7 ms·

Lego to release a 9,090-piece scale model of the Titanic

40 points by hackertux 5y ago

jeffthechimp 5y ago
But Legos float
- gerdesj 5y ago
  Pretty sure they don't if you expel all trapped air. Its this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren... which has a density > 1 x 10^3 kg/m^3 ie 1 g per cc. Water is slightly less than 1. Lego sinks.
  - gweinberg 5y ago
    Bet they float in salt water.
    - gerdesj 5y ago
      I don't bath in salt water so never tested that. According to WP: "The density of surface seawater ranges from about 1020 to 1029 kg/m3" According to WP: ABS is 1.060–1.080 g/cm3 Lego sinks in seawater. If you saturate a beaker of water with salt then lets go here for some results because I can't be arsed to go back to school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_water Roughly 1.193 g/cm3 which is more dense than ABS so Lego will float in salt (NaCl) saturated water.
  - wrfitch 5y ago
    https://youtu.be/3FxfXVuHRjM https://youtu.be/3FxfXVuHRjM Lego does indeed sink
- egypturnash 5y ago
  They make boat sets with little weighted keel pieces that will give them enough weight to sit nicely in the water; this might have some form of ballast inside it somewhere...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
srvmshr 5y ago
This could be somewhat unpopular as an opinion, but Titanic's sinking has been romanticized greatly, fueled partly by a slew of Hollywood movies. There were several great ships marking their firsts - Titanic was just one of them of its time. If we delve into 20th century maritime history, passenger accounts & disaster records of ships such as SS Lusitania or MV Wilhelm Gustloff were far more shocking to read, as compared to RMS Titanic.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  No disrespect intended, but I really enjoyed reading this in Comic Book Guy's voice.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  I'm 50 and hence rather older than several films on the subject. Titanic has always been held up as the ship wreck within my lifetime for several reasons. I think the key one is the notion that she was considered unsinkable and yet sank on her maiden voyage. In Belfast, where she was built, they like to say she was fine when she left there. Schadenfreude. When she left Soton for NY, there was a long, slow burning fire in one of her coal bunkers. Apparently this was fairly common in steam ships. This ship was absolutely massive for the time and let's face it a set of steam engines/turbines of that size, powered by coal are essentially explosions waiting to happen in many places. That's basically how they work too. Then you stick it on an extremely unforgiving ocean and plough a track over several 1000 miles at a pretty high speed. Add crew and passengers and a huge number of distractions and other operational things like plumbing and you have a recipe for disaster simmering away. How the crew avoided going mad on these monstrous Heath Robinson (Rube Goldberg for the left pond) contraptions is absolutely beyond me. I'm not too surprised that she hit an iceberg if the boss decided to head into an ice field, just to shave a few hours on the crossing time. This is a vessel that steers like an iceberg and is basically staffed by crew who are already half maddened by the complexity of stopping her from exploding or worrying about the pre dinner champagne being too warm. She also had a few other firsts and I think that she sent the first SOS over wireless, all this stuff adds to the story. Add in a few conspiracies (was she really the Olympic - that's a no for me) and that is really why she gets top billing. The films are a result not a cause.
genocidicbunny 5y ago
It's curious how in the last decade the upper price of a lego set has grown so much. Lego finally realized that there's an untapped adult market for lego sets. It's been fun to see that transition (despite the effect it's had on my wallet.)
- marcodave 5y ago
  LEGO's always been expensive, in the late 80's early 90's as well, go ask my parents :D
  - genocidicbunny 5y ago
    Lego's never had $500+ sets until fairly recently.
    - crtasm 5y ago
      There was one in 2007: https://brickset.com/sets/10179-1/Ultimate-Collector-s-Millennium-Falcon https://brickset.com/sets/10179-1/Ultimate-Collector-s-Mille...
      - genocidicbunny 5y ago
        The UCS series has consistently been expensive, but they were usually really expensive compared to the majority of sets available from LEGO. The vast majority of sets released in 2007 were much smaller and cheaper. Whereas now there are multiple $500+ sets on sale concurrently, multiple sets that have multi-thousand-piece part counts. It's undeniable that in the last 10 years LEGO has significantly leaned into serving the adult market.

