Satya's blog - LEGO specialized parts

The LEGO Y-Wing, like many modern LEGO creations, contains a number of specialised pieces. This isn't so bad though, because many of them are blocks. The sensor (or whatever) domes on the front of the engine can't be helped, but it would have been nice if they were built out of regular bricks. Here are some of the special pieces that could have easily been regular pieces:

The triple-stud yellow piece: could have been a double-stud and a single-stud. The sloped bit in the middle: could have been two-stud sloped pieces, quantity 4, and two-stud bricks, quantity two. The rectangle in the background could have been built out of simple Technic pieces: 6-stud length, quantity 4. The holes are not critical. The two-stud plus-hole bit in the foreground; okay, I'll give them that. The assembly in the bottom right is built out of two of those. It holds the engine struts so it need to be non-rotating.

Of course I don't know what all these pieces are called. I'm sure LEGO or LUGNET have standard ways of describing pieces, but I don't know them. So I improvise.

Here's a picture of the Y-wing pieces in the box, loose, with some of the tiny bits ("greeblies"?) still in the bags. Follow that link, you know you want to.

Here are some tedious pictures of the engine pods.

In these pictures, we see how the engine sections are built up -- part of the legs of the Y. And we see some of those pesky pieces that shouldn't exist, like the extra-long top-slope pieces visile in the fourth picture. why aren't the bottom-slopes (see first picture) also in an extra-long version? And why are the rectangular Technic-like pieces as they are (third picture), they're not even visible at the end!

This Y-Wing model is built out of the following sections:

• Cockpit
• Body
• Wing struts
• Main engine sections
• Engine nozzles
• Engine front-end bits/sensor dome mounts
• Sensor domes
• Engine struts/steering vanes

On each side, the sensor dome is mounted on the front-end bit and the front-end bit is mounted on the main engine section. This is done using Technic pins. The engine struts, i.e. the open area at the back half of the Y, are mounted to the main engine with plus-section axles. The engine nozzles are mounted inside the struts, on the back of the main engine body.

The tops of the main body, the engines, and the wing struts are decorated with greeblies to provide detail.