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Production oddities
I have 3 Tie Fighters, set #7146. Each one included one of part 30000: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/30000 on which one stud has LEGO printed on it in the opposite direction as the other three. these are the only pieces I've seen with the imprint not all the same direction. The three other parts like these in each set were normal.
I have 2 of set #7566 Farmer. The head in one set does not have holes inside the stud, but the head in the other copy does have the holes like most other heads made recently. Both were bought at the same Kroger store.
Anyone else notice any oddly made pieces in their collection?
I have 2 of set #7566 Farmer. The head in one set does not have holes inside the stud, but the head in the other copy does have the holes like most other heads made recently. Both were bought at the same Kroger store.
Anyone else notice any oddly made pieces in their collection?
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0 • Like •As for the misaligned studs, it happens now and again-- the molds get assembled before the injection molding process starts, and the direction of the LEGO logo on the studs is variable. They try and make sure they're always in the same direction, but sometimes they get assembled erroneously and it's not caught.
The only other "mold-assembly" error that I know of was one with the Harry Potter staircases in 2001:
http://www.suave.net/~dave/images/staircompare/staircomparebottom.jpg
Otherwise, I know of some parts that:
- Don't get filled with ABS all the way
- Have swirls of incorrect colors in them
- Have been melted or broken in MISB sets
- Received incorrect printing
But mold-assembly errors are pretty uncommon to my knowledge...
DaveE
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0 • Like •Do Customer Services still do such things?
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0 • Like •http://news.lugnet.com/books/?n=261
So, background: there's a book that LEGO came out with in Japan, called "LEGO Book Museum" (volume 1). This guy gave a review of it, which is unfortunately lost to the internet ether. The response indicates that his review indicated an "anti-choking" reference relating to minifigs, but apparently wasn't specific, leading people on LUGNET to speculate that they were referring to the hollow-stud head.
Luckily, I actually have a copy of that book at home, and scanned in the page that I think they're talking about:
http://www.suave.net/~dave/images/tmp/minifig.jpg
But the bad news is that I don't really speak Japanese (I've taken a few intro classes, and I know how to recognize some of the Hiragana and Katakana, but my 200-or-so word vocabulary isn't enough to make much headway). I've tried my hand at the "Head Parts" and the caption underneath the picture of the solid/hollow minifig head, but I'm not sure I've done a great job:
ミニフィギュアガ人気の理由のひとつ
ガ頭部パーツの豊富 なバリエーション
ポニーテール おさげなど可愛らしいへ
アスタイルだけでなく 帽子やへルメツ
トなど カラフルで魅力的なパーツが
The first sentence comes out to roughly:
"One of the reasons for the minifigure's popularity is the rich variety of head parts."
But the next bit I can't quite figure out. Something about ponytails, hats, and colorful attractive parts.
As for the caption under the head, I think it's:
頭部は当初スタツド同様 "LEGO" の刻印がされていたが 空洞に
Which I've also got some trouble translating, but seems to be merely saying that the head used to have a solid stud with "LEGO" on the top, but now is hollow.
So, I haven't found anything about choking on the page, but I believe that's the page that the original reviewer was referring to. Anyone speak enough Japanese to know?
DaveE
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0 • Like •But if you know of one that actually can scan an image, that'd be much easier!
DaveE
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0 • Like •But these mostly happened years ago (anyone say Samsonite Lego).
If parts are slightly different nowadays, it's mostly due to Lego changing the molds to make for a minor improvement.
But mistakes still slip through the high quality control.
I also do not believe the holes in the heads were for anti-choking, the heads are to small and round to get stuck in your windpipe.
Plus if it got lodged in there, but sideways, what use would those holes be then.....
If anything, I think it was to save on ABS and maybe to make alignment easier because fig. heads went from simply one color (black) print to multiple prints.
So a way was needed to make sure the heads would stay in one direction.
(although this doesn't really work because printed heads are not hole aligned...)
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0 • Like •However, the story goes that LEGO has now come up against a lot of competitors (like the new Kre-O line from Hasbro), and now they're more eager to get the LEGO logo put onto bricks. In particular, they view the 2x4 brick and the minifigure (especially the head) as representative "symbols" of the company. Hence, they want to get the logo onto minifig heads.
To that end, they recently re-evaluated the safety measure of the holes in the minifig head and determined that it was really unnecessary (I'm not sure of the details of why it was deemed unnecessary). Following this, they decided to redesign the head with the LEGO name on the element again, but had to have it recessed in the stud, since it wouldn't really make sense to put it elsewhere on the element.
DaveE
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0 • Like •I am reminded of another LEGO part that was remodeled not for safety reasons, but because it drove kids crazy in trying to remove them... those were the early tiles (1965-mid 1970s) where there was no lip (or indentation) at the base of the tile, and removing them from baseplates was hard enough for adults... let alone for children!
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