12 May 2019

2018 Skærbæk Workshop: the pantograph shoe

Posted by Admin
Two or three times a year, New Elementary run building workshops at AFOL conventions. Attendees use new LEGO® parts with general brick stock to come up with quick, interesting ideas. We’ve fallen a little behind at presenting the results to you so it’s time to play catchup! Just wind your clocks back to last September at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in Denmark where 70 builders spent a good couple of hours exploring some elements released in summer 2018. Here are some of our favourite creations and interesting techniques they came up with.

3.2 Shaft Element, No. 1 (Element ID 6226706 | Design ID 37494) 

Called Hinge Train Pantograph Shoe on BrickLink, this is a relatively rare part as it only appears in two train sets and only in Black at the moment. You will find one in 60197 Passenger Train and two in 60198 Cargo Train. It's used as the pantograph to conduct electricity from overhead lines but we thought the plentiful 3.18mm connections and unusual angles would make it ideal for a parts festival.

Paul Lee "Micro post apocalyptic rover with steering and roll bars"


"Off road hot rod" (unknown builder)

Mark Young "Travel Mug"

Many builders were interested in the ability to make circles out of this element.



Ahhhhhh that's what makes it a travel mug!

Some builders went not only for circles but also domes...

Greg Horner "Salug Boobalishus"


Erik Kraan "Dome cage"


Emil Lide 



Alexander McCooke "Wiggly fence"

Simple but effective!

Izabell Kvant "Idea for a roof"

Also making use of the 1x3 inverted tile.

Sollan Fallman "Small chair"

Daniel Jarvis "Carriage"

The pantograph parts are really effective here at emulating an Asian style.


Come back tomorrow for more ideas with other seed parts from the workshop.


Skærbæk Fan Weekend occurs on the last weekend in September and the registration period for 2019 closes on 30th June. Any AFOL from anywhere in the world is welcome to attend – and believe me, hundreds and hundreds of them do! Read more about Skærbæk Fan Weekend

Our thanks goes to everyone who gave their time to help out at the event: Sven Franic, Jonas Kramm, Ed Diment, Kevin Gascoigne, Markus Rollbühler, Eduard Petrac and especially Andrew Tipping for the fantastic photography.

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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

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