Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - March 2019

Another month has passed and so it’s time for a new round of highlights from “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for individual new LEGO® elements. Check it out:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

More on the 3x3 Technic beam

Yesterday Victor P discussed the new Magenta Connector Beam 1x3x3 that does not yet appear in any LEGO® sets. Today he reveals it also comes in Black, explores more of its potential and explains how he found it for sale on the LEGO website.

In part 1 we explored the geometry of the new Connector Beam 1x3x3 and the kind of applications it could have in Technic builds. Today we’re going to experiment a bit further and see what other builds are possible with a few of them in hand.  Since I work in construction, one of the first things I thought of doing was a I-beam:

Magenta 3x3 Technic beam discovered

Today we reveal a surprising discovery made by reader Victor P. who got in touch with us when he discovered a new LEGO® part for sale that isn't in any sets.

Buying spare LEGO® parts directly from The LEGO Group’s own service, Bricks & Pieces, seems to be growing in popularity in the AFOL community, perhaps evidenced by the message currently displayed on top of the Bricks & Pieces homepage: “Due to a large number of requests, LEGO Bricks & Pieces orders are taking longer than normal to be delivered”. (Could Jonas Kramm’s monthly parts highlight be responsible for this sudden surge in parts orders?)

I am myself ‘guilty’ of having placed an order on Bricks & Pieces in early March, and made a quite surprising discovery: a part which is not listed on BrickLink, nor on Brickset, and which doesn’t come in any set that I know of. A ghost part, I may say.

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - February 2019

You may recall Jonas Kramm has decided to curate monthly lists of cool parts available from “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for individual new LEGO® elements, to save you checking the price and availability of the wanted pieces one by one. He's so nice! Here is his February update.

After receiving great feedback on my January list I have now added the highlights of Bricks & Pieces in February. As always you can find it on:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

Brickset: A history of Technic pins

Occasionally we see an article about LEGO® parts that we love so much, we republish it here on New Elementary. (With permission, naturally!) Well our good friend Huw Millington of Brickset wrote this great rundown about the humble Technic pin and we definitely didn't want any of you to miss out.

I can't quite believe I'm writing an article on such a seemingly mundane subject as the history of Technic pins but, given the popularity of last week's article about one such pin, perhaps there'll be similar interest in this one too.

The first Technic sets launched in 1977 came with just one type of pin; however, the very first 'Technic' pin produced predated them by some 7 years, and it wasn't made from plastic...

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - January 2019

We love highlighting new elements here at New Elementary and one of our regular contributors, Jonas Kramm, has recently started doing a really useful thing for LEGO® fans that we wanted you to know about: curating lists of the best new and recoloured parts he finds on on Bricks & Pieces. We asked him to introduce it to you.

The LEGO Group’s own service “Bricks & Pieces” is one of the sources to get your hands on individual new LEGO elements. It’s very up to date, not limited in quantities and has reasonable prices. But the main hindrance is that checking the price and availability of the wanted pieces one by one takes forever.