40 points by hackertux 5y ago

jeffthechimp 5y ago

But Legos float

gerdesj 5y ago
Pretty sure they don't if you expel all trapped air. Its this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styrene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren... which has a density > 1 x 10^3 kg/m^3 ie 1 g per cc. Water is slightly less than 1. Lego sinks.
- gweinberg 5y ago
  Bet they float in salt water.
  - gerdesj 5y ago
    I don't bath in salt water so never tested that. According to WP: "The density of surface seawater ranges from about 1020 to 1029 kg/m3" According to WP: ABS is 1.060–1.080 g/cm3 Lego sinks in seawater. If you saturate a beaker of water with salt then lets go here for some results because I can't be arsed to go back to school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_water Roughly 1.193 g/cm3 which is more dense than ABS so Lego will float in salt (NaCl) saturated water.
- wrfitch 5y ago
  https://youtu.be/3FxfXVuHRjM https://youtu.be/3FxfXVuHRjM Lego does indeed sink
egypturnash 5y ago
They make boat sets with little weighted keel pieces that will give them enough weight to sit nicely in the water; this might have some form of ballast inside it somewhere...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

srvmshr 5y ago

This could be somewhat unpopular as an opinion, but Titanic's sinking has been romanticized greatly, fueled partly by a slew of Hollywood movies. There were several great ships marking their firsts - Titanic was just one of them of its time. If we delve into 20th century maritime history, passenger accounts & disaster records of ships such as SS Lusitania or MV Wilhelm Gustloff were far more shocking to read, as compared to RMS Titanic.

CharlesW 5y ago
No disrespect intended, but I really enjoyed reading this in Comic Book Guy's voice.
gerdesj 5y ago
I'm 50 and hence rather older than several films on the subject. Titanic has always been held up as the ship wreck within my lifetime for several reasons. I think the key one is the notion that she was considered unsinkable and yet sank on her maiden voyage. In Belfast, where she was built, they like to say she was fine when she left there. Schadenfreude. When she left Soton for NY, there was a long, slow burning fire in one of her coal bunkers. Apparently this was fairly common in steam ships. This ship was absolutely massive for the time and let's face it a set of steam engines/turbines of that size, powered by coal are essentially explosions waiting to happen in many places. That's basically how they work too. Then you stick it on an extremely unforgiving ocean and plough a track over several 1000 miles at a pretty high speed. Add crew and passengers and a huge number of distractions and other operational things like plumbing and you have a recipe for disaster simmering away. How the crew avoided going mad on these monstrous Heath Robinson (Rube Goldberg for the left pond) contraptions is absolutely beyond me. I'm not too surprised that she hit an iceberg if the boss decided to head into an ice field, just to shave a few hours on the crossing time. This is a vessel that steers like an iceberg and is basically staffed by crew who are already half maddened by the complexity of stopping her from exploding or worrying about the pre dinner champagne being too warm. She also had a few other firsts and I think that she sent the first SOS over wireless, all this stuff adds to the story. Add in a few conspiracies (was she really the Olympic - that's a no for me) and that is really why she gets top billing. The films are a result not a cause.

genocidicbunny 5y ago

It's curious how in the last decade the upper price of a lego set has grown so much. Lego finally realized that there's an untapped adult market for lego sets. It's been fun to see that transition (despite the effect it's had on my wallet.)

marcodave 5y ago
LEGO's always been expensive, in the late 80's early 90's as well, go ask my parents :D
- genocidicbunny 5y ago
  Lego's never had $500+ sets until fairly recently.
  - crtasm 5y ago
    There was one in 2007: https://brickset.com/sets/10179-1/Ultimate-Collector-s-Millennium-Falcon https://brickset.com/sets/10179-1/Ultimate-Collector-s-Mille...
    - genocidicbunny 5y ago
      The UCS series has consistently been expensive, but they were usually really expensive compared to the majority of sets available from LEGO. The vast majority of sets released in 2007 were much smaller and cheaper. Whereas now there are multiple $500+ sets on sale concurrently, multiple sets that have multi-thousand-piece part counts. It's undeniable that in the last 10 years LEGO has significantly leaned into serving the adult market.