Some time ago I’ve mentioned that the end of the year 2007 witnessed a flood of Technic MOCs in the Lugpol community. The crowning achievement of this time was the Poland’s biggest MOC - a 1:40 model of Liebherr LR 11350 truss crane built by Aurimax. Aurimax kept showing no new MOCs for months, while secretly working on this creation, that would eventually bring us all to our knees. Today, just a little bit late, we have for you and interview with the creator of this over 4 meters high monster.

Klocki - Hello Auri. Let’s begin with a couple of words about you: where are you from, what do you do for living, and how did your adventure with Lego bricks begin?

Aurimax - Hmm, a couple of words about me? I’m 28, I’m a dental technician, currently living in Nowy Targ. I just happened to come here, and it seems like I’m going to stay here for a while, though who knows… Like I said, my daily occupation are metal and plaster teeth. My “relation” with Lego has started in the old times of Pewex [shops that imported Western merchandise to Poland in the Iron Curtain era]. The accessibility to Lego sets was awfully poor. I was given my first set on Christmas Eve of 1987, when I was 7 years old, it was the 6656 set, and the others followed, sometimes more, sometimes less. The financial situation was mediocre sometimes, but sometimes I has luck.
I guess you all know the 8720 set. At the beginning of 90, I was around 12 years old, I was given 50 000 zloties (pre-denomination money, unfortunately) on Children’s Day. What else could I buy than Lego? So I went to Pewex, and saw a shiny new Lego motor - a dream come true. I asked the saleswoman how much it was, and she told me: 22 000 zloties. I was shocked for a moment, and then I asked only for ONLY ONE SET (no good to be sly, mom always tells me). I paid for it, and got it wrapped up in a Lego bag. MY DREAMS CAME TRUE, I ran all the way home. Upon opening the set, it turned out that the price of 6 required batteries is almost equal to price of the set. It became obvious later, that the proper price of the set was 422 000 zloties actually, but ONLY THIS ONE SET was improperly tagged - the price lacked the first digit. I remember my mom’s monthly salary was 1 200 000 zloties at the time, so I could never afford this set at full price.
That was my wonder. Everything has changed since then.
Now it’s much better, yet still far from luxury. I was back into Lego bricks at 2005, after some 10 years of the Dark Age. The bag of bricks in my cellar just kept bothering me, especially when my son was about to be born in 2 months. So I’ve pre-taken care of his intellectual development, by buying 3 kilos of bricks at Allegro. Then I bought some more, and more, and so on. I suppose I own some 100 kilos at the moment. It’s troublesome to keep it all in my room, but I still can make it - that is, as long as I don’t buy more.

- Where did you get the idea to build that big? Why this particular crane, Liebherr LR 11350, has your choice been limited by the scale, or did you plan a truss crane from the beginning?

- That’s where my dark side reveals itself I simply wanted to build the BIGGEST model in Europe. I was only some 40-60 1×16 Technic bricks short. Time will come when I have my payback. The choice was simple, the biggest challenge is followed by the biggest machine, that is Liebherr LR 11350. Taking the size into account, a telescopic crane is no good idea, and you know why. The constructional problems are massive, the boom’s weight, the number of parts, boom lifting system - that’s abstraction. Truss are lightweight and resistant, and don’t require some abundant amount of parts. I like cranes, and I’ll probably stick to them for a while. My crane idol is ABRANT23. His cranes are masterpieces, and that’s the level I want to come close to. From Polish builders, I admire Mirek (Benny80), his models are brilliant too!

- How did your close ones react to an idea to build something over 4 meters high? What did the people who think Lego are just small sets for small kids say?

- That’s the annoying part. Ever since an interview with me was published in Cracovia Newspaper, people think I’m a freak, some kind of weirdo. My wife tolerates my hobby, so does my son, even if unintentionally all the others… I guess they condemn it, that’s the sad truth. The situation was somewhat better when the crane was deployed across three rooms of my house. At this time they changed their opinion, from considering the Lego bricks a toy for some 8-years old. When I’ve been deploying the crane in a cinema (the only place with rooms high enough), I saw people’s reactions. These have been very favourable for the most. Lots of people congratulated me on the idea and persistance.

