too small for that.
I'd put that into the "annoying" category, rather than Lego having produced a "display-only" set. For comparison on the Arocs I had to spend 5-10 minutes gently trying to get a gear into the engine once with a chopstick without disassembling the whole front of the car after it fell off.
1. https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions/42043 https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions/4204...
2. https://www.toypro.com/en/product/968/technic-bush/light-bluish-gray https://www.toypro.com/en/product/968/technic-bush/light-blu...
- rtkwe 5y agoI'm not clear on what you were testing, did you replicate the design in the AT-AT set from the article or just using a bushing piece? It's still pretty notable that it requires a sewing needle to disassemble fully instead of just hands or a brick separator as previous sets did.
- avar 5y agoI replicated the relevant part of the design. I put the same 4l axle into the same sort of Technic slot, it's specifically designed to be flush with those, so there's no easy way to pop it out other than to push it out from the other side. I then used the "bush" piece to hold onto the axle from the other side, so you have to pull it out of that piece to get the axle out. It's not the exact same piece that's holding onto the 4l axle in the article, but from experience they've got about the same hold on the axle, so the difference won't matter. Yes it's annoying. I'm just pointing out that it's far short of the "can't be taken apart" claim in the article. I'd be willing to bet that it can be taken apart conventionally. You can probably push the orange piece a bit from the other side. Of course it will run right into the frame on the other side, but even Lego doesn't make components with micrometer precision, there's usually a bit of give in the plastic. If you can get some play in it of even a half a millimeter it'll be sufficient to do this with a toothpick instead of a sewing needle.
- rtkwe 5y agoYou can't reach it from the other side though there's the red pin in the way and you can't push the red pin through the grey axel connector. The only access you have to move the 4l axel is through the small window on the lime/neon green piece.
- evilotto 5y agoCompared to a real Mercedes-Benz which needs a toolbox full of specialized tools to do routine maintenance, a sewing needle is a cinch :)