The next section of this mammoth build was the conveyor away from the bucket wheel.

This was another hour. So current total time is 8 hr 15 min.

And, one more for luck.

"Nothing but the rain"
The next section of this mammoth build was the conveyor away from the bucket wheel.
This was another hour. So current total time is 8 hr 15 min.
And, one more for luck.
This latest in the occasional series of the Bucket Wheel Excavator build chronicles my building of the bucket wheel arm, although only the first half. This took about an hour and an half so the total time so far is 7 hours 15, I think. I did make a mistake on this one, I put the buckets on facing the wrong way and was too tired to work out if it mattered and so I wasted about ten minutes refitting them correctly.
Another view, showing more of the mechanism.
Now, for completeness of record, here is a view of my working space:
And the reverse view:
This next section of the bucket wheel excavator is the main conveyor belt from the body to the truck. This was about an hour to build. So far total build time is 5.75 hours. I think I’m over half way now.
I was really tempted to start the bucket wheel part of this but it was feeling late in the evening!
I think I’ll be sad once this has been finished. It really is quite therapeutic building this stuff.
Now I have a working base unit for the Bucket Wheel Excavator it’s time to make the rotating base which serves as the connector for the conveyors and bucket wheel arm. This build took two hours. I had only really budgeted about ninety minutes of time and so I was feeling quite tired towards the end, but the result is gorgeous.
Here’s some detail of the build.
I’m about a third of the way through the instructions and not quite halfway through the separate bags!
Here’s the conveyor superstructure part way through the build:
This is the initial joining of the pieces but with more work still to do:
Another of the completed sections so far:
Caterpillar time! The big boy needs wheels (or similar). Build time for these was about an 45 minutes for both.
And here are the caterpillars attached to the base chassis.
Part two of the journey into the largest Technic Lego kit ever available. I made the dumper trump that comes with the bucket excavator. It’s a nice little kit with steering and a raising bed.
The bed raised:
And finally, a mean front view.
This is part one of a series of communications about Lego Model 42055. It’s a monster and so will be spread in sections as I am looking forward to categorising my journey.
This is the box:
There’s a Lego DeLorean on top to give an idea of scale. It is a very big box. It is the largest Technics set. The box has a gatefold style to it and so opens out to look like this:
The next exciting part was opening the box and spreading out the various part-bags. There are nearly four thousand pieces in this monstrosity and here some of them are:
The white box on the right has the instruction book and also more part-bags in it!
And finally for your delectation I have an image of the instruction book.
Thus ends the first communication concerning 42055.
Here is the Lego City Cargo Aeroplane.
It’s a pretty neat little model.
On immediate inspection I think it looks a lot like the Lockheed S3 Viking, but I will soon be corrected if it doesn’t.