During the last Christmas exhibition by PLUG in Lisbon, fellow member and Technic fan Filipe Rocha brought his red Porsche 993 GT3 by Crowkillers, to have it on display mounted on a rotating base (also built from LEGO elements).
After a few months, the exhibition ended and he went back for this stuff... but noticed a missing half bush from the rotating base. Oh well, it must have fallen off somehow during all that time... Then he went back home and took apart the base to find out if the half-bush was somewhere within the mechanism.
His only clue was quite some ABS dust on the mechanism. Then he found out where the element went.
Can you spot it? That's right, the half bush got embedded into the L-beam!
The axle where the half-bush was spinning pushed it so hard against the beam that, during the time of the exhibition, the two elements wore down, perfectly adapted to each other, and effectively became wholly new customised elements all by themselves. Here they are separated, showing how they changed. (the "new" half bush is shown next to a "regular" one for comparison)
Do you think these "new" elements would be useful in MOCs? As for me, I would never have the heart to intentionally do this to LEGO elements!
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4 comments:
Impressive! Very smooth grinding... I had a similar experience with my CD thrower but there, rather than grinding, it was the heat generated by the fast spinning axle that melted the supporting beam and created a collar on the axle...
And a few bushes in my GBC modules are getting quite thin too ;)
I have a whole collection of parts that have been abused by GBCs. The latest is an 4L axle twisted perfectly such that it looks like a drill bit. My favorite is a 6588 where the worm gear "drilled" right thru the side.
@Philo: Yeah, I suppose it got this smooth by being subjected to a slow turning over a long time period, instead of faster for a shorter time. And it should be interesting to see your Hammerhead's melted beam!
@Tom: if you can twist the axle some more, you have a (more or less) economical way of making threaded axles! ;) As for the gearbox, I always thought the 24T's teeth would be the ones to give in first.
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