Random part of the day: Flat Tile 6X6
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random part is 6881, 'Flat Tile 6X6', which is a System part, category Plates, Special.
Our members collectively own a total of 1,503 of them. If you'd like to buy some you should find them for sale at BrickLink.
42 likes
16 comments on this article
Love these. They fill a six by six space perfectly.
This is the version with no bottom tubes underneath. It was only ever used in set 8214. The more common part is 10202 which has bottom tubes and has been used in 83 different sets in 9 colours. Very useful indeed.
@HOBBES: I was wondering what the difference was. Wonder why they did that.
I’d much rather have a Gloss Tile 6x6.
@TheOtherMike:
When plastic cools, if sections of it are too much thicker than the rest, it cools unevenly. Since most materials (water being the sole exception I know of) shrink when they turn solid, this uneven cooling in turn results in dimpling. Two noticeable examples that come to mind are the original short-barrel semi-auto pistol from the 2006-2008 Batman theme, and the original ray-gun from the CMF S1 Spaceman. Both got minor redesigns that included reducing thickness in key spots to alleviate dimpling. The updated pistol has a barrel that’s longer than it is wide, and the updated ray-gun has one large cavity behind each side stud rather than two with a horizontal divider.
How this relates to the 6x6 tile is that as a large tile cools, the pattern of tubes on the bottom will read through the top surface as faint recessed circles caused by this dimpling process. Eliminating the tubes altogether was probably done in the hopes it would leave a nice smooth surface. The lack of clutch that almost certainly resulted (as well as the need to have a full 6x6 ring of studs to lock it in place) was probably seen as an unwanted trade off, so the tubes got put back where they belong. The flat texture may also be intended to help conceal the dimpling, but the trade off is that it looks like a clone brand part when used with glossy LEGO tiles, plates, and bricks. The result of this was bad enough that they made a running change to 76139 to replace a lone copy of this part used for the roof of the car with three 2x6 tiles when they debuted later that same year.
Great for making oceans in flat earth MOCs.
@MeisterDad said:
"Great for making oceans in flat earth MOCs."
That's it. That is it. I see these comments all the time and they are simply infuriating. All our years of science and technology and yet here we are. Appalling. And now we're bringing Lego into this? Shameful. Utterly shameful.
I, for one, will choose to use my assortment of 6881, 'Flat Tile 6X6's for the real, the only, the vastly superior Earth model: Velociraptor Earth.
The future is now.
@GBP_Chris said:
" @MeisterDad said:
"Great for making oceans in flat earth MOCs."
That's it. That is it. I see these comments all the time and they are simply infuriating. All our years of science and technology and yet here we are. Appalling. And now we're bringing Lego into this? Shameful. Utterly shameful.
I, for one, will choose to use my assortment of 6881, 'Flat Tile 6X6's for the real, the only, the vastly superior Earth model: Velociraptor Earth.
The future is now."
I had to search this to see if there was such a thing. I found it. On this model, there are places that do not get much sun (that said, the model was not showing the axis of rotation - so hard to tell)
The Flat Earth society has many members around the globe.... XD
This is a very useful part. I tried to get it in light bluish grey to use for sidewalks on road baseplates (I think it was Alex Nunes who came up with the idea). Unfortunately they only came in a small amount of sets and Lego stopped making them for some reason.
@PurpleDave Thanks for explaining this. Very interesting! I have the original Lego City Bank Transfer set where the armoured car used this piece for the roof. It was always coming off which was really annoying.
i cannot be certain, but i think the active ingredient in this part rots your mind.
@HOBBES said:
" @GBP_Chris said:
" @MeisterDad said:
"Great for making oceans in flat earth MOCs."
That's it. That is it. I see these comments all the time and they are simply infuriating. All our years of science and technology and yet here we are. Appalling. And now we're bringing Lego into this? Shameful. Utterly shameful.
I, for one, will choose to use my assortment of 6881, 'Flat Tile 6X6's for the real, the only, the vastly superior Earth model: Velociraptor Earth.
The future is now."
I had to search this to see if there was such a thing. I found it. On this model, there are places that do not get much sun (that said, the model was not showing the axis of rotation - so hard to tell)"
See, it's the perfect theory to explain Ohio.
@Brickchap:
My LUG uses the final system of roadplates, which are 6-stud medians, but with 7-stud sidewalks. A row of 1x plates is laid down along the edge of the baseplate, with larger plates extending one stud over the road. Gaps are _usually_ left over the storm drains painted on the road surface. Long 1x tiles form the curb along the road, and the rest is filled in with 2x2 tiles, which are much easier to swap out for parts with studs that provide attachment points for streetlights, traffic lights, tree planters, and minifigs.
@HOBBES said:
"This is the version with no bottom tubes underneath. It was only ever used in set 8214. The more common part is 10202 which has bottom tubes and has been used in 83 different sets in 9 colours. Very useful indeed."
Are you sure about that? Bricklink lists the tubeless version as being used in 22 sets, though a few of them appear to have had production runs with both versions. 10226 for example.
@BrickChap
Part 10202 in light blueish gray: Lego makes them alright: 60321, 10299, 76209, 75313, 10284, 71374, 10272, 60282, 75252 plus dozens of other sets. They are just not available on pick a brick (even on the 'improved' version).
I need 16 of these to make properly tilled 48x48 landing pad for my 10497. A mjolnir would do the trick but this is quite expensive for (16 times) CAD$0.67 part.
EDIT: I just checked pick-a-brick. It is available! yay!
Interestingly this is actually a Scala Part...
@peterlmorris said:
"Love these. They fill a six by six space perfectly. "
Don't like these. They fill a seven by seven space poorly.
;-)
@domboy:
So what happens is that modern LEGO set inventories get updated to the latest version of any set they’ve produced, and any previous iterations are deleted. If a part used in a set is replaced with an updated design, it can result in some set inventories being adjusted to reflect the new design. RPOTD used to state when the part was introduced and an example set that used it, but we were constantly pointing out older sets that used a previous variant, sometimes with no idea how the part had been changed that required a new design ID.
Meanwhile, Bricklink records any variant set inventory you submit. Some sets have nearly a dozen alternate inventories because one or more parts were updated, or the set design itself underwent some tweaks to address a flaw. Brickset shows the latest official set inventory because they’re allowed to scrape that data from the LEGO servers, but the result is that a lot of data has been lost with no way to edit the inaccuracies. Bricklink tries to show every possible version, but manual input means some errors don’t get noticed for years. Rebrickable supposedly data scrapes like Brickset, but allows manual adjustments like Bricklink. The problem there is that I haven’t found any personally compelling reason to use the site, so I only seem to end up using their inventories when I get redirected there by Brickset.