Grand Carousel (10196) - "Turntable"

Last night saw a big step forward in the build. We built the base of the carousel itself - the piece that not only supports everything above it but that rotates and moves.

It wasn't easy to do - there were a lot of tight connections between each of the platform sections.The fit, in general, is very tight. As you can see from the pictures below, there is virtually no space between the carousel and the operator station. Virtually the entire board is taken up with the carousel and its supporting pieces. That leaves little room to stage the minifigures and set up any of the expected "fair ground" activities and booths. *Note that this set doesn't contain anything aside from the carousel but if you were interested in building this out to a full theme park, more "green space" is required.

Very tight clearance between the carousel and the operator booth

The base runs fairly smoothly. I say fairly because in the clockwise direction, it seems to always get caught up on one of the platforms. On closer inspection, the leading edge of that platform keeps getting caught on one of the tiles that protrudes up from the "ground". I am not sure of the purpose of this tile on the ground but if, by the end of the build, it proves to have no real purpose, I will remove it so that the ride operates more smoothly.

The ride turns due to a series of small wheels that are mounted on the underside (on every other platform). These wheels run on the round dark-red track that was built during the first part of construction.

Close-up of wheel

Underneath of the rotating base

Grand Carousel (10196) - The Start of the Base

We got a little more done last night - finished off the motor/operator station platform and started on the base of the carousel itself. We spent a lot of time futzing with the power functions battery box - I put in the requisite 3 AA batteries but the block refused to work. So then I had to find my test meter to confirm that the batteries were fully charged (which they were). When the on button is pushed, a green LED on the side of the power function pack is supposed to turn on to indicate that it is functioning. That did not happen in our case. According to the Lego site, a possible fix is to use a different brand of batteries that has a larger + terminal. If you ask me, they should re-design their battery box so it's not brand specific to batteries!!

I'll have to see if I have any other brands of batteries around the house - I used Energizers last night. There will be some dis-assembly required to test out any new batteries as the battery box is built into the center of the control platform.

We made a little bit of progress on the base of the carousel as well. We were happy to see that everything looked symmetrical - usually a good sign that no mistakes have been made!

And a shot showing everything on the board.

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - More parts gathering

My SSD is a few steps closer to being build-ready. Did a few more local pick-ups this weekend and the only things left are in 5 mail shipments that I am awaiting.

I was really hoping to start this build before the Grand Carousel but mom just couldn't wait to do that one. I think I have created a monster by suggesting that we build these sets together. She needs her addiction fed on a daily basis now hahahaha.

Take Saturday, for instance. We were out for most of the day, doing the Lego pick-ups and then tackling a few chores while we were out. I confirmed the count on my pick-ups as soon as we got home and then put the packages on our Lego table, planning on knolling them as our Sunday night Lego activity.

Well, mom just couldn't wait until Sunday night. She had those pieces knolled and sorted early Sunday morning and was prodding me to start building the carousel on Sunday night instead. I am guessing that had we not been busy with other plans on Saturday evening, she would have had them knolled then!!

Grand Carousel (10196) - Mom couldn't wait to start ...

After almost a whole week with no Lego building, mom started going stir crazy. Knolling was apparently not enough to feed her addiction and she insisted we start the carousel despite a few missing pieces. On that front, I did get in touch with the seller, who was more than happy to send the missing pieces. Unfortunately, as the Chinese Spring Festival is beginning this Saturday, the factory is no longer accepting orders and will not re-open until mid February. Thus, we will be waiting a few weeks for the missing pieces.

On the bright side, 1 of the pieces, while required early on the build is decorative and can be added at any time so it's not a show stopper. The second piece won't be needed until the middle of the build, so we have a lot we can get done in the meantime.

As excited as mom was with all the different colors while we were knolling this set, she quickly came to dislike the multiple similar shades we had of several of the colors (3 shades of blue, 2 of gray, 2 of tan). The coloring in the instruction manual makes it difficult to determine with 100% confidence which shade we are working with.

We resorted to using Lego's online manual to double check. We would not be surprised if we had to backtrack at some point to fix a color issue. On the topic of backtracking, we had to do that yesterday after only getting 30 minutes into the build. The set contains multiple lengths of tan tiles and we accidentally used a shorter length. We didn't realize the mistake until we went to mount the motor and found that the holes were not lining up. Then, as we examined more closely, we found that the carousel foundation we had built wasn't centered perfectly on the base plate but was slightly up and right of the center.

What made it somewhat funnier is that just as we started, Mom joked around that she hoped she didn't end up building a lop-sided carousel. Guess she predicted the future quite well!!

Anyway, we didn't get very far last night. Got a little bit of the foundation laid out and started on the motor platform.