Lego Hates Trees
A review of a couple
of the newer Technic sets currently available, plus some general bitchiness and the usual bile you would expect from me!
Have you ever really looked forwards to a new Lego set and then when you open the box, you discover that maybe it was not as good as you hoped? Have you ever been in the position of having a large wad of Lego Vouchers and not known what set to buy and so just go for one that looks OK, but turns out to be really great?
Well let me introduce you to the 2018 Technic set, Forest Machine (set number 42080), a strange and occasionally confusing set that is all about harvesting the lungs of the planet that even comes with a teeny little chainsaw and a few logs to knock down. The box appears large from the front face, being 475mm by 370mm square, but with a depth of only 65mm, the internal space is quickly filled with the not overly full plastic bags. (Actually, while I am here discussing these planet wrecking deforestation machines, why the bloody hell are Lego still shoving stuff in disposable plastic bags, when a paper envelope or even a cheap paper box would work just as well and be easier to recycle?) The box, instruction book and the stickers are beautifully printed and given that the suggested age range is ten to sixteen years, there are some small complicated moments that are easy to miss if you are not concentrating. The back of the box shows both the A and B models, and of the two, the A model is by far the prettier of the two.
The
light and dark shades of green work really well, especially when
combined with the white stripe and the raising boom, but the darker
colours quickly fade into each other in low light. Gone are the days
of brightly coloured simple machinery in technic sets, but the
realism does give a degree of credibility to the set once built,
especially if it is just going to get sat on a shelf to gather dust
and be looked at rather than played with. I will point out that my
Technic does not sit on dusty shelves. Oh no, my technic is used,
abused, taken outside and very occasionally, even modified! (Oh yes,
I am a brick cutter!)
With any new set, there is usually a degree of joy in the first build, seeing if there are any new techniques used in how the pieces go together and so over a period of a couple of hours last week, I sat at my desk and built up the A model and to be honest, I found it to be an uninspiring build. The expected complexity for a set aimed at older builders was not really present for most of the model. Instead there were confounding tiny but ultimately unimportant steps designed to make the set look prettier, such as a colourful flask that sits in the cab and the clipping on of Minifig scale tools and tool box, all of which look strangely out of scale.
The Chainsaw looks too big to hold at the scale suggested by the tool box, shovel and Axe, but if the scale of the flask, cup and chainsaw is taken, the axe, shovel and tool box appear tiny and would never be placed on the outside of the truck. I would also suggest that the driver of the truck will have to use the chainsaw to remove their own legs prior to getting into the cab, because again the scale is slightly off and the poor sod has no where to put their feet! The small log that rests on a trestle is again out of scale with the rest of the set, the trestle itself feels too high and the log too small to warrant such a tool. However, once the build is completed, these slightly irritating features work to make the model far prettier than us old school Technic builders are used to. At this rate, we can justifiably ask if we are likely to see a reprise of the old technic Minifig, not that they would fit into this model just because of the confusing scale?
I stopped half way through this build, as soon as the front section of the machine was built and left the rest until the next day. Which given that I sat building the Han Solo edition Millennium Falcon in one four hour session (that left me with a profound bum ache, due to barely moving in my chair), was unusual. Being an obsessional Lego builder, I tend to like to complete my models in one sitting. The Mercedes AROCS was completed in one session, as was the CLAAS Xerion, both model builds I greatly enjoyed for their complexity. But after an hour or so of this build, I was bored and complained vocally to my partner about this fact. The following day I continued the model and quickly had it finished. It was then time to start on the B model, using parts from my extensive reserves. However, the new Pneumatic switches make using old parts complicated and I had to modify the design slightly to get the old parts to fit into the same space. This took only a couple of minutes extra, but as with the first model, I found this build to be rather uninspiring and the finished model is actually rather ugly, bordering on crudely finished. At least the driver of this vehicle does not have to saw off their own legs, but the same scale errors seem to be present.
Functionally, the A model is more interesting than the B model, but this is only by a small margin. Both models seem to lack features and by far the worst sin is that the A model steering, which although ingenious looking, does not actually work very well. When pushed backwards, the model is smoothly moving and works better than when it is pushed forwards. Going forwards seems to put a great deal of stress onto the steering mechanism and the truck just wants to veer off to one side or the other. Strangely, despite this movement, actually controlling the steering is a stiff and joyless experience. The model just wants to fold in half, which is just odd and a little painful on your fingers if they get caught between the two parts of the machine. Also the front steering axle has an annoying feature in that it seems to have only two types of motion. It is either locked out fully and inoperable or wildly activated by the rocking beam suspension that it has been given, which just adds to the instability, especially given that the A model steering is done from the rear part of the machine and there is a degree of strong backlash in the system. When the steering is activated on both the A and B models, it effectively drags two axles in an arc and this too makes moving the models difficult because the action is not smooth and you can feel it twisting the axle used to mount the steering gear wheel.