- Over 17 kilos of weight, height of 4.6 meters, 7 motors, 600 tread links, some 100 meters of rope - what else does your crane include?

- Not much more. It’s just that no one writes guides on how tu build such a thing :/ It took 6 moths in total. The documentation and planning part took about 3 weeks. About one hour was needed to deploy all parts on the ground, and then 2 hours more to raise it to a working position.

- The question that probably everyone who sees you crane wants to ask is: what collection of parts it takes ti build such a giant? What kind of bricks resources did you have before you started to build it, and how many purchases were necessary in the process?

- I own “some” bricks, it’s hard to estimate the exact number because I mostly buy in bulk. But surely it takes “some” resources to build over 1 meter tall / long. Above all, I lacked lots of 40 tooth gears and treads, currently I have over 40 gears of that kind, and nearly 4 meters of treads. I bought the new treads too, but the order was delivered kinda late, I think that the model would look better with them. I can surely write that the next model will have the new treads and news motors

- One of the interesting solutions you have used are driving rings used as locks on winches, that allow to disengage the winch from the drive. Tell me, have you encountered any problems with driving rings under big loads? It happened to me many times that driving rings unclutched themselves under tensions in gearboxes.

- Driving rings make a lot things easier, and greatly shorten the time needed to deploy and pack up the model. With rings disengaged, I was able to plug in a motor bypassing the transmission system and quickly coil the ropes. There are huge gear ratios in the winches, as they deal with many kilos of loads. The unclutching never occured, but I believe it was thanks to the fact that there was some gear reduction between the rings and the winches. So they were not exposed to full loads, and that is probably the solution. A lot of trouble could have happened should the driving rings be attached directly to the winches.

- I’m greatly impressed by the fact that your crane, being over 10 kilos heavy, is still able to move, driven by regular 9V Lego motors. Was it difficult to build a chassis that will support that kind of weight and allow to move it around? No problems with the endurance of axles or treads?

- As for the chassis,the only problem was the transmission. The simpliest was was to build motors into the appropriate tread, but I couldn’t fit them in. I placed motors in the lateral beams between treads. It took me some time, as this kind of weight required huge gear reduction. The worm gears were a necessity, then some additional gears, and so it drove. Speed was obviously minuscule, but that’s almost like a Truck Trial. Not a single axle or gear was damaged in this project, so I suppose the reduction was just fine. To obtain greater surface of treads, I’ve used double treads with 1×8 plate on them. It’s not a perfect solution, plates tend to fall of on obstacles.

- What has been a greatest challenge in the building process? Or perhaps something turned out to be surprisingly easy?

- Hmmm, a challenge? It was a challenge to raise up something over 4 meters long using just a few ropes. The tensions have been critical, several times the construction collapsed and the trusses broke, or the blocks were disrupted. Nothing was easy with this crane, it was difficult all along, when I fixed up one thing, another one failed. Today I’m aware that with this scale I could have make it look better, but I’m not such an aesthete as Maciek Drwiega or Dmac. Functionality comes before the look for me, so there are few details, but at least I prepared my own stickers

- Your crane was enthusiastically praised by the polish community. Have you been surprised by the reactions, or was there something particularly pleasant? Have you paid attention to the response to your crane abroad?

- Hmmm! As for the reactions, it’s been a most pleasant surprise, I didn’t expect this kind of enthusiasm. Well, it’s just a MOC like any other [just somewhat bigger - Sariel], and deserves not much description. I was happy to see the model being praised, and receiving some constructive remarks. I will pay more attention to make my next crane better Sincerely, I have no idea what was the response abroad - if there was any, I’m happy with it.

- What can you tell us about your plans for future? Is the next MOC going to be big too, and when can we expect it?

- Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to build at the moment :/ I only build spontaneously, not like you - 3 or 4 MOCs every month. Sometimes I build quickly, sometimes not. I can only promise that I’m preparing for something tall again. Just a few Bricklink orders more, and perhaps something will come out of it.

- Thank you for your time, keep building

- Thanks and regards, Auri.

This entry was posted on 6 June 2008 at 11:13 AM and is filed under Technic, Interview, Giants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.