The
pneumatic rams are as always completely fabulous in their smooth
action and the large Power Functions motor provides plenty of oomph
to the compressor, but this model is screaming out for an air tank.
It also has an alarming shudder to it when the motor is running and
this increases as pressure in the air lines builds. The lack of a
piston driving the log grabber in the B model is also a discrepancy
that cannot be over looked, given how complex the similar mechanism
is on the A model. However, the swinging saw blade seems completely
incongruous with the realism of the set. To my knowledge and then
confirmed by a super fast Google image search, the great majority of
these machines have a chainsaw cutter, not a huge wobbly saw blade
spinning on the end of the boom! The one image I did find of a large
saw blade machine, had it mounted on a tracked excavator type
machine. Most of the eight wheeled machines seemed to either have a
log carrying flat bed, or a chainsaw mounted in the tree grabbing
claw. The saw blade on this model just looks like a last minute add
on to over come a problem that the Lego designers had built
themselves into. Functionally, it is weak and rather uninteresting,
freely swinging back and forth as it does. Now while I was looking at
real forest machines, I did come across a fabulous looking six legged
walking forest machine (that resembled a Star Wars, Clone Trooper
walker)… Now that would have been a fabulously interesting machine
to build, have Lego released any actual moving Technic walking
machines?
The
new Pneumatic switches are interesting, seemingly having a little
more control over the action of the rams than previous incarnations.
However, fine control of the boom and gripper on the A model is still
an art. Using the gear wheels to turn the switch is a great idea for
grip, but gives no visual clue as to where the switch is in its
travel. To overcome this, I switched the gear wheels for two stud
beams with axle holes, which gave a visual track of switch placement,
but reduced grip overall.
Another feature that I noticed as I compared the real machines with this model set is that quite a lot of the real machines have large load spreading tracks, on each part of the truck. The two rear axles are often covered in track, which obviously makes them easier to move and creates less ground pressure under the tyres, essential for machines that operate on soft unpaved roads and tracks. Which leads us nicely into 2019 and another new tree destroying model. Set number 42094, AKA the Tracked Loader. I did really did not like the look of this set and yet found that the B model makes a surprisingly pleasing little tracked flat bed loader, that can actually carry the logs placed on it (unlike the B model of the forest machine). There were a couple of features that I did not enjoy as much, such as the fake engine and the strange use of the clawed teeth to represent some kind of perforated engine cover, but the rest of the model works really well. The turn table is operated by a gear wheel on the front of the truck and the tipper is powered by the gear wheels located on each side of the bed. There are no Power Functions, although I suspect it would not be too hard to attach them somewhere. In some respects, this reminded me of a snow grooming machine, but the clean simple mechanisms are just joyful, if anything this is a far prettier model than the Forest Machine.
My final criticism of the Forest Machine set A model is actually due to a design flaw and that is the pivoting axle design when it is combined with the rotating cabin. If the truck is straight and the boom is pointing straight ahead, the truck is quite stable, however, if you turn the cab while the truck is turned to the same side, the truck will tip. It is top heavy and the swinging axles make it just flexible enough to twist, which again caught my attention as it promptly fell over!
The inclusion of two large and one small turntable make this a great set to buy for parts, especially given that it also contains a large motor, a battery box and a pneumatic system. For MOCers like me, this is great, but for those who want to build a model to play with or as a first time technic set, it is probably a little flawed. I simply do not understand the necessity to include the two frames and the length of chain which is fitted to the top of the rear of the A model. The dark metallic grey tubes are pretty, but I am not sure yet what I can use them for, I suspected that they would be great for running strings through over difficult corners, but it turns out that they are not hollow through out their length, so that screws that plan. The battery box switch on the rear unit of the A model is very elegant, as it almost disappears into the smooth sides of the design. In contrast to this, on the B model, it is crudely finished and the gaps in the flat bed mean that the truck cannot even carry the logs the set comes with!
So, would I recommend this set to anyone? Yes, I would but with this proviso, this is a great set for parts, but the model it builds is actually quite dull. The inclusion of Minifig parts feels slightly childish (says the forty five year old woman, still playing with Lego!) for an advanced set. The Pneumatics are excellent, the turntables are also excellent and the new shiny dark silver wheel hubs are very pretty indeed. There are also enough of these parts to make construction of an MOC even easier. So do buy set 42080, just don’t bother with the B model, instead build the A model once if you can be bothered and then put the parts into your kit to build something more fun.
